become the beacon you wish to see in the blizzard

Season One of Image Word Mystery Creative Jams starts January 27th: "Lighting the Inner Lantern" will shine light on the things we most need to return to.

I’ve got a wintery creative prompt for you today, but first— It’s time to highlight:

The 2024 Image Word Mystery Creative Jam Series!

Season One:

LIGHTING THE INNER LANTERN: Illuminate your path home

• Saturday, January 27th, Live on Zoom: 9am Pacific/ 11am Central/ 12pm Eastern (head here to find your timezone)

• February, Asynchronous: Prompts delivered to your inbox. We will set up a community chat thread to share our work and weave inspiration with one another this month.

• Saturday, March 9th, Live on Zoom: 9am Pacific/ 11am Central/ 12pm Eastern (head here to find your timezone)

HOW TO JOIN:

Paid subscribers are invited to join every session for the duration of your membership— that can be month-by-month or annual. You’ll receive a call link via email the day before we gather. Here’s where you can sign up:

To give the gift of supported creative practice, here’s your link for sharing the love:

Or, you can also just just drop a hint to someone special that this might be great for them, too:

WHAT WE DO:

Play with Images & Words: Grab your sketchbook (or a stack of paper, or your iPad), have stuff to write and draw with & relax. I hold deep and generous creative containers. There is absolutely zero expectation that you be “A Writer” or “An Artist” to come to these gatherings— but we will do a lot of writing and drawing! Whatever your orientation to craft, these themed sessions will guide you right into discovery.

Court the Mystery: We often play games that invite some magic— some chance or surprise— to our creative process. We improvise, use interesting creative parameters, cross pollinate into one another’s work. Dabbling in a bit of crafty chaos, we release our usual stranglehold on creation (and perfectionism)— & typically come up with astonishingly deep art & poetry as we play.

Engage Our Senses & Imaginations: Sometimes we explore the outside world, sometimes we journey inward, often we listen to evocative soundscapes or take in visual delights. We let our senses lead us into discovery. We let our imaginations take us further.

Poetic Listening: Something unspoken & powerful is written between us each time we gather. We pay attention to what’s moving through the room as we share with one another and discover our community’s hidden threads.

WILL THERE BE A RECORDING?

Yes! We’re an international community & life is complicated. I’ll be scheduling different time slots throughout the year with this in mind. If you can’t make it to the Live, you’ll be able to follow along with the Zoom recording (Note- It usually takes me a day or two after each session to get the files uploaded and the replay link sent out).

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Now, a prompt for you…

We’re having a blizzard today and I’m feeling it. This music’s been on repeat for a few hours. I haven’t moved from my beanbag nest all day. It’s a 360 degree mood.

“SNOWED IN”:

Have you ever been really and truly snowed in before?* Piled up super high, no way out or in, buried in place until…..? (Or maybe you’ve been stormed-in before where it doesn’t snow?) Whether you’ve experienced this unique sort of liminal space or not, can you imagine what it feels like to be snowed in?

1. Close your eyes and take a sensory inventory, then pen to paper. Does the thought of being snowed in make you feel cozy & stoked? Or anxious as fuck? What does being snowed in look like? Smell like? Taste like? Sound like? Feel like? What’s the light doing? What’s going on in the animal world? What’s going on with the spirits? What is the opposite of being snowed in? What’s the worst case scenario? What’s the best case scenario? What’s the least likely thing you could imagine happening? What’s the most likely thing? What’s the first thought you have when you learn you’re snowed in? If being snowed in was a type of music, what would it be? If being snowed in was an era in your life, when was that? If being snowed in could talk, what would it say? Does it have something to tell you?

2. Now, write a poem that piles up like snow :

   Starting with 1 word in the first line and adding another word to each line as you go— the second line should be the 2 words “snowed in”, then the third line will have 3 words, the fourth line will have 4 words, etc until you finish with an 8 word line.

   Here’s an example from my notebook—

   1) weekend
   2) snowed in
   3) (power's still busted)
   4) (will kerosine kill us?)
   5) gut check says fuck it
   6) no fight, can't fly-- let's freeze.
   7) exhale everyone's expectations for your life and
   8) inhale cardboard game boxes from damp pine shelves.

(*I have — Neon and I lived The Shining as resort managers in Mt. Shasta… Once I’m far enough away from the primary trauma, I look forward to writing a hilarious and devastating book about it I’ll call, “Our Last Resort”…)

[There are some excellent 5-10 minute tracks on this ZenJazz album to use as timers if you like to write that way. Or live like me and play the whole album on repeat for a few hours and have fun thinking on the page! I’ll see ya there!]

xo,

You can reply to this email or contact me here if you’d like to connect.

To get a feel for my workshops & how I explore deep things with creative play, start here: