The Other “F-words”

Rancho La Puerta in MexicoDear Ones,This is a spontaneous blessings for the women after a week at Rancho LaPuerta.Shiloh Sophia Woman, sister, friend, you really have been through so much. You complete a cycle of initiation and a new one begins. I am walking in a storm in the dark.A crossroads appears out of nowhere for me, and for you.When you thought you were nearing your destinationa new journey opens.It's like a labyrinth. It seems to go on and on. Always looking to reach the center.Then as soon as you have arrived, making our way back outcrossing other people on the pathHopefully when you return to your life,you know the place you came from, newly, for the first time. Because after all, it is your life. And returning over and over and over to your same life with different eyes This is life. Breathe with me.As you breathe in, acknowledge, I am a sacred being, as you breathe out, all beings are sacred. Breathing in, I am a sacred being. Pausing and breathing out, all beings are sacred. Breathing in, I am a sacred being. Breathing out, all beings are sacred.Woman, Sister, Friend,I can't really imagine all the things that have shaped you into who you are. You really have been through so much.But right in this moment, I just want to acknowledge you for making it this far. There were times you thought you wouldn’tand I want to say to you that in this very nowin this now-ness, in this sacred exchange, right here between me and you, there's a shared field of supportive love and presence.The colorful weaving of threads, a fabric shawl woven to place gently about your shoulders.While I can't see you with my human eyes, I see you with the eyes of another woman. The sacred in me bows to the sacred in you. I walk around these stones in a storm I place my hands on the flashing mica. The rain comes and kisses my handsand I have this wish that you were with meI think of how we are earth, earthing,I think of how we are this stardest, starringin our own lives, perhaps not quite as glamourouslyas we once may have dreamedbut we are still Star Girls, aren’t we? We are cooling sacks of stars.Woman, sister, friend, this whole thing is an initiation!I don’t have to tell you that, because you already knowbut it is good to be reminded.I know, as sure as I know anything, this it isn't exactly as you dreamed and maybe not what you wanted or how you thought it would go.And like me you wonder and worry about things like trust, about health,about prosperity, longevity about the state of the world and your house and the health of your childrenand your children’s children.We wake up wondering, how did we get here?We wake up worryingWhat can I fix today?I walk around the stones.One cowgirls boot in front of the other.I come face to face with to a giant Grandmother Oak.I place my hands upon that mossy bark and I say, thank you for helping me breathe. I want to breathe with you.Breathing in, I am a sacred being. Breathing out, You are a sacred being. Right in this moment there is a sacred exchange of energy flowing between us that lets us know we are so much more than enough. Let us drop the ayers of imposedunworthiness that we took on without even knowing it.Outdated patterns that serve no one, Be gone! Let me just assure you now, you ARE worthy. Your worthiness is innate, no onecan give it to you and no one can take it from you.May the voice within you that has been hard on you be catalyzed into fierce wisdom and discernment and sharpened as a tool with your mind.You have honed over many years of witnessing what was safe and what wasn't,it tried to protect you but now it’s too hard on you.What if your our inner voice could starts to show you how and when to protect yourself, without hardening yourself.Oooh. That is the riddle for women, isn't it? How do we not harden ourselves as we guard ourselves?Walking alone at night in this village of wisdom-keepers and healersI have no fear and I recognizethis is a rare feeling. I know you know.Yet right now, there's a field around us a softening into love. My bubble of love bounces up to your bubble of love and says, Hello Friend!I affirm you, you are so much more than enough! And you are so worthy of all the love you have to give. The reality that you even exist is a radiant miracle to me!I bow at the feet of Mother Life for you at this tree. Let us pause and let all the beauty come into usand let all the beauty we choose to express flow out from us. This is a sacred exchange of energyinto the matter-based beings that we are.Between us and all creationto all the directions, all the elements, ahhhh…you are sacred beings and we are sacred beingswith you.Woman, sister, friend, I choose each step around this circleof stones and I raise my hands up to the skystars shining through rain andI say to the whole universe, I remember you! And I do.Woman, sister, friend, let us remember one another and reach, across those crossroads for one another's hands.I feel your heart beating in mine.This red thread extending The song of ancestors moves in these circles of stones.Shiloh Sophia For the women at Wisdom-Keepers week at Rancho LaPuerta Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

Class begins today! Visit Musea.org to join us! Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

Join me this week for a daylong experience of FLOW - let’s gather together in sacred space and nourish our nervous systems, shall we? scholarship code on check out: flow30 thinking of you and hoping you will consider joining me to flow! ❤️⭕️Shiloh Sophia Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

As I walk the moss speaksReminding me:This is sacred groundThis is all sacred groundVoices of the velvet emerald waysshimmy me shimmy meinto the deep listening placeReminding me...No!Summoning me!The first thing they do is to tell me:You are not who you think you areAnd if that wasn't enough, this:Your true name isn't spoken aloudYour true name lives insideIf you listen with the earsof your whole lifeOkay so let me get this clear -I am not who I ammy name is not my nameand somehow that is supposed tohelp me remember something I forgot?And it requires my entire life?I hear the resonant: Yesripple up from the moist red earthI feel the palpable pulseof the ripples of water ripplingThe salt water within me respondingdrawing me in, drawing me upHere's what I am thinking:The earth mysteries speakin riddle bones between bladesof dew-kissed grasses on the riverWhispering in tones of silver fishblack seal and blue heronmarking me with the invisible tattooof pre-existant beingness inmy stardust bonesAm I can getting closer? I ask?Then I cry out....Is it true?Is it trueis it true that I am more than I appear?Is it so, I have walked this pathof finding before?But...Finding, who, and finding what?Why?Why?When I weep at the sight of sunshineafter weeks of rain then there isa quickening from the crown of myvulva to the crown of my fuzzy headAll of this is a rememberingI am the sacred ground, groundingAll of this is a rememberingI am the sacred ground, groundingMy tears nourish the sacred groundQuick, can you catch my tearswith your lips?Each day there is more greyrippling in my hairMy eyesight is softeningaround the edgesMy skin is freckledwith so many sunlit beachesOh and so many late nightslistening to wavesand whispering in succulent kissesCalling to our seal sistersto come and get usDid you forget us here? Or what?The ocean always callsThe whole thing is really just amazingIsn't it?That we exist at all...That we exist at all is reason to worshipand good reason to listen to the echoesof velvet emerald moss when they speakPerhaps one day all the rememberingof this incarnation will come rushing throughFor now they give me shivers of cluesShivers up and down that spine of mineI bring these clues to lifethrough brush and penI offer what story they give me on the altarThe altar of the women who gather inThen suddenly I remember thisI do not always have my own backbut the moss,the velvet moss promises to back meUnseen forces of essenceof ancestral beautyare at my back now,singing me into remembrancewith invisible wings of lightYou are Our ancient childThey sayYou are guided by UsThey callYou can find Us in the mossesor in the rippling watersor in the chambers of your heartor in the kisses of your loverAny place beauty is, We areAny place beauty is, We areAny place beauty is, We areCan you remember this?We have called youby your secret nameYou have answered andNow you are readyReady? Ready for what???I panicThen of course, SilenceThen I breatheI touch moss tenderlyThen I remember...just enoughThe quickeningis moving through me nowI can feel thegreen fire sparks ignitingsomething true I hopeI hope it's something trueI turn towards the daythat felt dauntingwith a new daringbecauseI am backed by velvet greenI am backed by velvet greenI am velvet green, greeningShiloh SophiaMoss at Wild Water Creek on Sonoma Mountain OonapaisJoin me this week for a daylong experience of FLOW - let’s gather together in sacred space and nourish our nervous systems, shall we? scholarship code on check out: flow30 This poem, crafted today, is dedicated to all the people who are my great romantic loves. All of them true loves. All of them I hoped would be forever and a day. Loving so deeply and being loved so deeply changes you of course and helps you to become more of who you are. Each one of them does that for me and I hope I do that for them too. Loving is in cycles.Today, in poetry, they are One in me, One Love moving through as glorious green moss. Putting them in alphabetical order instead of chronological: Abe, Ali, Chris, Jonathan, Rahm Isaiah and Roberto - thank you, each of you, wherever you are, far or near, for sharing the beauty of life with me.I feel as if I turned a page yesterday, spending the day in silence by the river. I am not sure what page of what book but I feel the great turning, turning.The idea of moss as sacred arises from Sue Hoya Sellars. She was my mother Caron's lover. When they were first together in the late sixties, Sue and my mom were trying to find Creator together. They were on a spiritual journey. In one of Sue's journal entries she is praying to God about how to have a relationship with the Divine through the framework of an artist - and she says this:How shall I worship you?Moss, perhaps?~This poem started as worship for Creation and turned into a love story. My mom said that is what this life is, a love story. At times it can be challenging to continue to find that is the case - with so much harm happening to Earth - and to us, as Earth. But still, I will lean in and listen to the moss. Today giving thanks for so much love in my life.Getting older is a curious thing. To 'look back' and know that you have less time ahead of you than behind you. Then it is time to do all you can, to listen for your true name in between blades of grass, ripples of water, and the sprouting of grey hair and new freckles.People, including my chiropractor have been saying - touch the grass. I am touching the moss. Join me? It’s so very soft. Love to you right where you, are from right where I amShiloh Sophia Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

Inner Fire 2010 Arcylic on Paper by Shiloh SophiaToday’s podcast is an exploration of becoming conscious about the illusions.* Exploring George Orwell’s famous 4 fingers* Gaslighting ourselves and not trusting ourselvesAccusation of the other ‘side’ * Exhausting rabbit-holing to find Truth* Do not drink the divide and conquer koolade* Hearts and braings changing right now* A Centers of Knowing Coherence practice for discernmentThis podcast is complimentary - yet if you choose to contribute, be welcome. In Orwell's novel-made movie, 1984, there is a famous and devastating scene. Winston is being tortured by O'Brien, who holds up four fingers and demands that there are five. He wants Winston to distrust himself and go with the party's version of the truth, not just agree to it, but actually see it as so. "O'Brien says, Look at my hand, Winston. Right now, you see, indeed, four fingers held up to you. But as you can see, O'Brien uncovers his thumb, showing all five fingers. I have, in fact, five fingers. That is the essence of the party. Winston, you think you know the truth by seeing things with your senses. But as you can see, your senses can disappoint you. The party knows everything is everything. The party knows that there are five fingers here even if you only see four of them. The party knows the truth that you cannot see from the place you are standing at because you are weak alone. The party is strong and omniscient and therefore if the party says that two and two equals three or five it will always be right. You by yourself cannot know the truth." As each one of us experiences our own reckoning in relationship to our lives and in relationship to how we experience the nation, especially those of us in the United States, I want to invite us to continue to question what we see and think. It's curious for me how personal so much of this feels in relationship to experiences I've had in my life where I haven't been able to trust people and then end up not trusting myself.Some of them are the people I have loved the most. And in the end, it was my own hand showing the fingers to myself through just trusting my own experience over a longer period of time. Now, with the increase of AI easily showing us things that are not true, It can be very hard to believe our eyes.We are going to need other tools for discernment than we've needed before, really. I'm going to share a heart-brain coherence process with you very briefly to support with discernment. The images that AI are showing us makes me think about those Renaissance paintings where the patron would have the artist paint themselves into the scene, painting the patron inm and that those with the biggest purse strings and influence are defining the images of our times. When I offer art history tours, it is a very different tour indeed. I used to go on this tour with Jonathan and myself and our community to the Uffizi in Florence, and Elisabetta, our tour guide, would hand me the mic to give the alt history of what we're actually seeing. One of the changes that we need to make is how we're relating to the material. Because one of the challenges with truth right now is the exhaustion caused by rabbit-holing in order to discern the source so that we can figure out if something is true or not. And there goes another 15 minutes, and there goes another 15 minutes, and there goes our mood, and the algorithms, they got us. At the end, we still don't know if what we see is true, and perhaps we give in to overwhelm. One thing might upset me and another person something totally else, and we each act like the other person's concern is the distraction from what's really happening. And our critical thinking has been used in a sometimes productive and often nonproductive way, but the end result may be weary, irritated, and feeling unsafe, and deciding not to post after all. Can't we just find the truth with a capital T?It's hard to find right now. This process that we are experiencing is fundamentally changing our brains. We are also being changed in our hearts as more fear and distrust of the others around us in our lives and in the larger collective spaces increases exponentially.Divide and Conquer is here to stay for a while, so we need to not go for it. Do not go. Drink that Kool-Aid of divide and conquer. Discernment, choice, but not divide and not conquer. Because then they've got us right where they want us, fighting with each other instead of with them.Yet there is also more compassion that's happening. So the hearts are also opening because we're considering the impacts on other people's lives. People who never defended Mexicans, trans, and women are suddenly becoming more visible. We could go into all the different ways that this time is changing us and our voices.If you look back in my posts on my Tea with the Muse Substack you'll find that I've been talking about these topics for a long time. These are not new that I am suddently speaking about it. I'm just speaking about it more specifically in regarding what's happening here. But I've been talking about consciousness raising and discernment for my entire 30-year journey as a creative and someone who guides community. What I find really curious is that each side, quote, if you think of it that way, really thinks the other side is holding up the false number of fingers. Really, really, really think about this. We have rarely accused each other of the same illusionary experience and metaphor, even if the content that those hands are pointing to is different. Whose hand is it? We can begin to distrust the thoughts and feelings that we're having. In times like these, we question them and then are sometimes gaslit by others for our feelings and thoughts.We can just stop treating other people who don't agree with us as if they're just stupid. That would be helpful. Disagree, but leave the shame part out of it. The marketing propaganda from, quote, both parties is sickening. Sickening. Even as I'm making this message, I'm getting texts on my phone number from both parties about what's happening. Really.Without the heart-brain coherence pattern operating soundly within us, we become dysregulated in our nervous system. This is a real thing, y'all, not some new age idea. Our brain and our heart are communicating all the time. When we become conscious of it, we can collaborate with the process of coherence,which is always the right place to make a decision from. For those who know me, I think they can attest to a degree of severity that I carry forward. Yes, I am a wild, free woman who dances and houses with the moon and paints outrageous paintings.But I have a severity because I am deeply disturbed about the state of the world, and I have been since I was a young child, like so many of you. This disturbance about how I felt about the systems of the world was originally part of the inspiration to be of service when I was a teenager and became a rebel. I wanted to know how I could help. Now my inspiration is I'm just in love with the practices, culture, and community we have co-created called Musea. Musea, by the way, means museum in the plural or many muses. It acknowledges that we have people all over the world who are connected through creativity. Now I work from joy instead of disturbance while keeping my eye on the disturbance. The initial disturbance of how things are showed me how to become stronger towards what I care about. To be courageous at the root of courageous core, the heart.I want to invite you to spend time nurturing yourself and your heart and your brain every single day. When you are confused with something and something that needs discernment or you feel challenged, try this connection with your centers of knowing. This is about creating heart coherence.Creating Coherence in Centers of KnowingConsider physically touching each place that I'm about to mention lightly with your hands as you visualize the connection between each place. I like to see a golden ribbon of light between each area, each center of knowing. 1. Begin with connecting with yourself, capital S self, about whatever it is you're navigating.2. Ask your heart how it feels and what it perceives. The heart has the strongest electromagnetic field of the body. And the heart perceives in the field around you. 3. Travel next in your imagination to your brain and ask how it feels and what it perceives. Listen. 4. And then go back through your heart, landing in your gut,and ask how it feels and what it perceives. Listen. 5. And then when you're ready, travel to your groin region, front and back and all around the pelvic area, and ask, what do you feel and perceive? 6. And then I like to travel back up to the heart after listening. Check in on the topic. Was there agreement between those centers of knowing or disagreement? Was there coherence? And what is the decision now? In Intentional Creativity we might now take to the dance floor of the drawing board or the canvas, which is what I'm about to do on this Valentine's Day. If you check those centers of knowing and there are conflicting experiences, there is work of discovery to be done. Especially if it's just one area, then you can focus there, meditate, and see why there's disharmony. But in general, I try not to act until I get agreement from all centers. That way, I can have a clear voice, a true heart, and a pure mind experience in my decision-making and my discernment.If you would practice this even before you go online and even before you read articles and follow rabbit holes and watch YouTubes and anything else, you would be approaching this material from a very different place than what you'reencountering in the social media and news world and on your phone. I also recommend that you, before you engage, sort of open the file of engagement. And then close it when you are done looking. Don't just leave the portal open or the tab open.Close it energetically so these files are not running in the background all the time. I've made some of the hardest choices of my life through checking these areas for confirmation or lack thereof. It gives me courage. Regardless of all the challenging things, we are evolving and growing. And I believe we are becoming more conscious and more compassionate.I am seeing this time as an evolution. And we have a long way to go. That's why we need practices. I invite you to pay attention to whose hand is holding up the fingers and telling you how many there are. Can we do that? Some say that George Orwell was an optimist.Sometimes the one holding up the elusive hand is in our own minds. Isn't there so much richness here to explore in this wild becoming? I choose to see it as a wild becoming to wholeness. This is my choice, my conscious choice. Enter flow state and soak in as much beauty as possible as often as possible.And I'm sending big love as a wave out into the lives of those tuning in. And I too am tuning in to you with much loveShiloh SophiaPhoto by Jonathan McCloud Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

Hi everyone! I would like to offer a little bit of a heads up that some of my posts here are about to get a bit more intense. It’s my nature to explore justice. It’s in my blood.Did you know I wanted to be a judge when I grew up? I didn’t do it because I already thought the government was corrupt when I was 6.ultimately, I am not trying to caretake. I’m trying to find my own voice and at the same time offer encouragement to those who aren’t able to find their voice or don’t feel brave enough to share it.Anyways, I don’t have a plan for it, but we’ll see what happens. I was writing my memoir, but I have been stalled because I am deeply engaged in caring for my community at this time. If what I’m sharing does not work for you I totally understand and of course you’re welcome to unsubscribe. We each need to find the way forward together and sometimes apart. Shiloh Sophia This is a complementary subscription. Those who wish to donate and become paying subscribers that’s fine, I’m grateful - but you don’t need to. Even if Substack asks you to pay - as if I’m asking you I’m not. Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

We are cosmic pilgrimsYou are an ancient identityI see you, do you see me,seeing you? You are inhabiting a luminous garment of stardust framed upon crystal bones traveling on a forested spaceship at over 100,000 Kilometers per hourspiraling through our Milky Way galaxy on a mysterious voyage without a map or destination woven within a pattern of starskeeping time with the moonDarling, isn't it wonderous to have our own moon?That travels with us always?You, We, UsAre powered by an incandescent star Our glorious sun, we worship you stillYou light up our vessels of stars and waterwith the sacred geometry of your luminous nature Am I so different than this blooming tree?This hummingbird, could very well be meWe are encoded with a tenderand temperamental psycheliving within a story we won’t be able to controlEach of uscarrying unique hidden information that longs to be expressed in the shape of a living myth our hidden gifts looking forways to reveal themselvesthrough usYou are dreamed and designed by gracious Infinite Intelligence to have an Illuminated heart capable of ever-expanding poetry in a seemingly impossible situation Darling you are a cathedral of light!I worship at the foot of your altarsFlowers bloom where you have dancedI fall breathless into your potentialsFinding place, pace and grace in your moon-kissed faceWe don't know how we got hereWe don't really know where we are going nowBut we know thisLove is at the center Love is at the center Love is at the centerof the Universe We are cosmic pilgrimsYou are an ancient identityat the crossroads of an uncertain futureWill you cross the threshold with me?Shiloh Sophia Revisioned Poem today adapted from the original in 2021Oh my friends, my friends! I would love nothing more than to take a long walk with you, holding hands and talking. I want to hear from you - not just what you post when your mad, or glad, but instead the early morning joys and fears. The things you don't say at the luncheon with colleagues or the dinner table with family. I want to know about the words on the shingle you don't put out about the gifts you really have for these wild times. You could describe me as a painter, a poet, a relucant priestess. But those aren't my real titles. The gifts I have don't work on a business card, can't be put into an algorithm, can't be seen with a machine mind looking deeply into my online history. Who I really am is who I am when I am when I am with you. Whether that is over a cuppa virtual or in person tea with the Muse. Or most especially when I am leading ceremony and I can feel you through the black hole of the camera. My real gifts are feelings. Feeling deeply. I don't care if you know that, or if the machine knows that. You can't use it against me and I know you wouldn't even try. I am a Lover. The universe is my Lover. Like Michael Jackson says, I'm a lover, not a fighter. The kinds of gifts we carry cannot be taken from us by wit or force or password or pressure. Your truest gifts are natural and innate - they are all innately tucked into who you are. You don't have to grow them, earn them or be certified in these gifts. You are the gifts being given through you. The pace of life, and the never-ending intensity can keep us from living them. But that doesn't mean they aren't within you. We are worried about a lot of things right now. I know. I feel it. I see it. I am tracking the many narratives on all sides of the shadow dance of now. There is a grand confluence occuring and it hurts. By grand I don't mean great, I mean BIG. Most days it feels like an unnatural disaster that could have been avoided. But the way we are, the harm we allow and promote, has been going on for so long. No way out but through, you know?But now that I have offerd a poem and a reflection if you have made it THIS far - I want to ask you the MOST SIGNIFICANT question or our life time. Your lifetime. Any recent timeline.But first...the reality is we have been in various stages of oppressive culture for close to 8,000 years - archeologically speaking. So that means we spend A LOT, get that? A LOT of precious life force working on resistance and insistence. Resisting power structures, resisting false narratives, insisting on justice, insisting on human rights. The energy it takes to resist and insist can keep us caught in the worrisome battle of a disgruntled activists. Present company included. Just for now...for right this minute in the naked now, I want to ask you a question. Don't skip ahead please. Pause and breathe. There.....close your eyes....open them...read the question and without thinking....answer without editing....If you weren't in the resistanceHow would you lead your life? Really - if you didn't have to confront reality - how would you use your precious days?Liberate your thoughts through falling in love with your gifts, when they are in service to beauty as WELL as in service to the modern revolutionary conundrums. I have been living my answer to that question for over 30 years. I Trust that question and the community that has risen up around my answering that question. That doesn't mean I don't still persist in the resistance. What it means is I spend the majority of my life force centering on the joy of my heart, not the pain. I have rescued my energy from the grid of oppression. Which then works towards liberating my community as well. so here’s the thing. I’m not saying to step out of the resistance in any way -, what I am saying is to make sure you spend time caring for your own gifts. There is a long journey ahead and we’re going to need our strength.Your fellow cosmic pilgrimLoveShiloh SophiaAka Laughing Cloud Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

Beautiful beings! I hope you will take the time to listen to this brief message I exploring:* A choice in becoming conscious* Chemistry and mood shifts * Who is really in charge?* What’s the first step you can take?* A simple process you can do right now* Exercising your choice to become conscious and become a curator of your consciousnessthinking of youShiloh SophiaThe painting above is called an ancient future soul from 2023. The photo below is from last week! Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

Today’s episode offers a teaching on * Access to your consciousness, do you have it?* Accessing who you are ‘in here’, aka your Self* Discovering a new awareness about what ‘getting out there’ means* Defining ‘out there’ for yourself and activating the Observer * Exploring the ‘missing there’ called “around here” that takes place in the field* Invitation to become as conscious as you can become…nowDear Ones,There is a lot of influence happening ‘out there’ on who you experience yourself as ‘in here’. Let’s have a breakthrough TODAY in arriving as yourself. Becoming as conscious as you can be. I think sometimes I am here in your life just to keep encouraging you to arrive. When we ARRIVE you can become a conscious Co-Creator. To really be a conscious Creator we have to be willing to explore the “field” Until then we are often wreckless with how we create. Because if you aren’t inhabiting who you are - then you aren’t able to REALLY create from a space of a coherent self. Here’s to arriving!Shiloh Sophia Here's the thing, Beloveds. Your capacity to create the life of your design is really about access to your consciousness. Without that clear access to consciousness, we do not make what we could make and we often make things that are inconsistent with what we actually want and who we actually are, because we're not living "in here". "In here", meaning in this identity. And when we're not "in here", we embark on a life where we are constantly seeking to change ourselves. Because the life we're living "out there" in the world, doesn't reflect who we are "in here" (in the Self) And when we're not who we are "in here", everything "out there" occurs for us as somehow true to us. Not going well. Uncomfortable. Not in alignment. Now I want to make a clear point - that we are not spiritually bypassing here. The reality is there are lots of influences that shape who we are "in here" in ourselves because of what's happening "out there" in the world. But the power we have is the perception of how "out there" and "in here are" in a co-creative relationship with each other... or not. But the thing is, they're always in a co-creative relationship with each other. You just might not be aware that they are and how to work it. You can't influence every single thing "out there" unless you can shift your orientation to "in here". But there's more. Before we go on, let's start with what I mean by "in here". "In here" refers to the body, temple, cooling sack of stars that you are, and the Soul that you are that inhabits the space where you experience yourself as I or me. The Self space that you are occurs for you as inside, "in here". This often includes the sense of the body, but not often enough, the sense of the field and consciousness, which keeps us from being conscious Co-creators. And what do I mean by "out there"? Well, until we've done more rigorous work within ourselves to observe ourselves, "out there" is everything you do not experience as you. And "out there" often refers to what we think of as the world, yet through the framework of our worldview. "Out There" a big old space that we are continually interacting with largely in an unconscious way, because we've never really defined what "out there" means. The invitation for the work right now is to arrive, to come into yourself, to become as fully yourself as you can possibly be. And yes, in the twinkling of an eye. Quickly. It's a quickening because it's available to you now, but you have to choose it. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever said to yourself: "I just got to get myself out there" ? Entrepreneurs say it, but other people say it too. It's this idea that there's a place you need to get to. So where is that "out there" for you? Have you defined it? We say it largely in an unconscious way. We don't know what we mean. The idea of "out there" can create fear because it indicates that there's a place to get to and you're not already there. (Wherever there is) This idea of 'getting out there" indicates that you're somehow going to magically get seen for who you are so you can validate your worth in the eyes of others out there so that you can feel good in here. But listen, to even attempt an authentic version of what happens out there, we have to get in here, in this sack of stars inhabited by identity. Otherwise, we're not responsibly co-creating with creation and creator and other creative beings. In our community, We get "in here" by practicing Intentional Creativity because it's a way to get to know who lives in here. Our art matriarch who walked into her future in 2014, Sue Hoya Sellers, who was also the woman who mothered me with my own mother, Caron, had a quintessential question that she answered with her whole life. called "who lives in here?". Her art, her philosophy, her spiritual path were all directed by the inquiry of: Who lives in here. The discovery of that self who lives in here often happens through observing ourselves and amplifies as we observe ourselves in the acts of intentional self-expression. Self-expression without intention is also expression, but if you don't observe it, then you're not actually being metacognitive, which actually gives you perspective on how you are occurring for yourself so you can get to know who lives in here. So yes, self-expression is a way to get to know the who is in here so that you can shape how you want to live out there in the world that you observe. But here's the thing. Really listen now. There is more than in here and out there. But we haven't been acting like it. The missing of the interstitial space between how we experience ourselves in here and the world out there has been missing for most of us. And it's called the Field. In this case, when we're talking about your body and your identity, it's a local field specific to you and how you interact with the other fields of people and places and ideas. But you have a field at least 10 feet around your body that's invisible, that's just as much you as your physical body. So there isn't just in here and out there. There's a space between you. We aren't conscious enough to look for it, but it's where all the action is. Perhaps we could call it "around here". The field is all around your body and your body is held within it and your consciousness is connected with it. But that field that you are is also interconnected with all of creation and creator and all creative beings. This is our animistic worldview that everything has substance and aliveness. And that your substance and aliveness connects with the other substances and alivenesses. And this creates a connection with Source. So this willingness to explore "around here", the invisible space, which holds it all in place, invites us into profound self observation, metacognition, which is thinking about thinking. And the observer is the part of you, the neuroscientifically gorgeous part of you, that allows you to think and see and perceive who you experience yourself as. Which allows you to be on a journey of becoming as conscious as you can or becoming conscious of becoming conscious. When you become conscious of the practice of becoming conscious, then you can become a responsible and resilient and radiant Co-creator. Otherwise, we are often reckless in our capacity to see and feel all the interconnected parts in the field. So if there's only in here and out there and there's no space between, we're not acknowledging interconnection. And if you do not acknowledge interconnection, you do not become the Co-creator with all of creation that you could become. And sometimes I think, this is why I'm in your life. You are all out there creating consciously or unconsciously. And I'm someone in your life who continues to remind you to become accountable to becoming conscious in here and around here. We need conscious, creative, compassionate, caring, intentional community to hold sacred containers with one another right now. Our experience of what's happening out there can often feel scary. If you will tune into in here and around here, you can become powerful in your relationship with out there by choosing the framework that you're interacting with the out there space. And you can't do that without getting into the around here part, the field. Einstein says the field is the sole governing agency of the particle. That means that the field around you and around others is where the action takes place that impacts the matter you experience as your body, which then sends chemistry and signals and emotions, which then send the information from the body to the brain and the brain to the body and the heart as the intelligent mediator of this exchange. All this is happening all the time anyway. The only question is will you become a Co-creator and become accountable to who you're becoming? You could arrive to be as much you as you can be right now by just choosing. Will you choose with me? With love, Curate Shiloh Sophia Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

In this Bouncing Love Bubble Meditation we include* Initiating a state change* Attempting to collaborate with our chemistry for a lift* Increase heart brain coherence* Feelings of Gratitude* The awareness of your body field* Amplify biophotons of love light in the body* Release your current version of reality (for the moment)* Travel to imaginal utopian lands - what will you imagine?* Erupt in LOVE because you can - proclaim to the universe - I AM LOVE!!!* Choose one small thing to change in your lifeBeautiful Beings - I can ALMOST guarantee that if you do this meditation you will feel a bit better. We are capable of moderating our mood to the best of our abillity and sometimes we need a burst of JOY to make that possible. A state change, a lift. You will hear me laughing, almost crying and even my stomach gurgle (LOL) as I guide you on this spontaneous adventure into the imaginal world to experience gratitude, love, a utopian landscape of your subconsious and choose to make one small change in your life. Basically, feel better.Today’s meditation is inspired by Holly, Lavender and Michelle, three women in my community with teenagers or youth. When I first came up with this meditation I imagined them being able to listen to it and get a lift, but then it went too long and it might not work for the attention span. BUT you could try it. Soft blankets on a big couch and a cuppa tea and this…you could try. I will attempt some other ones for youth soon, I am sparked to do something I can to help with our nervous systems by choice. We can’t explain the bizarre time we are in to them, deep inside they know we have failed them in this society. So now it seems like it is time to offer them as many tools as possible - and for me this begins with claiming their imagination. Really it is more like rescuuing it from the reality they have been sold and told. Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe