Tea with the Muse

Listen, I’m issuing a warning.

Be careful if you choose to come near my orbit.

The gravitational pull of my nature

may cause you to do unreasonable things.

Give birth to books.

Say yes to your sacred work in the world.

Leave damaging relationships.

Choose heart over money.

Manifest a life in alignment with who you already are.

Not who you’re becoming later when you improve,

but who you are underneath all of it.

I am a force of nature

activating others who are ready

for the pattern interrupt of a lifetime,

but be careful.

That centripetal force is a real pull

toward the center of what matters.

There’s a cost when we say yes.

But I know as well as you do

that there’s an even greater cost

when we keep saying no

to what we really want.

So Dear Ones, I want to talk about inner kryptonite. When your superpower is connected to your weak spot, we’re going to touch on unreasonable love. We’re going to touch on calling down the lightning. And there’s an invitation to join me for Stardust Lineage Legend or for a year-long mastermind for women ready to make powerhouse choices unlike anything I’ve ever offered before with my dear friend Amy Ahlers. But first, let’s explore the glowing green stone.

Have you ever noticed that your superpower may also be the underbelly of your biggest challenge? I have. Today, it’s all coming through to me.

Do you remember how wonderful it was to watch that first Superman movie? We saw someone take on supernatural powers we wish we had, like flying and saving the world. And then we felt that collective sigh as we watched him become absolutely powerless in the presence of kryptonite.

Kryptonite, that glowing green mineral made of fragments from Superman’s destroyed home planet, Krypton. I can’t help but notice that it comes from the place he’s from, from the destroyed place of home. And that destroyed place of home drains strength and leaves him powerless.

It didn’t begin in the comics. It started on the radio in 1943. And it’s curious because there’s a much-loved story that kryptonite was invented so the actor who voiced Superman on the radio, Bud Collyer, could take time off. A weakness invented so a hero could rest. That is very apropos.

The image of kryptonite stuck with us. It’s used in business and in relationships. And we may not always know what our superpowers are, but a lot of us know what our kryptonite is.

This theme of the weakness of the hero goes back into the Greeks too. Remember when Achilles was a baby and his mother, Thetis, the sea goddess, dipped him in the River Styx to make him invulnerable? She held him by one heel. So, maybe most of us have a weak heel. Maybe most of us who carry a superpower also carry our version of kryptonite. I know, I certainly do.

And I believe there is power in knowing what yours is and then letting it shed light on the gifts that you’re carrying. That’s what we do in Intentional Creativity. We create experiences to show you your power. And then we invite you to see your kryptonite and make it a part of your personal legend.

If your kryptonite makes you powerless and your superpower makes you powerful, and the two are not tracking each other like two sides of a coin, then you’re subject to sudden weakness, to blaming others, to being surprised and dysregulated.

And maybe, unlike Superman’s, your kryptonite isn’t some kind of enemy at all. Perhaps it is inner kryptonite. And isn’t it curious to think that it comes from a home planet on some level? We think often about our weakness coming from outside, but it comes from inside: our story, our trauma, our tendencies, our quirks. And sometimes, like Superman’s stone, it is made from the pieces of where you came from.

Hmm, me being a force of nature? You bet. I don’t think anyone who knows me would deny that I am a force of nature. When a vision becomes clear, I have enormous, sometimes to me and others seemingly supernatural, capacity to bring it into form. Sometimes the things I’ve been able to create amaze even me, and those around me comment on what happens when you get into Shiloh Sophia’s orbit.

I’ve created gorgeous things. I’m a big dreamer, and some of my dreams are so big they scare me. You know what I mean? What makes me a force of nature is my greatest gift. My superpower is unreasonable love. And yes, it’s my downfall, my green stone, my kryptonite.

So, one of the biggest obstacles I see for people making things happen in their life is bringing ideas into form. We are certainly not lacking ideas. We are not lacking content. We’re lacking the ability to bring it into form. This is most people’s kryptonite that I work with as private clients or students. How to make the vision real. That’s my superpower.

And for those new to the language of brainwaves, beta is our normal awake, alert state. And theta is linked with deep relaxation and meditation and mental imagery. And it’s where we go in Intentional Creativity. So when we’re out in the theta brainwave, we get ideas and we bring them back into the beta. I mostly design and live in a state of theta and only visit beta when I have to make something happen. But my beta is super powerful because my theta is super grounded.

So here’s what happens in my orbit. What I realized today is that being a force of nature is my gift and a challenge for me and anyone I’m working with. My partners, my private clients, the students in my courses, the women in my year-long classes, and especially in my class called Legend. And of course, the experience that’s coming up for women called Powerhouse.

People who work with me know what happens in my orbit. We make miracles come to life that were not visible before. Someone who’s never painted paints a painting that reveals who they actually are, and there’s no going back. People in my orbit make books for their grandchildren when they’d never planned on making a book. They bring forth a curriculum, the dream course that catalyzes all their teachings. They create a gallery show and have a one-woman show. The list goes on and on. Some people make their own mystery schools. And one of my favorites, people learn to create income for themselves after years of being in corporate.

So if you tell me your dream, I’ll work with you to get there. I’ll be the midwife while you birth it into form, but you better be ready, because I’m a fierce stand for your visions. I have incredible power to make things happen and to support others in making it happen. And it’s fueled by my superpower of unreasonable love.

And there are impacts. I overwhelm people, and I overwhelm people with showing them how to make a vision come into form. Hundreds of steps that I’ve outlined and documented. Sometimes people work with me for a while and they get resentful of how fast I’m moving and all that it requires. Sometimes there’s a rebellious teenager moment where they want to break away from me and everything that I’ve given them and act like I never existed at all, which is challenging for those who work with me, because their house is covered in paintings.

Crucible

Sometimes my continual encouragement and call to action might even be annoying. Sometimes they realize they don’t want the dream they thought they wanted because they didn’t know what it would take. I get it. It’s a lot of friggin’ steps. It really is.

For me, this sacred currency, this life force that flows through me, activates the life force of others. I recently wrote about discovering what my purpose is this lifetime, and it’s to generate life force and show other people how to do it. And it does often feel supernatural, because it is the elements, earth, air, fire, water, crystal, sun, moon, and stardust bones, being activated. It’s not my power alone. Like a healer who knows that the energy of the universe is coming through them, I am a guide who allows the energy of the universe to flow through me on behalf of my work and the sacred work of others.

After doing a course with me or working with me privately, people often need a time of recovery. Sometimes i…

Hop on into my NeoShamanic Painting class NOW right here for 7 weeks starting today!

Why I get afraid deep in my stardust bones when I’m about to teach intentional creativity to new people…is because after over 33 years, I stand in absolute astonishing awe at what painting makes available. Having nothing to do with talent. Nothing to do with knowing what you’re going to create.

Nothing to do with any version of anything we’ve ever known before because painting in this way is like riding the edge of the unknown while you still Get to stay securely fastened into the seat at the mothership. Because I’ve guided thousands and thousands of people through these processes. But it always humbles me in awe.

I believe Creator gave all beings access to intentional creativity. And it is my good fortune this lifetime to have said yes when asked. I was given this sacred assignment to bring the transmission of intentional creativity through the Stardust lineage where teachings have been passed from hand to hand and heart to heart since the early thirties.

I said yes under one condition. That Creator would make it very, very clear what my next step was. I ask that it be so clear that it be put right in front of me on my path and that if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t act. I have stayed true to my vision and so has Creator. I understand myself.

As a collaborator with creator and creation and painting image and story, language, symbol, codex and code is the activation of the creator energy within me, my shared responsibility to serve in this great turning. I just said, To a group of women who have been here for five days, if anybody knew what this work actually does,

they would run to this door because once you get started, you can’t stop because it’s so sacred and so wild and so infinitely illuminating that it knocks your cowgirl boots off every time. But today, In less than an hour, I will be sharing neo-shamanic painting with a new audience through the Shift Network.

I am rightly terrified, but it’s not terrified that something bad will happen. It’s because there’s so much power in creating in this way. And honestly, here’s a not-so-secret secret. If I knew how to paint well or follow instructions or a new perspective or lights and darks and shadows, if I knew how to do anything realistic whatsoever,

we would never have gone this route. It’s because I don’t know. It’s because all these years later and hundreds of thousands of dollars of painting sales later, I still can’t control what I make. I can’t bring what’s in my mind as a vision to the canvas. I can only bring how it feels.

And however that is, blesses me and I hope it blesses you.

Shiloh Sophia

Unedited transcript

Making a Case for the Muse

Well, it’s a silly thing to have to explain,

making a case for the Muse,

because anybody who’s

navigating an insurance claim

for a fallen tree or received a speeding ticket

because the Rolling Stones came on

and you just couldn’t help but dance

and you pressed so hard on the pedal.

I just can’t get no, no, no, no... satisfaction.

I mean anyone who forgot to renew

their driver’s license and got turned

away at the airport

understands the need for amusement!

Come on, just look at the text thread.

You are perusing through right now.

Almost every other text is

asking you for something.

How about the people

who got a hold of your phone number

and won’t stop inviting you to apply

for that job or apply for a loan

that you already qualified for or better yet

tell you that your mother lost her phone

and she’s trying to reach you.

And she died three years ago. Rest her soul.

Can you see how much the muse is needed?

Can you see?

If we don’t start laughing more...and soon

This whole thing

will try to convince us

that this is reality. Imagine that!

And still you wonder, what if it is Mother,

reaching from the other side?

You light a candle for her just in case

There is definitely a need for the Muse

when suddenly you have more

doctor’s appointments than

long lunch dates with girlfriends

who call you darlink’ and batt

their eyelashes at you, like Marlena Dietrich.

It’s just rough these days.

When you finally got

into a routine of happy hour and

found a beverage that tastes just right

and makes you chill out immediately

and then your doctor tells you

it’s going to turn to sugar

and you just can’t have sugar anymore.

WTF is going on here, people!

And then there’s all the paperwork

and the whispers of divorce

and diagnosis all around you

and the password hell? Don’t get me started.

Right now, there’s more than one friend

who’s having delusions

and the dementia articles

won’t stop showing themselves.

You can’t help but click

on that one tip that will keep you

from forgetting your dog’s name.

Do I need to convince you

there’s a need for the Muse,

for goodness sakes?

How about this? The reality that

a woman can grow a mustache in her 50s?

Uh huh. Overnight!

And suddenly

there’s more hair

on your inner thighs. Ew.

And you’re just so grateful

if you happen to have a lover

who appreciates you getting

more furry because

there’s more fur coming, you know?

The hair in your eyebrows

migrated to your chin, and

that is just no good!

Then there’s that innocuous mole

that you like to call a beauty mark

that has one black hair and

one white hair growing out of it and

they seem to appear overnight and

you don’t have white hair or black hair.

I mean, what the actual flying F!

If you keep them there for amusement,

they will eventually curl at your chin!

Sometimes I wish

I could talk to God and

ask Them about certain things.

Do you have a list like this?

God, do you have a moment? Please.

Couldn’t you have made it so that

we don’t have violence built into us

as a possibility and we could

still have free will?

Couldn’t you have made

the instructions for healing

a wound a little more

readable?

Why would you allow

bizarre things like

extractive capitalism to even

enter our minds?

I mean, the list goes on and on, y’all.

What’s on your list?

Yet more than a list of complaints,

I have a list of

gratitudes that runs all day long.

Dozens upon dozens of anemonies

in my garden, soft magenta, yellow centers.

The regal Valley Oak and the

large Band-Tailed pigeons from California,

and that the sun is shining

through my window, even though

one of the trees had to be taken down,

the neighbor asked me, and I did,

and it’s sad, but now I can see

the mountain and the sun.

The gift that when my heart is hurting,

my kitty will come and sit

right on top of my heart

and purr without being petted.

It’s far longer, the list of gratitudes

than the list of complaints.

There’s definitely a need for the Muse

because amusement is medicine

that everybody needs. The muse always

prefers leopard over beige.

She definitely has a preference for

rhinestones over buttons.

She really likes

fried chicken and mashed potatoes

instead of broccoli and fish without butter.

The Muse cannot conceive of a world

that does not have butter,

I mean, can you?

Or chocolate? That’s a whole food group

for the Muse, y’all.

But here’s the thing.

If you invite the muse in,

she can be extremely disruptive

to whatever invented balance you pretend

you’ve created in your household.

She wants to disrupt your life. She used some giant golden scissors to

cut you out of your box, the one you made!

And you’re standing there questioning

if you should step out or not because you

don’t know what you’re going to find out there

and you’re not sure you can make it back

from wherever you end up

by Monday morning at 9 o’clock.

Sometimes you just don’t care and

you walk out of that box anyway,

and you find the blue sky, you always knew

was right there.

Do you think about quitting

your job 10 times a day?

I mean, just admit it. I do.

I may not be employable, however.

Do you wonder why

that person you love so much

has a sticker on their bumper for the

opposite side of the party you decided

is the most right choice?

When you see someone smiling

in the grocery store for no apparent reason,

while they’re gazing at the crackers,

gluten-free or wheat?

Why don’t you just walk up to them and ask

them their secret

and tell them how glad you are

to see them?

What have you got to lose anyway?

Nuthin’ Make their day. What if each day you could

just smile as often as you think about it,

just break into a full scale, non-beautiful,

unapologetic, toothy grin.

That’s just one of the ways

to let the Muse in.

I’ve got lots of other tips and tricks,

for the seduction of the Muse

when you’ve been having a dry spell.

Lubrication definitely helps to get things going.

And let me tell you, you better get things going.

Don’t wait too long and let your body

go to sleep on you!

If you invite the Muse to come into your life,

she’s going to request more action

between the sheets

if you know what I mean.

Whether you are having

a lover now or not,

she still has demands for

getting the juices flowing.

Just for today.

I know exactly how

I will court my muse.

It helps to start

with the leopard underwear

and the push-up bra

and the rose oil on my nipples,

the sparkling lip gloss that

makes huge lip prints on my pink cup

in the pink cowgirl boots that stomp

with abandon, all that helps out!

Your Muse has a different kink than mine,

of course, what is it then,

that your Muse requests of you?

There is definitely a case for the Muse,

because the news is just bringing us

to one dumpster fire after another,

and I’m not saying we don’t have to

keep taking out the trash.

I’m saying we need

to adjust our schedule and our priorities

to create spaciousness

so the Muse can take up residence

in this house you call “my life”.

Give her chocolate and striped it socks,

red ones, and purple butterfly barrettes

and play her songs by the purple man, Prince.

Make her a cup of tea for you and me,

and let’s hang out in the imaginal land

where everybody’s already free.

And of course,

there are flying unicorns and fairy cake.

I’m headed to the giant canvas now,

where a circle of women is gathering

in colorful clothing, the Council.

They arrive with baskets and crock pots

full of the yummiest food to Stardust Ranch.

I made my famous lentil soup and hummus

from dried chickpeas in preparation for the party!

And the Phoenix woman, yeah,

the one who rose again

is appearing on my canvas.

She has lots to say to me

and the Muse is the gateway

for hearing her voice,

and I am listening.

The truth is, today I’m walking with a limp.

Like Jacob, I’ve been wrestling with an angel,

and I won’t let go until the angel blesses me.

But in the meantime, I’m walking softly and

carrying a big lipstick and a walking stick.

Honey, I just know deep down

in my stardust bones,

that we all need to invite the Muse to tea

and offer her a giant paintbrush.

I just know these things.

Like Dolly Parton says:

Decide who you’re going to be

and do it on purpose.”Join me on October 3

Ancestor Ceremony - 24X48 if you are interested, it is available at 40% off. Please let me know!

All upcoming events including in person circles, and free classes and book launches are available at www.musea.org Join us for the Elements of Grace book launch - with Bethany Zare - I illustrated the cover and the inside art.

No Time to Turn Back

This is no time to give up on what matters to you. This is not a time to surrender into despair. The signs of the times are not a sign to stop. We are weary and it is good and normal to admit it. These times are also not a sign to use all of your energy in fight mode.

We need to reserve our strength. To choose ever so wisely how we will steward our life force and where we will put our resources and how we can live our lives not in constant reaction. The power over structures and constructs want us to be caught up in their power struggles. Women’s voices shouting into their deafening silences.

We are rightfully dismayed and disgusted but we will not be stopped for our sacred work.What you love and care for and desire can still be at the center of all of your choices. Each day we choose again and again to serve the highest good while not exhausting ourselves. We can choose to find the beauty everywhere while not turning from the suffering.

We can cultivate the depth of community that we long for and not wait for someone else to do it. You do it and I do it and we do it. Call the circles or come to those of us who are calling them ourselves. These are hard times indeed. Our grandmothers warned of them.My grandmother called this “the end times”. These are times where goodness is alive because we are co-creating it. Move forward according to the power you have in your heart and body. Each day, whatever it is, is enough. Trust that power in connection with the sacred and the natural world.

Choosing always what is right and good for you before any other choices. Many of us, oh so many, are here beside you. Sound women with sound voices and sound medicine are gathering now. On the mountaintops, in the forests, in the valleys. We are always gathering. We’re gathering each other. Now.

BE HER NOW

The sun is setting over the soft magenta anemones

with golden centers where the bees drink.

And I can’t stop wondering

about where all of this began,

this narrative to be more,

do more,

become more,

achieve more,

more,

more than you are.

More.

More than you need to be.

More.

By someone else’s standards.

More.

To the degree that you lose

whoever you already were.

For a time, of course —

whoever you already were can never be lost,

because that’s all within you anyway.

But the narrative of strive and drive

and carry the burdens of the ancestors’ crimes

is too much to ask.

The band-tailed pigeons are fluttering in the valley oak,

both of them on the watch list right here.

I listen to the sound of their wings.

And when the ravens come and the squirrels run,

how they all communicate together.

I can’t help but wonder

where that whole narrative started.

Whose grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmother

first had to step out of the matriarchal framework

into the dominant framework in order to survive,

and how this errant thought

that there was something better over there to become.

Something better over there to have.

Something better than what she had.

Something better to achieve,

to receive,

to compete for.

To even ask for,

but worst of all,

to want for.

To want for something other than what there is

in one’s own self and life and being.

Something better

stirring us to look outside of ourselves.

And I just can’t help but wonder

about those moments in each of our lineages

when we are striving towards something better,

which really makes whatever we have seem somehow less,

and us seem somehow less as a result of it.

The hummingbird is pausing at the rose,

red-trimmed white petals blooming

beside the golden sun-kissed tomatoes

and the mint,

the basil.

Everything wants to be enjoyed.

It doesn’t want to be compared.

It wants to be appreciated for what it is.

The tomato and the rose and the mint

do not have a story of needing more

or being better.

They become the fullest versions of themselves

in this sun,

in this full moon energy.

And I’ve been writing for days,

decades,

to articulate the unarticulatable.

To share that which I cannot find the words to share.

There’s a sacred urgency

humming in my stardust bones.

And it’s about this:

how everything we really need is already here and innate.

It’s with us.

We don’t have to earn it.

We don’t need more.

It doesn’t need to be better.

But the riddle is

that isn’t how we experience it,

and it’s not what we’ve been taught,

and it’s not how it feels

in the daily struggles of our lives.

And yet there’s this sacred unhooking that happens

when we realize,

or just to come from,

for a cycle

or an afternoon

or an hour

or the length of a poem walking through your heart,

that everything that is needed is innate.

That there’s no place else to get to,

nothing more to add,

and nothing better to become.

And that doesn’t mean we don’t wish

for a small patch of grass

to lay on our back and look at the moon.

That doesn’t mean we don’t wish

for sturdy, solid boots

that will last for more than one wet winter.

That doesn’t mean we don’t wish

for everything to be organic and sustainable,

and the salmon to not be farmed,

and the strawberries to not be GMO’d.

We do wish for these things,

but it’s how we internalize them,

how we make it mean somehow

that we’re something less.

Everything I’ve been moving toward

is toward this idea

of revealing ourselves to ourselves

as the ultimate act of sacred sovereignty:

to not need more,

not be better,

not need to be seen and acknowledged.

Not need to have a title or a designation

or an affirmation by others,

but to simply acknowledge

the innate majesty of who we are.

And the journey, really,

of recovery,

of making new promises to ourselves.

Not promises about more and better,

but promises about being.

Not promises about needing to belong somewhere else.

Not promises about needing to heal some ancient wound

that happened before we were ever born

that we’re trying to heal this lifetime.

And not just to simply be here now either.

More like

be her now.

Like even for a couple of seconds.

Right now.

Right now.

As the butterfly bush dies

with the purple rain-colored flowers,

beckons for a kiss from the passing flutterby,

just looking for that connection

through the sun and the air.

A place to be met within one’s self.

A space and a place

where identity just rests in itself

through this expression of soul

that has always been here.

That is so easily forgotten,

not because we forget,

but because it is hidden from us.

Some gorgeous way to access the truest voice

which is held within us

and set it free from the constraints of silence.

Some way to curate this gorgeous consciousness that we are

so we can design our own minds

and liberate that self-expression

which is begging for form,

for matter,

for energy equals matter at the speed of light

to become matter at the speed of light.

Plus love.

Approximately equals the stardust bones that you already are

in this cooling sack of stars.

Where you can source your own presence enough

to embody your sensuality with more pleasure

than you could ever have imagined belong to you.

To manifest the prosperity

which is in alignment with the generosity of all of creation.

Because everything we need has been provided,

and it’s so hard to remember that

when scarcity is enforced.

When the morning light came on the pink lady apples

and there were enough apples to eat throughout the day.

What generosity,

what generosity.

Prosperity manifested,

to see it as such

and love it,

to be in love with the apple.

To be so in love with the apple

that you could spend an afternoon

or an hour

or five minutes

catalyzing your calling,

not to have or be more or better than,

but because it’s just innate and natural for you

to want to create beauty.

Not to save the world,

but just to create beauty

because your hands want to,

because your heart sees some potential.

Not to rescue,

but just because it’s f***ing beautiful to make beauty.

And it’s enough.

And you are enough,

and you know this.

You know this deep down in your cells.

That you are a sovereign initiate

of this cosmic unfolding.

That you, like me,

are part of an ancient futuristic Stardust Lineage.

That we don’t need to do anything to become it.

We just say yes to it.

And then the practice is the lifestyle.

A lifestyle of pleasure and beauty and self-expression

with intention

of continually arriving in the now.

Be her now.

No permission,

no apology,

no need to become.

Just being for the sake of being

is the beauty unfolding right now,

as this poem runs through my body

like a wild horse

looking for a view of the harvest moon.

Shiloh Sophia

Good morning everyone! I dreamed all night about the ranch. Here are my rambling thoughts about what Rose and an invitation for you to relate to where you live in a new way! Have a beautiful day!

Good morning! In today’s episode, I’m inviting you to design a point for yourself. To fall in love with the tedium. And to do five things today with With Me. Tune in to find out.

How is your relationship with pain dominating your life?

Do you create the space for pleasure?

Today's podcast recorded from the convertible today on the way to the "spa" aka gym is a dare to do this practice three times today. The Muse is asking - will you listen?

A poem about stepping outside of our comfort zones... and meeting the old woman of the forest.