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introversion personality and story

Quiet in my life – how learning the value of quiet made all the difference

September 25, 2018

quiet in my life

As part of the #quietwriting hashtag and Instagram Challenge, we shift now to looking at the value of quiet in my life and yours.

Use the #quietwriting hashtag across platforms – for the challenge and beyond – as a way to create, connect and link us together on our ongoing journey to draft, process, create, make space for writing and other creativity and otherwise live a wholehearted creative life. Read on to discover more and connect with creative others about the value of quiet.

Quiet in my life

When I was thinking of prompts for the #quietwriting challenge, it wasn’t long before the word ‘quiet’ popped up.

Why? There’s no surprise that quiet is a value I hold very dear as a writer, an introvert and an INTJ in Jung/Myers-Briggs personality type. You only have to look at my business and website name to see that!

For the challenge, I’ve chosen to share an image of two books that made a huge difference in my life:

  • Quiet by Susan Cain
  • Quiet Influence by Jennifer Kahnweiler

I’ve written about both books in more detail in my free e-book, 36 Books that Shaped my Story.

The first time I understood my need for quiet in a deeper way was when I worked on assessing my psychological type with a coach. My coach said to me, asking about work contexts as a leader, “Do you close your door?” It was a light bulb moment that helped me to value my need to close the door occasionally, get quiet and regroup. It was okay to do it and it was something I needed to do.

That insight and conversation was the beginning of a deeper journey into understanding my introverted intuitive nature and its needs. These two books helped me immensely in that journey.

quiet in my life

Quiet in my life as a leader

I read these two books on quiet and introvert strengths when I was a leader in the adult vocational education sector. My role involved leading many people, up to 3,000 staff and with responsibility for tens of thousands of students and their learning environment and programs. I often had to speak to large groups. Tough negotiations and meetings were commonplace. I also worked in the political arena, advising our state Minister for Education in an environment that was mostly anything but quiet or relaxed.

These books, furthering my knowledge of my INTJ personality type, helped me to understand the value and strengths of being a quiet worker and leader. Skills like the ability to listen deeply, read widely, prepare and research well, ask valuable questions and use writing as a strategic skill. You  need to learn how to deploy these skills and use them to effect in different ways. Not comparing yourself to extraverted others helps. Being able to understand and marshal your strengths is a powerhouse of knowledge and skill you can quietly own and use. Jennifer Kahnweiler’s book particularly helped me understand key six skills of quiet influence and recognise my strengths in this space. Writing is one of these and my superpower that I use in many ways to enact quiet in my life and its influence.

quiet in my life

Quiet in your life

How about you? Think about roles you have been in and where you have learnt the value of quiet in your life. As an introvert, you might need to learn to work differently and honour what is natural rather than see it as a weakness. Extraverts might need to learn to carve out space in their lives for quiet because it’s not always a natural preference.

  • Were you a quieter person growing up? How did it make you feel?
  • How do you make space for quiet in your life now?
  • What does quiet look like in your life?
  • How does quiet play out in your relationships, between the extraverts and introverts in your life?
  • Did you feel different if you were a quiet person at home or at work?
  • What did you do about this? Do you understand it?
  • If you were not the quiet person, did you find it challenging to make space for quiet in your life?
  • What helps you quieten?
  • Which practices at work or in your creativity help you to harness the power of quiet?

Love to hear your thoughts and see any images on Instagram – just use the hashtag #quietwriting for the challenge or anytime so we can connect with you. Or share your thoughts in the comments or on Facebook.

quiet in my life

Understanding your personality

If you’d like to work more on understanding our personality, I’ll be rolling out my offerings in the personality space in mid October. It’s not just about introvert and extrovert aspects though these are important. You learn about your preferences around sensing and intuition; thinking and feeling; and perceiving and judging as well.

The Personality Stories package includes:

  • personality type assessment online
  • an online course on personality preferences so you can understand your type
  • a coaching package to work on deep-diving into the wholehearted story of your personality.
  • a Quiet Writing personality type summary, and
  • email support for two weeks after.

Personality Stories coaching package

Here’s the detail of the coaching package. You receive:

  1. Personality assessment online: Complete the Majors Personality Type Inventory (MajorsPTI™) online assessment. This helps you to begin to identify your Jung/Myers-Briggs 4-letter personality type.
  2. Self-paced online course on personality type: Working through the self-paced Personality Stories ecourse. It takes about 3 hours (max) to complete this short online course. I hope you will find it fascinating learning about Carl Jung, his followers and their rich work on personality type.
  3. Coaching debrief to work through your results: Once you complete the ecourse, we have a 90 minute 1:1 face to face coaching session via Zoom to debrief your results. You receive your Majors Personality Type assessment report, and the four letter code arrived at, in this session. The coaching debrief focuses on checking that your assessment result is your true or best-fit Type and discussing your results. We work through any questions and set inspiring goals and actions to take this knowledge forward and embed it in your life.
  4. Quiet Writing summary: Once your true personality type is confirmed from the coaching session, you will receive a Quiet Writing summary of the key aspects of your personality type to take forward. This includes links to further reading, tarot connections and suggestions for managing stress and fostering creativity in your life.
  5. Email contact for 2 weeks after to follow up on any questions and learnings.

The investment for this package is priced at $350AU as a special ‘first release’ price. Just let me know via email at terri@quietwriting.com if you are interested in being included in the first limited October enrolment.

Quiet connections via #quietwriting

So I welcome your comments here or on social media. I look forward to seeing #quietwriting images that share thoughts and open up dialogue on quiet in your life. Just share an image on Instagram using the tag #quietwriting and follow the prompts each day for ideas. Here are the prompts:

#quietwriting

And the #quietwriting hashtag will continue beyond the week of the challenge, so use it anytime to create and connect. You can learn more here about #quietwriting

Just a reminder of the key points:

  • Quiet Writing is about the strength that comes from working steadily and without fanfare in writing and other spheres to create, coalesce, influence and connect.
  • Hashtags are such a fabulous way to gather, finding our creative kindred souls and inspiration online.
  • On Instagram, you can now follow hashtags as well as individual profiles. So follow #quietwriting now and into the future to connect around creativity and your quiet work, writing and making art.
  • You can head on over to the #quietwriting hashtag on Instagram or Facebook or other social media anytime and see what’s popping up. 
  • You could also post on your own profile on Facebook as well using the hashtag.
  • Often we write quietly, behind closed doors or in busy cafes, privately. Let’s shine a light behind the scenes and capture the process of writing and creativity in action, wherever we are.

Get on board with #quietwriting + the hashtag challenge!

These are just some ideas and they will evolve as we all contribute. It doesn’t have to be all about writing – it can be any form of creativity. Nor do you need to be an introvert; all of us need quiet writing time to get creative work done.

I’ll feature my favourite images from the tag here and on Instagram and Facebook so share your images for the chance to be featured!

So join the #quietwriting party and let us know what you are up to! Who knows what creative connections you might make to support you on your journey or inspire your next creation?

Welcome your comments and images to inspire and connect our creativity online from the quiet in my life and yours!

quiet in my life

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You can work with me to help reset your creativity and wholehearted self-leadership. Free 30-45 minute coaching consults chats are available so please get in touch at terri@quietwriting.com to talk further. I’d love to be a guide to help you create with spirit and heart in your own unique way. Consults available now for an October coaching start!

You can download my free 94-page ebook on th36 Books that Shaped my Story – just sign up with your email address in the box to the right or below You will also receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions. This includes personality type, coaching, creativity, writing, tarot and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

#quietwriting – growing creative community and connection

Shining a quiet light – working the gifts of introversion

How to be more aware of cognitive diversity in the workplace

Personality skills including how to be the best you can be as an introvert in recruitment

Introverted and extraverted intuition – how to make intuition a strong practice

creativity inspiration & influence

Creative space – how space and place inspires our creativity

September 24, 2018

creative space

As part of the #quietwriting hashtag and Instagram Challenge, we begin with a focus on honouring and celebrating creative space.

Use the #quietwriting hashtag across platforms – for the challenge and beyond – as a way to create, connect and link us together on our ongoing journey to draft, process, create, make space for writing and other creativity and otherwise live a wholehearted creative life. Read on to discover more and connect with creative others about creative space.

Creative space 

When I was thinking of prompts for the #quietwriting challenge, creative space was the first thing that came to mind!

Why? Because it’s the beginning of it all – our creativity and that quiet space, wherever it is, inside our house, inside our heads or outside in nature where conditions and influences help us to see afresh or make connections.

What creative space helps you go deep or inspires and fosters your creativity?

Today is an opportunity to reflect on this. Here are some ideas to prompt you!

Creative spaces inside

The first thoughts that comes to mind around creative space are where we actually do our work, which is often inside. Inside our homes or other work spaces – offices, cafes, co-working spaces, our studies, lounge rooms or bedrooms! Then of course there’s what happens in the creative space inside our minds and hearts. Think about:

  • Where do you work creatively at home?
  • What is around you to inspire you?
  • What does your creative workspace look like?
  • How do you organise your creative space wherever you work – the ergonomics, the tidiness or chaos?
  • What does it feel like?
  • What in your creative space helps you get moving – tarot, candles, music, silence, standing or sitting?
  • Do you like to look out a window or at a wall with special images and words in front of you?
  • What do you see as you work in your creative space?
  • What accompanies you as you work – tea, coffee, wine, chocolate, water, incense, oils diffusing?
  • Do you prefer silence or music to accompany you?

Love to hear your thoughts and see any images on Instagram – just use the hashtag #quietwriting for the challenge or anytime so we can connect with you. Or share your thoughts in the comments or on Facebook.

Creative spaces outside

This prompt made me think of the creative spaces outside that inspire me. For me, this is the beach and as I shared in my Instagram post:

I do a lot of my creating and writing sitting at a desk at home. But the space that truly inspires my creativity is the beach. Being by the water, in the water, watching the waves, sitting on the sand. Watching the sunrise like this stunner recently in Hoi An. It is all about making connections, relaxing into it, feeling, being inspired. It’s why I chose to live near the beach. It is why when I walk on the beach, I take so many photos capturing that feeling. And it’s also why my new logo and colour palette for Quiet Writing – which I’ll share soon – features these rose gold, watery colours. It’s the deep beginning of so much.

Living near the beach and swimming in the sea stimulates my creativity in so many ways. I love walking on the sand and noticing the shells, gathering the ones that connect with me. In my poem, Narrative, in this post, I share how a walk down to the beach can be so clarifying. I am inspired to gather myself, collect thoughts, connect ideas and often, notebook or camera in hand, new inspiration comes.

When I was in Hoi An and visited An Bang Beach at sunrise recently, I could feel the same sense of creativity and calm. The sound of the waves helped me to settle into my creativity in a new way there. It made me reflect on just how powerful the beach and sea is as a creative space in my life, these colours reflecting my Quiet Writing palette. And those colours reflect everything about me and what matters.

creative space

Creative places

Another aspect of creative space is the actual places that inspire or host your creativity.

  • Why is it that some places inspire you more than others?
  • Do you have a love affair with a particular country, city or village that means you return to try to engage with it and capture it?
  • Are there some places that you want to write about or create from?
  • Or is there somewhere you just long to be, somewhere where you can retreat for a week to create art and write story?
  • Is there somewhere unexpected that grabs your attention and make you want to craft something from the story that you feel there?

Think of Daphne Du Maurier and her love of Cornwall as Jessa Crispin reminds us for the Four of Wands in The Creative Tarot:

Many writers and artists pull inspiration from their surroundings: think of Daphne Du Maurier, who wrote novel after novel with the region of Cornwall as her muse.

What place is your muse? Why?

Creative and connected via #quietwriting

So I welcome your comments here or on social media. I look forward to seeing #quietwriting images that share thoughts and open up dialogue on creative space. All you need to do is share an image on Instagram using the tag #quietwriting and follow the prompts each day for stimulation. Here are the prompts:

#quietwriting

And the #quietwriting hashtag will continue beyond the week of the challenge, so use it anytime to create and connect. You can learn more here about #quietwriting

Just a reminder of the key points:

  • Quiet Writing is about the strength that comes from working steadily and without fanfare in writing and other spheres to create, coalesce, influence and connect.
  • Hashtags are such a fabulous way to gather, finding our creative kindred souls and inspiration online.
  • On Instagram, you can now follow hashtags as well as individual profiles. So follow #quietwriting now and into the future to connect around creativity and your quiet work, writing and making art.
  • You can head on over to the #quietwriting hashtag on Instagram or Facebook or other social media anytime and see what’s popping up. 
  • You could also post on your own profile on Facebook as well using the hashtag.
  • Often we write quietly, behind closed doors or in busy cafes, privately. Let’s shine a light behind the scenes and capture the process of writing and creativity in action, wherever we are and whatever we are up to.

Here’s a beautiful snapshot of our hands in action, quietly writing in a sacred creative space at our recent retreat in Hoi An, led by Kirsten Pilz of Write Your Journey. And of course, there is tea! This image is by Nigel Rowles and used with permission and thanks.

creative space

Get on board with #quietwriting + the hashtag challenge!

These are just some ideas and they will evolve as we all contribute. It doesn’t have to be all about writing – it can be any form of creativity. Nor do you need to be an introvert; all of us need quiet writing time to get creative work done.

I’ll feature my favourite images from the tag here and on Instagram and Facebook so share your images for the chance to be featured!

So join the #quietwriting party and let us know what you are up to! Who knows what creative connections you might make to support you on your journey or inspire your next creation?

Welcome your comments and images to inspire and connect our creativity online from your quiet spaces and lives!

creative space

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You can work with me to help reset your creativity and wholehearted self-leadership. Free 30-45 minute coaching consults chats are available so please get in touch at terri@quietwriting.com to talk further. I’d love to be a guide alongside to help you conduct creativity and magic with spirit and heart in your own unique way. Consults available now for an October coaching start!

You can download my free 94-page ebook on th36 Books that Shaped my Story – just sign up with your email address in the box to the right or below You will also receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions. This includes personality type, coaching, creativity, writing, tarot and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

#quietwriting – growing creative community and connection

Creative practices in my toolkit to make the most of this year’s energies

Welcome to Quiet Writing (the first QW post from 13 September 2016)

Your body of work: the greatest gift for transition to a bright new life

6 inspiring podcasts for creatives and booklovers

Joy – 18 inspiring quotes on doing what you love

Shining a quiet light – working the gifts of introversion

creativity inspiration & influence

#quietwriting – growing creative community and connection

September 14, 2018

#quietwriting

Quiet Writing turns two today! And to celebrate I’m launching the #quietwriting hashtag as a way to increase our community connection.

Use the #quietwriting hashtag as a way to create, connect and link us together on our ongoing journey to draft, process, create, make space for writing and other creativity and otherwise live a wholehearted creative life. Read on to discover more and connect with creative others!

Why use the #quietwriting hashtag?

Did you know on Instagram, you can now follow hashtags as well as individual profiles? Launched in 2018, this is such a great way to connect with others and see content beyond those people you follow now. Plus it creates curated content around a theme to inspire and see what others on the same road or with similar interests are up to.

This idea came to me when I was working on the Instaretreat with Sara Tasker. I use the #quietwriting hashtag for all my posts on Instagram, Facebook and elsewhere. I hadn’t thought to encourage others to use it too – but it’s so obvious! Hashtags are such a fabulous way to gather, finding our creative kindred souls and inspiration online.

You can head on over to the #quietwriting hashtag on Instagram or Facebook or other social media anytime and see what’s popping up. Just as Wholehearted Stories enabled other voices to be heard and seen via Quiet Writing, let’s embrace more and different images and voices under the #quietwriting hashtag to inspire our creativity! So come on board and use #quietwriting to connect.

#quietwriting

So what’s #quietwriting all about?

Quiet Writing is about the strength that comes from working steadily and without fanfare in writing and other spheres to create, coalesce, influence and connect.

So often we write quietly, behind closed doors or in busy cafes, privately. Let’s shine a light behind the scenes and capture the process of writing and creativity in action, wherever we are and whatever we are up to.

To celebrate and connect around the spirit of quiet writing online, here are some ideas for when you might use #quietwriting

  • to share your writing locations – where you are writing, seeking inspiration, working on your craft
  • works in progress – behind the scenes snapshots, metrics, celebrations, challenges
  • the act and process of writing and other creativity – researching, drafting, editing, publishing
  • your creations – poems, novels, blog posts, artwork – the outcomes of quiet writing
  • how far you’ve come – celebrate, share your milestones, the starting point
  • writing practices – pomodoro, Morning Pages, free-writing, lists, brain-storming
  • blogging – practice and achievements
  • poetry – the art and process of the life poetic
  • quotes about writing quietly
  • books to inspire the writing and creative journey
  • writing retreats – and other creative inspiration
  • influences – who inspires you?
  • writing buddies – who are you writing with, who is supporting you?
  • wholehearted stories
  • writing over the life time – creativity for the long haul
  • being a healthy writer
  • book reviews on writing and what fosters creativity
  • your favourite tools and tips for the journey

Get on board with #quietwriting + hashtag challenge!

These are just some ideas and this will evolve as we all contribute. It doesn’t have to be all about writing – it can be any form of creativity. Nor do you need to be an introvert; extraverts also need quiet writing time to get creative work done.

I’ll also feature my favourite images from the tag here and on Instagram and Facebook weekly so share your images for the chance to be featured!

And the week of 24 – 30 September, I’m hosting a #quietwriting Instagram Challenge to connect and inspire us all around specific prompts to get us going. Here are the prompts!

#quietwriting

So join the #quietwriting party and let us know what you are up to! Who knows what creative connections you might make to support you on your journey or inspire your next creation?

Welcome your comments and images to inspire and connect our creativity online from your quiet spaces and lives!

#quietwriting

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You can work with me to help reset your creativity and wholehearted self-leadership. Free 30-45 minute coaching consults chats are available so please get in touch at terri@quietwriting.com to talk further. I’d love to be a guide alongside to help you conduct creativity and magic with spirit and heart in your own unique way. Consults available now for a September/October coaching start!

You can download my free 94-page ebook on th36 Books that Shaped my Story – just sign up with your email address in the box to the right or below You will also receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions. This includes personality type, coaching, creativity, writing, tarot and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

Welcome to Quiet Writing (the first QW post from 13 September 2016)

Your body of work: the greatest gift for transition to a bright new life

6 inspiring podcasts for creatives and booklovers

Joy – 18 inspiring quotes on doing what you love

Shining a quiet light – working the gifts of introversion

wholehearted stories writing

The journey to write here—my wholehearted story

August 30, 2018

This guest post from Penelope Love explores how following our deepest calling as writers can shape the journey of our wholehearted stories.

journey to write here

Write at home, Asheville, 2018

This is the twelfth guest post in our Wholehearted Stories series on Quiet Writing! I invited readers to consider submitting a guest post on their wholehearted story. You can read more here – and I’m still keen for more contributors! 

Quiet Writing celebrates self-leadership in wholehearted living and writing, career and creativity. This community of voices, with each of us telling our own story of what wholehearted living means, is a valuable and central part of this space. In this way, we can all feel connected on our various journeys and not feel so alone. Whilst there will always be unique differences, there are commonalities that we can all learn from and share to support each other.

I am honoured to have my friend Penelope Love as a ‘Wholehearted Stories’ contributor. Penelope explores writing as a deep calling shaping her journey over time. She describes how her writing life has intersected with love and spirituality as key themes in her life. My sincere thanks to Penelope for sharing her personal story and photographs as well as the books and vital practices that have influenced her journey. With her new book – a memoir, ‘Wake Up in Love: From Sex and Romance to the Ultimate Understanding’ – imminent, read Penelope’s reflections on knowing your calling, writing and love to guide your story!

Beginning my journey to write here

To write or not to write was never the question.

My love for writing was born of sheer enchantment with the dance of my elfin fingers and a No. 2 pencil pressed against the bumpy margins of a newspaper left strewn across the kitchen table. Whilst my mother washed dishes, I perfected my letters… slowly, slowly carving out my name. I tingled as the life force pierced my body and brain. Waving a pink-tipped golden wand, I witnessed the alphabet come to life before me… oh, t’was magical!

A rainbow of writing accolades soon spanned my horizon. As early as my elementary years, the parents and relatives branded me “the writer in the family,” their New York accents spinning legends of a little girl who would traject this gift across the world.

As I approached high school graduation, my father often spoke of his friend’s daughter who made a living as a writer. In fact, she earned six figures and was even flown around the globe with her happy pen in hand. Imagine that! I did indeed—first-class flights to Rome, Paris, Strasbourg, Johannesburg, Tokyo, Perth, and Calgary, not to mention being lavished with more money than one could ever need, just because a girl could write?!

Write about what? 

journey to write here

Write in the clouds, 2017

Write about what? I didn’t know, but the question of her subject matter never crossed my thirsty teenage mind. I just wanted her life in the azure sky, miles above the clouds and close to the shimmering sun. In no time, I’d be like her—rich, self-sufficient, and far away from people who expected miracles from me.

It was the mid-1990s when I entered the university with a typewriter in hand and later departed with a laptop bag draped over my shoulder. In four short years, the new-fangled digital tools of the trade had literally changed our world and most importantly for me, the way this English major now wrote. Possessing a “delete” key, I lost countless writings to self-doubt, and even more to lack of remembering to hit Control + S. The fluorescent palette of Windows 95 proved a more addictive drug for a perfectionist than any erasable pen. It was too easy to tweak e-scribblings that never seemed quite good enough. The brave new world was now here and I was not sure I wanted to be a writer anymore.

Despite my uncertainty, I could not shake my writer crush on Alice Walker—her novels, poetry, essays, activism and how she effortlessly transformed rage into beauty that inspired social change through her poignant words. With this level of mastery as my barometer, I pursued a master’s degree in English, though to expand my career opportunities I eventually phased over to the college of journalism. Focused first and foremost on getting “published,” writing seemed far from the mystical endeavor I’d fallen in love with as a child.

Then it happened. As I formulated my thesis, I discovered that I no longer enjoyed writing. Yet I sure was in love with the professors who taught it. To my chagrin, my finest writings never extended into the realms of passion I fantasized about. Writing? Huh. Why expose my soul before teachers who just left my heart bleeding overnight while they went home to their lives, of which I had none? Why torture myself when I was deft enough at this craft to instruct others on how to do it? Why write if I could swap my black pen for a red one and wear silky scarves and blouses, sexy skirts, stilettos, and tortoise-shell glasses? I mean, why write if I could be an editor!

Writer in hiding

journey to write here

Writer in reflection, 2018

By the late ‘90s, the U.S. economy had exploded during the .com craze—so much in fact that some corporations were even paying the lowly interns—yes, me! Here my lucky star landed me an editorial apprenticeship in the personal finance and lifestyle department of the prestigious Bankrate.com. I had recently married a business student and I was acquiring a taste for the freedom that came with earning my own paycheck. I was not flying high yet, but I’d circumnavigated my existence as a puppet dangled by parents who had kept me mostly in the dark about all things financial. As fate and good fortune would have it, my Bankrate internship enriched me with both income and invaluable knowledge.

Following graduation, my then-husband and I moved north to pursue our dreams of working in the Big Apple—Manhattan! I dressed the part and perhaps imagined that even the pigeons stared as I sauntered down Fifth Avenue as an editorial assistant. Within three weeks the Twin Towers came crashing down, along with my fantasies about commuting to the city and wielding my editorial prowess in New York. Since I was actually residing in safer haven of nearby Princeton, New Jersey, I stayed put and soared up the corporate ladder, so high that I didn’t even bother keeping a diary over the next five years. Too busy had I become for my own words when so many people were counting on me to perfect theirs.

Falling back in love with writing

When life led me back to Florida in 2003, it was the stress of destructive family dynamics and an impending divorce that led me to an Al-Anon meeting, where the facilitator urged me to crack open my journal again. She was right—I needed to know if I could still hear my own voice beneath the deafening volume of all the mental noise I’d let in over the years. The higher up the corporate ladder I scaled, the more it felt tilted 180 degrees away from the happiness, inner peace and deep healing I desired more than anything in the world.

journey to write here

Dear Emptiness, 2003

This may sound fantastical but when I re-opened my diary, her empty lines smiled as if happy to see me, their old friend. She embraced my every tear, question, and hopeful new conception of reality bubbling up from my long-silenced heart. I confess, my journal entries reflected the soul of a woman consumed by primal desires for true love and red hot sex. Yet as I returned to the joys of pressing my pen to paper, I experienced an inkling of falling back in love with writing.

The proper care and feeding of writers

Loving a man and loving writing were ultimately not two separate things, although I’d fallen into a discordant thought-pattern of either-or:

Either I could pursue my writing career or I could care for a man, but not both.

Such a black-and-white attitude sounds imprudently restrictive now, but this worldview was branded into the layers of my soul since birth. My mother lived as if it were her sole responsibility to care for my father and for us children. The notion that I could gallivant about the globe as a writer—although it had been dangled before me like candy—conflicted with other familial attitudes I was forced to swallow regarding about “the proper care and feeding of husbands.” Could I ever balance true love, a nourishing sex life, and a successful writing career? This clash of seemingly incompatible desires and my utter lack of control to manifest them catapulted me onto the spiritual path with full surrender.

It was 2004 and the spiritual teacher to whom I was led was a jnani in the lineage of Ramana Maharshi. Nick Gancitano disseminated Self-Inquiry as the spiritual director of an ashram in Florida, where I attended Satsang for the first time. My earnest desire for inner peace was met with a revelation of karmic destiny, as Nick became my lover and we were married within two weeks of our first meeting. Our sex life unfolded as an intuitive exploration of the ancient ways of Tantra. Here I found that with an authentic state of surrender, true love was not only possible—it was inevitable, transforming sex into a meditation that trumped my most exquisite erotic fantasies.

To top it all off, during the course of this adventure, I discovered something truly worth writing about. Scribble down insights I did, vowing that one day, once the tender fragments in my journals had been laced into a manuscript reflecting my heart’s knowing, I would publish it. And I would come out as a writer.

journey to write here

Write from the Heart, India 2004

Morning Pages and the journey to write

As quickly as I moved into the ashram, my spiritual practice deepened and creativity flowed now with greater frequency. I’d hopped off the corporate ladder and went freelance, consciously reducing my workload toward a deep dive into the inner life. Yet despite my newfound time freedom, I only wrote in spurts. As much as I respected my daytime profession, my heart knew that an editor is actually just a writer in denial. In 2007, I expressed my frustration to a Satsang friend, a prolific fashion designer whose overstuffed sketch book I admired. She recommended Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, wherein I discovered the Morning Pages that would leave ink stains on my hands and a mark on my life.

Between 2007 and 2010, I folded my freelance business when the ashram relocated to Costa Rica. There amidst the cloud forest I exercised the Morning Pages with the intention of writing my book. I invited Nick to write these Morning Pages with me, and within six weeks a full-fledged, 280-page manuscript busted the seams of his notebook. And once again, I found an excuse to avoid writing as I turned creative attention toward the development and publishing of the book that had come through him and not me.

journey to write here

Write into nature, our Morning Pages view in Costa Rica, 2008-10

Patterns emerging in the journey to write here

This provided me an opportunity to observe a pattern as destructive as avoidance—blame: It was now my husband’s fault that I’m not a writer. When we returned to the States in 2010, it seemed that years of energy were required to re-establish myself as a freelance editor and eventually form my own successful publishing company. In the intermittent creases of successive projects, I finally returned to the Morning Pages in 2013 and the past patterns of avoidance and blame resurfaced only to unwind before my very eyes.

journey to write

Soul mates in the sun, Hillsboro Beach, 2011

Initially, past learned behavior of putting what I perceived as my husband’s needs before my own re-emerged fiercely. I hadn’t chosen the worldly path of self-sufficiency; I’d chosen love, the inward path of Self-Inquiry, and reliance on God to care for all my needs. For weeks, months and years at a time, I foolishly convinced myself that the Morning Pages were incompatible with the teachings of Self-Inquiry—for if the world is an illusion, then why write? And I couldn’t have the mornings free anyway, because if I didn’t snuggle and meditate with Nick first thing, would I be sinfully putting my personal desires before love?

But that was all in my head. Nick became the biggest advocate of my relationship with the Morning Pages and with time and flexibility, I discovered it was possible to experience the holy trinity of writing, snuggling and meditation in my morning routine. In a way, I owe my forthcoming memoir to Love in the shape of Morning Pages. Here is an excerpt from them as testimony to the brilliance of this tool that intimately reacquainted my soul with its calling—the mysticism and magic of writing.

journey to write here

Love looks me in the ‘I’, 2018

Write here in my Morning Pages

It’s happening again. I hear my husband’s voice in the other room and my senses latch on to his every word and I blame him that I can’t find a quiet space to write—which is ridiculous because I might as well blame the iPod speaker on the bookshelf. Yet it does not have the same magnetic pull as Nick in his sentience, his unpredictability, his wisdom, his love. Aha! Look. Curiosity about what he is up to has once again (almost) drawn me away from this sacred whitespace where all complaints dissolve and contradictions resolve before my eyes.

Now I’m perfectly capable of closing the door and inserting the earplugs in an effort to be “more” present, but isn’t the point of Morning Pages shedding that thick skin called “effort” by writing through any and all distractions? Why am I here in the first place? Writing is just the excuse. I am here to remember what matters, to let go of what does not, and to write like no one else is reading it. In Reality, I am not even here to write. I am here to Be, to be naked of all sense of other… and paradoxically, that makes me a better writer and a more gracious lover.

journey to write here

The writing is flowing now (The Savegre River in our backyard, 2008-10)

When Steven Pressfield, talking with Oprah on SuperSoul Sunday, affirmed that everyone knows their “calling,” even if only carried as a secret in their heart, I could not deny my intuitive first response: writing!

What exactly pulled my attention so far from it all these years? I actually don’t like or dislike the act of writing. It is after all—just like when I practiced my letters at the kitchen table—just a happening. What I don’t enjoy is “the resistance,” the feeling that arises from expecting myself to express profundity. The one with these great expectations is the same imposter saying “I don’t enjoy it”! Yet it can’t stop the ink flow onto paper, the fingers dancing on a keyboard, and the characters appearing on the screen, revealing the contours of God.

It is wonderfully fulfilling to write the Morning Pages. Thank heavens for them. They are therapy. Like the perfect friend, they listen without criticism. If a judgment arises, they gently remind me it is my own. And now that it no longer hides, it cannot rule my life from underground. It can be seen for what it is: just another thought. Just another stone on the trail. One I can now pick up and skip across the still ocean, or prance across to reach the other side of the raging river. Either way, it no longer blocks the path and the beauty of my mind.

I am a writer — yes, I am!

My hand my Heart doth steer

universes beyond these words

my journey to write here.

Key books along my journey to write here

Be Still and Know I AM God by Anonymous

The Wisdom of Balsekar by Ramesh Balsekar

The Impersonal Life by Joseph Benner

The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Spiritual Teachings of Ramana Maharshi (Foreword by C.J. Jung)

The Book of Secrets by OSHO

OSHO Zen Tarot: The Transcended Game of Zen

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (Translated by Stephen Mitchell)

Hsin-Hsin Ming: Verses on the Faith-Mind by Seng-t’san

A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle

The Supreme Yoga: Yoga Vasishta by Swami Venkatesananda

Anything We Love Can Be Saved: A Writer’s Activism by Alice Walker

My Life as My Self: An Intimate Conversation with Alice Walker (by Sounds True)

and…

“Four Questions to Help You Find Your Calling,” Steven Pressfield’s interview with Oprah Winfrey on SuperSoul Sunday, September 29, 2013

About Penelope Love

journey to write here

 

Penelope Love, MA, is the author of the spiritual memoir Wake Up in Love and the founder of Citrine Publishing. She also co-facilitates conscious relationship workshops and hosts meditation programs in the United States and internationally. An advocate for true love, she enjoys connecting with readers from around the world. Come say hello at www.PenelopeLove.com or connect via Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter.

 

Photographs by Penelope Love and Arlington Smith used with permission and thanks.

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Keep in touch + free ebook ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

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Reset time – with a touch of jet-lag, life-lag and rest

August 20, 2018

Home from a beautiful holiday and I’m feeling it’s time for a reset. But jet-lag and life-lag are teaching me that reset can mean rest as much as anything!

reset

Home from a beautiful holiday overseas and I’m feeling it’s time for a reset. It was always my plan to come home after this break and get stuck into my writing, business, coaching and ecourses. I know where I want to go with it all and I have more open space to work. Yet I come home feeling that the jet-lag has morphed into a kind of life-lag. I can’t seem to quite get into synch with it all.

Do you ever have that feeling? Like your plans are known, but you can’t quite reach them or enact them? That you know the timing and can write the schedule but it keeps pushing out because you are not up to it? It feels like you are out of body and can’t quite connect the pieces to make them happen.

Life-lag seems to be the best way to describe it. Circumstances mean that you haven’t been able to keep up with yourself or your plans for some time, so you start to feel permanently in a state of lag.  I’m thinking it’s all about needing to learn to rest as part of resetting, acknowledging that life-lag means you are still catching up with it all.

There’s really no need to push so hard. What is this pressure I put on myself? It’s something I need to consider and take into account.

Being away, coming home

Being away meant enjoying being in the moment and that was important and special. One thing about travel is that being away from your usual surrounds and commitments makes enjoying the moment much easier. I imagine that’s a reason why people seek the experience of travel at times. Your normal life circumstances are changed. You are more likely to eat out, for example, and not have to make plans for daily tasks like buying food and cooking. Everything is new and fresh and your senses are revitalised.

Coming home, I have felt really excited to make a new start. But as I said on Instagram recently for this image below, snapped looking out at the ocean I wanted to dive into but was too tired to get to, it does all feel a bit raw coming back home. It’s like a reset, a restart, which I’d anticipated and looked forward to after a break away. But I am having trouble getting to it in real life.

reset

Symbols to reset for a new start

As I worked through this time, the Aces kept coming up in Tarot, signalling fresh starts of all kinds. I want to work on my business plan, realign priorities and time for that and life generally: family, friends, writing, coaching. Finish my book and see it out in the world. But yes, it does feel a little tender as you come home, stepping back, resetting, looking at things a little differently and imagining next steps. Reality hits and collides with the fresh start aspirations, along with jet-lag and it all starts to feel out of reach again.

A New Moon also aligned with our homecoming, throwing a focus on starting afresh. As my friend Jennifer Cockcroft reminded me on IG: “lots of r words”: reset, raw, restart, rejuvenate, refresh, reboot, recharge, realign.

So what to do with all these Aces and plans to reset? Maybe it is just the cosmic energies, Mercury Retrograde (just finished as I write!) causing havoc recently? Perhaps life-lag really is a thing and I need time to catch up with myself and rest before I launch ahead again.

I’m thinking my cat, Azzie, is really on to something!

reset

Reset, jet-lag and life-lag, travel and rest

There’s no doubt that jet-lag is a thing. I don’t usually suffer too badly but my partner was also sick on our return home within a few days. We had sleepless nights from that. Suddenly we were on weird sleep cycles again and staring up at the ceiling for long hours during the night. Our reset suddenly became quite problematic.

And then it felt like all of life was lagging. A gap between my plans and where I wanted to be. Definitely a chasm between the energy I needed and what I had. I returned to swimming and yoga last week which both helped me feel more connected with my body. Sleep is returning now in more natural patterns which I am grateful for.

The life-lag is something I am learning from. Maybe it is too early to get out the door with all my plans just now. Even though I’d made this plan, it doesn’t mean it was a good one or the right one. After all the recent years of challenge, one thing after the other, it doesn’t mean one holiday renders you all ready to go, perfect in mind and body.

And travel itself, although wonderful and inspiring, can be tiring, especially for introverts with all that sensory and people input. I loved it all but my introvert soul needs to recharge again with time alone.

Perhaps this life-lag is all about balancing my personality needs and time alone, and rejuvenation, Four of Swords style, is what is needed. I had the best time, seeing so much, meeting so many online friends in real life and making many new friends. But all that extraverting sensing and interaction can take its toll and some quiet writing time is what I need, no pressure.

Four of Swords – letting it rest and synthesise

Speaking of the Four of Swords, it’s a card that has been on my mind. So I checked in with the Spolia Tarot to see what it has to say about this time of reset. A very wise deck, it reminds me that this time is about synthesis:

This is the creation of an intellectual foundation. For that, knowledge has to become almost unconscious, it has to move from remembering facts from your cramming session to an ease with handling the information. It requires synthesis.

We are reminded that we have done the work: the swords are on the wall. We can still be working intellectually, reshaping, crafting all the inputs we have gathered. All the work we have done can be honoured by resting and allowing it to connect and compost, without so much active engagement on our part.

reset

What I’m thinking about: my wholehearted self-leadership questions

In the midst of all of this travel and homecoming, I have been thinking and reflecting a lot. I welcome any thoughts and input you might have in this reset phase.

I focus on wholehearted self-leadership in my business and personal focus. I’m always seeking input and connection via coaching, colleagues, online friends, books and courses. But I’m constantly also reflecting on my key questions at any time. Here’s a snapshot of this now in this reset phase.

The things that are composting for me right now include:

  • How can I find out what the Quiet Writing community needs and wants?
  • Perhaps a survey of readers and subscribers would be helpful for getting input?
  • How can I serve and provide value most effectively?
  • What would help better connection within our community?
  • Where does tarot fit with my life and business?
  • How do I share my tarot insights in a way that helps people and is balanced?
  • Where does tarot with my blogging schedule?
  • How can I finish my book draft now and edit it meaningfully myself before I seek outside help?
  • And then, how much outside help is needed?
  • How can I revamp my website so it’s more focused on my business as well as my blog and writing?

The questions can go round and round though at times and I am learning I need to rest more in this reset phase. Allowing answers to come through rest and recuperation, not pushing so hard, seems a valuable part of reset.

Rest not quitting as part of reset

Of course, feelings of giving up and hopelessness can come up too when we are not pushing as hard as we think we should. We don’t quite measure up to where we thought we would be. Thoughts like, “I’ll never finish writing that book! I’ll never see it out in the world!” for example, have started to run around my head. But as this post and quote reminded me today on LinkedIn via Andrew Johnson, rest and relaxation are a critical part of resilience:

If you get tired, learn to rest not to quit!

Banksy

A very valuable reminder. Reset is as much about resting and reflecting as anything. It doesn’t mean we are failing or need to quit!

And you?

Are you finding you need rest as part of your reset right now?

Has travel or holiday time left you strangely feeling in need of rest?

Does personality come into it for you with your need for rest?

Do you struggle with the need to keep going when rest is probably the best reset you can focus on?

Do rest and quitting get tangled up for you too sometimes?

Welcome your thoughts on these or any of my wholehearted self-leadership questions to guide me and others in our work. Just post in the comments or on social media posts on Facebook or Instagram.

Found this too while thinking about jet-lag and life-lag! You might enjoy it if you find the jet-lag/life-lag experience resonates with you: Jet-lag? More like life-lag

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You can work with me to help reset your creativity and wholehearted self-leadership. Free 30-45 minute coaching consults chats are available so please get in touch at terri@quietwriting.com to talk further. I’d love to be a guide alongside to help you conduct creativity and magic with spirit and heart in your own unique way. Consults available now for August and an August/September coaching start!

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Feature image via pexels.com

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Ancestral patterns, Tarot Numerology and breaking through: My wholehearted story

July 31, 2018

ancestral patterns

This guest post from Sylvie Kirsch explores ancestral patterns via Tarot Numerology Lifespan Reading as a way of shaping our wholehearted stories.

This is the eleventh guest post in our Wholehearted Stories series on Quiet Writing! I invited readers to consider submitting a guest post on their wholehearted story. You can read more here – and I’m still keen for more contributors! 

Quiet Writing celebrates self-leadership in wholehearted living and writing, career and creativity. This community of voices, with each of us telling our own story of what wholehearted living means, is a valuable and central part of this space. In this way, we can all feel connected on our various journeys and not feel so alone. Whilst there will always be unique differences, there are commonalities that we can all learn from and share to support each other.

I am honoured to have my dear friend Sylvie Kirsch as a ‘Wholehearted Stories’ contributor. This story is a real treat, informed by deep life experience, Western and Buddhist psychology and art, and featuring Tarot Numerology as a way of exploring ancestral patterns and influences. My sincere thanks to Sylvie for sharing her personal story, photographs and unique influences. Sylvie also shares a special Tarot spread and invites us all to explore our own ancestral patterns in this way. With a focus on a Tarot Numerology Lifespan Reading to explore the major events that have shaped her wholehearted story, read Sylvie’s heart-felt reflections to guide your own story!

Ancestral patterns in our lifespan: my wholehearted story

When we are born into a family, we enter a sphere of inherited cultural, traditional and societal dynamics that conditions our development throughout the lifespan. This sphere holds the seeds of all that will limit or nurture our lives. As we grow we become aware of a pre-established framework that defines our values, beliefs, choices, goals, relationships and especially our capacity to connect with the world.

My journey has been tightly woven into uncovering the ancestral paradoxes in my life. For 20 years I’ve been developing my own process through blending creativity and the intuitive exploration of the Tarot with the express intention of unravelling the complexity of my family situation.

How much of my life have I spent trying to understand and attribute some meaningful explanation for my broken parental links? How many of my choices have been driven by a need to heal this primal wound? How many times, stumped by my irrational responses, have I wondered why I did what I did, said what I said, and been unable to recognise the reflection in the mirror of my life?

Tarot Numerology as a tool to uncover ancestral patterns

Over time, my Tarot practice revealed several discrepancies between my choices and the assumptions and motivations that underpinned them. Intrigued by this, I deepened my exploration through training and was mentored by Katrina Wynne, author of An Introduction to Transformational Tarot Counseling: the High Art of Reading, an approach that integrates Jungian psychology, alchemy and counselling skills. This has become the backbone for developing my ideas in my work on Tarot Numerology, Genealogy and Family Dynamics.

The Tarot offers a non-judgemental stance towards what is playing out in a conflictual situation. We can become observers, able to uncover and acknowledge subconscious feelings, fears, and blockages without getting dragged down by them. Pieces that have been puzzling my life come together as I work on my family tree and explore relationships through genograms.

In the context of a genealogy reading, using the Tarot Major Arcana to represent family members provides me with archetypal clues I need to decipher their personality traits, talents, needs, strengths and vulnerabilities Guided by my studies in Family Systems and Constellation work I’m able to orientate my way through my ancestral map. However, a map is not the territory and my most precious guide in life has been my intuition. The Tarot’s gentle guidance tells what me what I’m capable of understanding, of changing and helps me discern what I cannot change and need to accept.

I want to share with you how I use a Tarot Numerology Lifespan Reading to explore the major events that have shaped my wholehearted story. This reading emphasizes the quality and strength of bonds with my parents and grandparents and their impact throughout my life. It consists of a numerological calculation of five Major Arcana. As this reading is inspired by French Tarot tradition, I use versions of the Tarot de Marseilles, in this case, the Pierre Madenié 1709. I have prepared a simplified Lifespan Card Spread for you to work through if you wish; you may find it a useful reference as you read my story and reading. Click the image of the overall spread below for the Lifespan Card Spread pdf:

ancestral patterns

The 1st Arcane – The quandary of my life – XV LE DIABLE reversed

ancestral patterns

The XV Le Diable reversed speaks: Every experience, whether bitter or sweet, is an opportunity, a teaching moment.

XV LE DIABLE, The Devil, represents the endpoints of my lifespan. At the point of entry, the Devil is reversed but it is through integrating the energies of the other Arcanas that He will gradually straighten to become fully evolved. The Devil’s strategy is to lie and cheat. He abides always on a dual level that superimposes our most basic instincts with the deepest Karmic mysteries. If the Devil represents our delusions, addictions, lack of control over our desires, lack of discernment in our choices, his real plan for us is that we break free from all that binds us.

In the Tarot, the Devil is a gatekeeper of the spiritual world. His mission is to test our capacity to overcome our inner demons. By successfully crossing his threshold, we cast ourselves on our final journey towards spiritual fulfilment. As the 1st Arcane of this reading, the Devil reversed indicates the problematic nature of the inherited environment we are born into and also gives clues to what we need to work on to fulfil our life purpose.

Both having too many emotional issues of their own, neither my Father nor my Mother could be present for me when I was a baby and I was brought up by my grandparents. At the very first I drew comfort in being the apple of two pairs of eyes. However, there was a parenthesis to the integrity and quality of this bond which widened into a taboo which encompassed the subject of my parents. As my childhood consciousness opened, I became aware of the differences between my situation and that of my playmates. “I don’t know” very soon became an unsatisfactory answer to –“Where is your Mummy?” – “Where is your Daddy?”– “Are they dead?” My grandparents went into immediate lock-down when the subject was broached and the lack of answers created a void of doubt and shame within me.

In the XV Le Diable, there are two tethered little demons. They have their arms tied behind their backs. From a genealogical perspective, this represents secrets and lies hidden in the ancestry. I am not the beginning of this story; the lies and secrets began generations before I was born. My grandmother had a very controlling personality. When her expectations for her brilliant daughter’s future were disappointed, she projected these underlying motivations on me. I wonder what role she played in my mother’s flight and in her leaving me behind.

The shame and confusion of my young childhood mind was fertile soil for breeding disparaging self-beliefs such as inadequacy and stupidity. All these added to a general conviction of not being good enough.

There had to be something wrong with me to explain the disappointment which led my mother to leave. Instead of the security of being loved, it was a deep fear of being abandoned that irrigated my early childhood growth. In fear of being further abandoned by my grandmother, from childhood right through to my teens, I aligned my life choices to please her. From my artistic inclination and talent, she decided that I would become a great artist. I was sent to the Beaux Art in Paris. For the first time, I was free from my grandmother’s control and far too naïve to notice the Devil still reversed had laid his trap. I plunged and revelled in every mistake he presented me.

The 2nd Arcane –The initial honing – XVI LA MAISON DIEU

ancestral patterns

XVI La Maison Dieu speaks: It is at the core of your pain that you will find the seeds of your growth.

XVI La Maison Dieu, The Tower, is often perceived with the foreboding of some painful experience, which it can be, but, in spirit, this is a wake-up call for necessary change. It marks a separation, a point of no return. If properly integrated the teachings of the Tower represent a breakthrough that leads to growth and flourishing, if not they become an irrevocable breaking up. The Tower seeks to understand and dive into the depths of human experience. Even if it means sustaining some serious cuts and grazes, the Tower knows that true wisdom necessarily comes at a price.

With my propensity to go the whole hog, I staggered from one unwholesome choice to another. I fell madly in love, abandoned my studies to rush into an improbable marriage. In my delusion, I persuaded myself I could build a secure edifice out of the flotsam and jetsam from the maelstrom I was wallowing in to house my dream family. I thought myself pregnant with child, when in reality, I was pregnant with the father and mother I never had.

To a certain extent I did quite well at sustaining the illusion but the Devil was unimpressed. He decided the time was ripe for putting his Karmic plan into action. The core of my life was struck with brimstone and fire. The most brutal, what shattered me so absolutely into a billion pieces, was the loss of my daughter. It took several years before I could understand that these tiny shards of my self were in reality seeds.

The 3rd Arcane – From Darkness Rising – VII Le Chariot

ancestral patterns

VII Le Chariot speaks: The only thing that can stop you is doubt.

VII Le Chariot, The Chariot, is read both reversed and upright. In its unevolved position, The Chariot needs to harness and maintain a strong hold on the steeds, or else, aimlessly drifting, we lose all sense of direction and end up floundering in self-doubt, never able to reach out to the rich abundance promised in its upright position. From the Tower I fell in fragments and was buried deep into the depths of Sorrow. I drifted blindly through what felt like aeons of darkness. Then one day, my eyes grew accustomed to the night, I began to make out familiar forms, gain a sense of orientation, slowly, gingerly standing up and find my bearings. I saw lights in the distance, my sons, the steeds of The Chariot, come to my rescue.

Upright, The Chariot speaks of the organisation and structuring of identity, never static, always evolving and expanding. He is a Voyager in search of new encounters and broadening his experiences beyond the boundaries of preconceived ideas. It is yang energy that fuels the vitality to reach our goals. The Chariot guides me through the stages of defining a viable itinerary and reminds me that I need to clear the path of past debris before I can move
forward. This means clearly stating my motivations: am I a voyager or am I seeking an escape route? If this is a journey, what is my destination? If this an attempt to escape, what fear do I need to overcome?

The Chariot is about survival: not the fleeing type, the facing the danger and fighting it type. Here I am in my early 30’s. I need to take stock of my resources, make a list of my assets for building a new life, for my two boys and myself. The seeds shed so heartbreakingly in XVI La Maison Dieu are now germinating and taking root. I found an apartment we could afford within walking distance of perfect schools and parks. I had my own art studio and got back to my painting. My life is back on track. I have my first exhibition, a success. I meet the man of my life.

The 4th Arcane – My sphere of choice – VI L’Amoureux

ancestral patterns

VI L’Amoureux speaks: Know the difference between love and desire and the right choice will appear.

The fourth Arcane symbolises our evolving maturity. The trodden path along which our values and beliefs shift, change or strengthen. VI L’Amoureux, The Lovers, represents the crises that shake the foundations of what we uphold by bringing on the need to make a fundamental life-changing choice. In every choice, we simultaneously gain and lose
something significant in our lives. In every choice, something comes to life whilst another thing dies.

The question asked by The Lovers is: what am I prepared to lose in order to win? To develop and grow, we must be prepared to fly away from the safe nest of our childhood. Two entities (or are they the little devils in disguise?), guide the choices of The Lovers. The first is the capacity to discern the difference between our needs and wants. The second is the ability to identify what is within our sphere of choice and dependent on our power and what is not.

Choices always imply taking risks. Risks always engender consequences, even sacrifices, which call upon personal responsibility, the terra firma of maturation. The Beloved asked – Will you marry me? How I loved my life as it was! Yet, I yearned to live with my beloved. The boys were happy and thriving well in their schools. Why change? This is the dilemma of the VI The Lovers. The life-affirming decision that breaks the stasis so painstakingly reached. I set endless conditions for home, schools and art studio. My beloved accepted it all and waited patiently for me to answer.

In truth, there was that old fear of abandonment, lurking in the dark, ready to undermine any attempt to invest in a new relationship. This period of indecision lasted two years.

Above the figures in The Lovers, there is an Angel with bow and arrow extended, ready for Divine Intervention. There is no possibility of stepping around or evading the issue. As I dithered still, the arrow was shot. My youngest boy fell seriously ill and was hospitalized in emergency with suspected meningitis. The paternal presence we needed came from my Beloved who was supportive in every way possible during the three weeks my son was in hospital. The choice was clear. I opened my heart to this gorgeous man and never shut it since.

The 5th Arcane – The dynamics of doubt – X La Roue de Fortune

ancestral patterns

X La Roue de Fortune speaks: Steadfastness is the virtue of being present in perpetual change

How have the dynamics of doubt enabled the Devil to stand upright and shine strongly in the tapestry of my life? X La Roue de Fortune, X The Wheel of Fortune, speaks of our readiness to embrace the constantly changing dynamics of life. How many different versions of myself have I been throughout my lifespan?

Buddhism has brought me to understand that the sentient world is a constant cycle of birth, maturation and passing. There is nothing that I can grasp hold of to withstand the inevitability of change and the losses that it incurs. Going with the flow is the only way to survive the reality of this maelstrom. Read with the Upright Devil, the Wheel of Fortune provides a retrospective of the significant events that have marked or changed my life.

In my new wedlock, I flourished and so did the boys. We purchased an old farmstead which we converted into a home and created a sculpture garden and gallery. I ran the business, organised exhibitions in the gallery, several cultural and seasonal events in the garden that included concerts and theatre groups, in addition to facilitating art workshops for schools and groups. My husband and I created an international sculpture symposium in the nearby town. The sculpture garden became famous and featured in many magazines and media. We were in all the guidebooks. It was a success and I was good at it. It was as if everything I touched turned to gold…but all that glitters is not gold.

My golden life was punctuated by health problems which, in reality, masked episodes of depression: the Shadow, cyclic surges of past anguish that kept knocking me down. I was 40+ and exhausted by floundering in these patterns of despair. My body threw what it could at me to make me sit still, be quiet and listen to what desperately needed to be voiced.

There were three important events that set into motion the Wheel of Change. The first was when I encountered and embraced Buddhism, the second was when a friend introduced me to the Tarot and the third was when I discovered the work of Caroline and David Brazier and took up studies in Western and Buddhist psychology.

These encounters provided me with the tools to learn about the inner mechanisms of my being and behaving. I gradually gained an understanding of how my emotions and responses can be triggered by events contaminated by things projected from other than my own experience. I saw how my beliefs, values, and choices were conditioned from childhood by my family sphere, the cultural values and all the hidden agendas it upheld. How all of this determined my anxieties and fears, especially my capacity to connect wholeheartedly with the world. Yes, the fear was still there, lurking in the dark, ready to hold me back. I grasped hold of it and listened deeply while it emptied its cup.

XV Le Diable upright

ancestral patterns

XV Le Diable upright speaks: Neither tethered nor outcast but infinitely connected.

It was time to tackle things in earnest. With my Beloved in his 60s, my boys grown and pursuing journeys of their own, we cast off for other horizons in search of a peaceful haven to shelter our retirement. We found it in the Cook Islands where we embraced the multiple levels of this new culture. Today I have found a balance between investing my energy in my personal pursuits and offering to the community. I continue to study and expand my creative skills with the intent to share them with others. It’s nothing special, no higher state, just the congruence of a simple life that is rich in meaning.

As I write, I think of my father. He was an author and a poet, he loved music, art and read science fiction books, so do I. My mother, had a love for beauty and refinement, was always elegantly dressed and decorated her home with tasteful style that relinquished nothing to cosiness, and so do I. I spent much of my lifespan either reacting against or trying to resolve their dilemmas. Of course, I never could, but in the process I resolved my own.

The wholehearted journey weaves a tapestry of uneven colours where bright would not seem
so vivid without the darker tones.

ancestral patterns

Books that paved my path

Brazier, Caroline, Buddhist Psychology, Little, Brown Book Group, 2012.

Brazier, Caroline, Listening to the Other: A New Approach to Counselling and Listening Skills, O Books, 2009.

Brazier, Caroline, Other-Centred Therapy, O Books, 2009.

Brazier, David, Zen Therapy: A Buddhist Approach to Psychotherapy, Little, Brown Book Group, 2012. .

Brazier, David, The Feeling Buddha: A Buddhist Psychology of Character, Adversity and Passion, St. Martin’s Press, 2002.

Jette, Christine, Tarot Shadow Work: Using the Dark Symbols to Heal, A Practical Guide Series, Llewellyn Publications, 2000.

Jette, Christine, Tarot for the Healing Heart: Using Inner Wisdom to Heal Body and Mind, Llewellyn Publications, 2001

Johanson, Greg, and Ronald S. Kurtz, Grace Unfolding: Psychotherapy in the Spirit of Tao-Te Ching, Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale, 2011.

Manné, Joy, Family Constellations: A Practical Guide to Uncovering the Origins of Family Conflict, North Atlantic Books, 2012.

Wallin, David J., Attachment in Psychotherapy, Guilford Publications, 2007.

Weiss, Halko, Greg Johanson, and Lorena Monda, Hakomi Mindfulness-Centered Somatic Psychotherapy: A Comprehensive Guide to Theory and Practice, W. W. Norton, 2015.

Wynne, Katrina, An Introduction to Transformative Tarot Counseling: the High Art of Reading, Dancing Moon Press, 2012

About Sylvie Kirsch

ancestral patterns

Sylvie creates mixed media art and jewellery. She is also a mother, wife and crone. She has a passion for weaving together intuitive and creative processes such as Tarot, SoulCollage®, writing and art. After 15 years as creator and manager of a successful sculpture garden in France she and her husband, a sculptor, moved to Rarotonga to embrace the Cook Islands culture. Here she took up online studies in Buddhist and Western psychology. Today she balances her own artistic journey with running a stone carving business and voluntary support in the community through creative workshops and activities. You can visit her at thiscronesjourney.com 

Photographs of and by Sylvie Kirsch used with permission and thanks.

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