The Muse is at the back door tonight.
Click-clack, tip-tap, scritchy-scratch!
If she comes in without asking
and eats your hot-buttered garlic bread
with sticky fingers and a toothy grin, be grateful.
If she crashes in after scratching the windowpanes
and rattles your kitchen pans,
and dares you, you better get moving.
There are consequences
for not heeding her call to move
from the kitchen to the art studio.
A visit from the Muse is not a given.
Sometimes she just slips out of the mystery
and into the mundane of your teacup.
Sometimes she breaks it.
Sometimes she scares you
and stirs memories of who you were.
Click-cluck-tip-tap-scritchy-
The Muse has a bone to pick with you.
Thank your lucky stars
that the bone is a wishbone…Careful now…
Don’t be so eager to get the big side.
Allow yourself to be marked by the Muse
with black pens and white paper
and paint the color of wildflowers.
She may even wrap you in red thread
A Muse to disrupt default identity is a sign,
a bringing of much needed change.
Wait….listen….do you hear her? Yoohooo!
She is calling you by your secret name,
the one you have long forgotten.
Click-cluck-tip-tap-scritchy-
Things may never be the same again once
The Muse is at the back door.
This writing is the opening poem from Wishbone Tattoo, Book by Shiloh Sophia (currently in editing process)
Image: snapshot of Ritual 2021 painting in process
Comment in the App Share on Facebook
MUSEA EVENTS
Year-end Museum Show and first annual Intentional Creativity Foundation FUNdraiser!
December 15th at 4pm PT
Join us to reflect on our incredible year of Museum Programming, be inspired by our Founders, learn about the powerful impact of our philanthropic projects sponsored by the Intentional Creativity Foundation and more!
This is a ticketed event through Eventbrite. There are multiple donation levels, as well as a complimentary attendance option for those who are unable to donate at this time yet would like to join the party!
100% of proceeds from ticket sales go to the Intentional Creativity Foundation, our 501c3, to sponsor our 2022 Museum Programming. Thank you in advance for collaborating with us!
Get Your Ticket
- 12/17 at 12pm PT: REVISIONING Complimentary Seminar. Discover the Somatic Science of Self Expression & Creativity with Shiloh Sophia and Jonathan McCloud musea.org/revisioning
- 12/21 at 12pm PT: Year-End Solstice Ceremony with Shiloh Sophia. Complimentary for our Musea community as we celebrate the great turning of the wheel. A few supplies are needed. musea.org/solstice-ceremony
- 12/27 at 11am PT: *NEW CLASS – Symbol of Healing – A Daylong Medicine Painting Stream with Shiloh Sophia – watch live or later musea.org/symbolofhealing. (fulfills pre-requisite for Prisma)
- ENROLLMENT OPEN NOW – STARTS JAN 1: MAVERICK Yearlong Painting Process Gone Rogue with Shiloh Sophia musea.org/maverick All are welcome – men and gender non-comforming! Only one ticket per household needed.
- Priority Enrollment Open for MOTHERBOARD: Intentional Creativity Coach Certification Training 2022. Coach others using the power of visual technology and metacognitive drawing to access consciousness by choice. motherboardtraining.com
- PRISMA, our yearlong Practitioner Certification Training starting January 1st will open for one more round of enrollment on December 13th! Add yourself to the list for the invitation musea.org/prisma
VISIT ALL MUSEA EVENTS
Red Thread Letter #867
The Muse Speaks
Dear Ones,
What a full week this has been with my rather active Muse… I had planned to keep December slow and my calendar clear – but surprise! Turns out she has other plans, and when the Muse speaks, I listen.
I could write a book about the things that have transpired in my life that I could never have imagined if not for listening to the Muse. Even at midnight, her stirrings beckon me out of bed in my nightgown to the canvas or paper. Some of my greatest writings and ideas have come from this time…
Will you give it a try? Find a quiet spot, pick up the pen and ask your Muse what is on the agenda for today – then I DARE YOU to go and do it!
My daily time with the Muse is during morning cafe with Jonathan and the kitties. Then, I move into action. She has kept me on my feet and at my desk planning all sorts of wild and fun things for December and the entire 2022 Musea year.
Our calendar of events is close to ready and I can’t wait to share it with you! It takes a village and lots of pixy dust to plan 12 months of museum and school programming. At least 5 team members have been working with me behind the scenes to bring you revolutionary education that will have your Muse running to the art store for the biggest canvas you can find! You’ll need one if you plan on painting with us every moon for MAVERICK 2022.
In other big news, I’ve made the decision to open the doors of our Sonoma museum and school with a very clear and appropriate protocol to what we are navigating each week – including buying special masks, air purifiers, distancing and testing. I’ll be sharing more in the days to come and hope you can visit us some time in 2022!
Today is my first day to just be at home all day in a long while. I’m working on the calendar and feeling so grateful for each one of you.
What an honor it is to share the joy of this work with you. May we all continue to have tea with the muse and be inspired to live the life that calls to us. For me, my relationship with the voice of the muse is deeply connected to appreciating noticing and cultivating beauty.There is beauty in every single day, all throughout the day. Beauty is gathering around you, conspiring on your behalf to reveal itself to you. Beauty is there when you aren’t looking. Beauty is there when you are looking and turns its face towards you with joy.
The world will continue to do what it does, as it has always done, pairing tragedy and romance, war and peace, divisiveness and unity. We don’t always get to choose the outer circumstances, but most of the time we can choose the internal landscape of how we interact with our experience of reality. Just knowing that we have a choice with how we respond and speak to ourselves is power. The good kind of power, the power that makes it possible for us to be a collaborator with beauty.
May the Muse be with you,
You are invited to spend the day painting with our global community in December as we release the past year and invite the future with hope. I look forward to this time together in celebration of healing.
LEARN MORE
Things you can watch right now:
MANY MUSES Student Body Exhibit
Fierce, Fabulous and Feminine with Phyllis Taylor
VISIT ALL MUSEA EVENTS
