Medicine Painting may be one of the most important teachings I have ever shared with you. I invite you to honor this teaching page with a cup of tea, as that is how long it will take you to read the article, watch the video, and see the images. Slow down with me. Tune in. I request your presence.
Medicine painting is an ancient yet futuristic tool for healing, right at our fingertips. The page I created has an article about my roots with the work, as well as stories and images which represent this essential feature in my body of work.
If you were the keeper of something that is truly healing, would you not spend your life sharing the message? Well, I have.
We are starting our essential Medicine Painting Course for men and women, Apothecary this week. You can order supplies online if you don’t have them. If you want to focus your April on personal healing – then come and be with us. We will have weekly support calls and we have an incredible staff to support you. This is a class Jonathan designed based on his experience as a Veteran recovering from PTSD – he paints right beside me. It is beautiful to have him lend his genius to this course.
For me the personal part of this global happening is acute, I am rewriting my will, making a list of where I am out of integrity, cleaning up loose ends, calling all family members, redesigning both websites to see if they say what I want, if I were to not survive this. All of this is healing. And so I am painting and writing every day to integrate the work, and staying close to home and the studio, of course.
All the while, I am declaring this is the Era of Imagination! If what I have seen from humans creatively over the past two weeks is any indication, I know the creative revolution is here – innovation, cleverness, playfulness, genius and connection is at play. There is so much beauty in the paradox.
The antidote is here between all of us, and it starts with love.
Join us and receive 4 weeks of support via Live Zoom calls + our new iMusea app (yes off of facebook)
Partial scholarship + payment plans available as needed.
NO PRIOR PAINTING EXPERIENCE IS NEEDED
Shiloh Sophia and Jonathan McCloud teaching Apothecary in 2019
Where will you choose to focus your life force in April?
Does exploring painting as personal medicine sound good to you?
What if we told you we had a tool for resilience that could feel almost supernatural?
Over 400 women and men have been through this cosmic painting course which has been taught online and on-location around the world. Come see what Medicine Painting is all about + read experiences from students.
Challenging times require extraordinary measures. These times call for us to do our own work with healing. Whatever we need to look at, is right here, right now. What are you working with?
Our remedy is Medicine Painting. We can show you how the ancient and futuristic teachings of this incredible approach to creating
Alchemize stuck energy and fear
Be transformational as well as fun
Bring you in the flow state
Show you the future forward approach to healing trauma through the field (instead of revisiting the past over and over)
What can provide some relief and even boost all of your human systems?
You don’t have to be an artist to experience the benefits of this, you just have to show up with a big brush, a bold hand and be open to self-discovery in a way you have never experienced it before….
Is there something you would like to heal right now that will help you be more resilient during these times?
You have the power to heal and transmute that wound, story or tragedy into medicine.
Red Thread Letter #798
I want to share something personal – I am finding that in my circle of friends, whatever you need to look at in your life is right there in your face. Whammo. The situation in the world, while so collective, is so personal. Everything seems to be up for evaluation.
I had just finished writing this Medicine Painting page, which really took my entire life to say. I was feeling so good – like I lived long enough to get this said. To bring awareness to painting as true healing modality – not just for artists, but for everyone who is willing to risk the truth of the brush. I felt elated to share this with you – in this way. Bliss even. I did it.
Then I got an email that I wasn’t accepted into something important, that I was nominated for. Why? because I don’t have a big enough ‘influence’ or ‘audience’. It was one of those double edge sword moments that life brings.
I thought about how over the past few years over 300,000 unique people have taken my classes and watched my videos. I thought about how by my early thirties I had self-published and financed my first book, Color of Woman that sold over 10k copies. I thought about how we reach over 20k women with our communications in one day and how we provide work for women around the world. How we can offer free education to sometimes over 3,000 people at once, or how our free online Red Thread Circle has 7,000+ women. I thought about how I have sold, millions, yes millions of dollars in paintings in my early career. And…how none of that can be seen with the eye – how our success is so very real, yet invisible to someone looking outside. I haven’t focused there. I have focused on one thing really. Okay two. So today I am asking you to stop and see this with me.
MEDICINE PAINTING and THE GATHERING of WOMEN for HEALING
These two things have resulted in my body of work and our collective movement we now call Intentional Creativity. Which I believe may actually be one of the biggest organized art movements in the world. They say that the biggest is Plein Air, but painting outside isn’t an approach per say, or a philosophy of making like Modernism or Impressionism or Symbolism. We are. For close to 100 years this work has been forming. And now I share the heart of it with you in one page. Healing yourself through painting. This is not about good painting, this is about feeling good in your body, life, spirit and soul. About being a co-creator with your destiny.
So after the email, I had a good cry and a pity party. I complained to Jonathan. He offered me a shot of whiskey – I chose tea. I found it fascinating that on the day I felt such victory, I also felt a deep sadness for not having this work be more recognized. There I said it. Now it will go into my painting for alchemizing! (insert flying paintbrush) If you even know how much rejection I have experienced in my life as an artist and teacher, it might shock you that I continued at all. That is why I continue to stand for each of you in my community – doing your work to heal, and then sharing your gift with the world in your own time.
Then I thought about the women I serve, our Intentional Creativity Teachers, Coaches and Red Thread Guides, and how much they, and our students believe in this methodology. Intentional Creativity is a field of painting and research and you get to be a part of it. And so do I.
While there are a lot of other things happening in the world around us, tending our inner world is still the best way to navigate the terrain.
Wherever you are – whatever you are dealing with today, I truly send you thoughts of love, and healing.
Have you heard the story of Picasso and the napkin?
Picasso was sitting in a Paris café when an admirer approached and asked if he would do a quick sketch on a paper napkin. Picasso politely agreed, swiftly executed the work, and handed back the napkin — but not before asking for a rather significant amount of money. The admirer was shocked: “How can you ask for so much? It took you a minute to draw this!” “No”, Picasso replied, “It took me 40 years”
