This is no time to turn back

Making a Case for the MuseWell, it’s a silly thing to have to explain,making a case for the Muse,because anybody who’snavigating an insurance claimfor a fallen tree or received a speeding ticketbecause the Rolling Stones came onand you just couldn’t help but danceand you pressed so hard on the pedal.I just can’t get no, no, no, no... satisfaction.I mean anyone who forgot to renewtheir driver’s license and got turnedaway at the airportunderstands the need for amusement!Come on, just look at the text thread.You are perusing through right now.Almost every other text isasking you for something.How about the peoplewho got a hold of your phone numberand won’t stop inviting you to applyfor that job or apply for a loanthat you already qualified for or better yettell you that your mother lost her phoneand she’s trying to reach you.And she died three years ago. Rest her soul.Can you see how much the muse is needed?Can you see?If we don’t start laughing more...and soonThis whole thingwill try to convince usthat this is reality. Imagine that!And still you wonder, what if it is Mother,reaching from the other side?You light a candle for her just in caseThere is definitely a need for the Musewhen suddenly you have moredoctor’s appointments thanlong lunch dates with girlfriendswho call you darlink’ and batttheir eyelashes at you, like Marlena Dietrich.It’s just rough these days.When you finally gotinto a routine of happy hour andfound a beverage that tastes just rightand makes you chill out immediatelyand then your doctor tells youit’s going to turn to sugarand you just can’t have sugar anymore.WTF is going on here, people!And then there’s all the paperworkand the whispers of divorceand diagnosis all around youand the password hell? Don’t get me started.Right now, there’s more than one friendwho’s having delusionsand the dementia articleswon’t stop showing themselves.You can’t help but clickon that one tip that will keep youfrom forgetting your dog’s name.Do I need to convince youthere’s a need for the Muse,for goodness sakes?How about this? The reality thata woman can grow a mustache in her 50s?Uh huh. Overnight!And suddenlythere’s more hairon your inner thighs. Ew.And you’re just so gratefulif you happen to have a loverwho appreciates you gettingmore furry becausethere’s more fur coming, you know?The hair in your eyebrowsmigrated to your chin, andthat is just no good!Then there’s that innocuous molethat you like to call a beauty markthat has one black hair andone white hair growing out of it andthey seem to appear overnight andyou don’t have white hair or black hair.I mean, what the actual flying F!If you keep them there for amusement,they will eventually curl at your chin!Sometimes I wishI could talk to God andask Them about certain things.Do you have a list like this?God, do you have a moment? Please.Couldn’t you have made it so thatwe don’t have violence built into usas a possibility and we couldstill have free will?Couldn’t you have madethe instructions for healinga wound a little morereadable?Why would you allowbizarre things likeextractive capitalism to evenenter our minds?I mean, the list goes on and on, y’all.What’s on your list?Yet more than a list of complaints,I have a list ofgratitudes that runs all day long.Dozens upon dozens of anemoniesin my garden, soft magenta, yellow centers.The regal Valley Oak and thelarge Band-Tailed pigeons from California,and that the sun is shiningthrough my window, even thoughone of the trees had to be taken down,the neighbor asked me, and I did,and it’s sad, but now I can seethe mountain and the sun.The gift that when my heart is hurting,my kitty will come and sitright on top of my heartand purr without being petted.It’s far longer, the list of gratitudesthan the list of complaints.There’s definitely a need for the Musebecause amusement is medicinethat everybody needs. The muse alwaysprefers leopard over beige.She definitely has a preference forrhinestones over buttons.She really likesfried chicken and mashed potatoesinstead of broccoli and fish without butter.The Muse cannot conceive of a worldthat does not have butter,I mean, can you?Or chocolate? That’s a whole food groupfor the Muse, y’all.But here’s the thing.If you invite the muse in,she can be extremely disruptiveto whatever invented balance you pretendyou’ve created in your household.She wants to disrupt your life. She used some giant golden scissors tocut you out of your box, the one you made!And you’re standing there questioningif you should step out or not because youdon’t know what you’re going to find out thereand you’re not sure you can make it backfrom wherever you end upby Monday morning at 9 o’clock.Sometimes you just don’t care andyou walk out of that box anyway,and you find the blue sky, you always knewwas right there.Do you think about quittingyour job 10 times a day?I mean, just admit it. I do.I may not be employable, however.Do you wonder whythat person you love so muchhas a sticker on their bumper for theopposite side of the party you decidedis the most right choice?When you see someone smilingin the grocery store for no apparent reason,while they’re gazing at the crackers,gluten-free or wheat?Why don’t you just walk up to them and askthem their secretand tell them how glad you areto see them?What have you got to lose anyway?Nuthin’ Make their day. What if each day you couldjust smile as often as you think about it,just break into a full scale, non-beautiful,unapologetic, toothy grin.That’s just one of the waysto let the Muse in.I’ve got lots of other tips and tricks,for the seduction of the Musewhen you’ve been having a dry spell.Lubrication definitely helps to get things going.And let me tell you, you better get things going.Don’t wait too long and let your bodygo to sleep on you!If you invite the Muse to come into your life,she’s going to request more actionbetween the sheetsif you know what I mean.Whether you are havinga lover now or not,she still has demands forgetting the juices flowing.Just for today.I know exactly howI will court my muse.It helps to startwith the leopard underwearand the push-up braand the rose oil on my nipples,the sparkling lip gloss thatmakes huge lip prints on my pink cupin the pink cowgirl boots that stompwith abandon, all that helps out!Your Muse has a different kink than mine,of course, what is it then,that your Muse requests of you?There is definitely a case for the Muse,because the news is just bringing usto one dumpster fire after another,and I’m not saying we don’t have tokeep taking out the trash.I’m saying we needto adjust our schedule and our prioritiesto create spaciousnessso the Muse can take up residencein this house you call “my life”.Give her chocolate and striped it socks,red ones, and purple butterfly barrettesand play her songs by the purple man, Prince.Make her a cup of tea for you and me,and let’s hang out in the imaginal landwhere everybody’s already free.And of course,there are flying unicorns and fairy cake.I’m headed to the giant canvas now,where a circle of women is gatheringin colorful clothing, the Council.They arrive with baskets and crock potsfull of the yummiest food to Stardust Ranch.I made my famous lentil soup and hummusfrom dried chickpeas in preparation for the party!And the Phoenix woman, yeah,the one who rose againis appearing on my canvas.She has lots to say to meand the Muse is the gatewayfor hearing her voice,and I am listening.The truth is, today I’m walking with a limp.Like Jacob, I’ve been wrestling with an angel,and I won’t let go until the angel blesses me.But in the meantime, I’m walking softly andcarrying a big lipstick and a walking stick.Honey, I just know deep downin my stardust bones,that we all need to invite the Muse to teaand offer her a giant paintbrush.I just know these things.Like Dolly Parton says:Decide who you’re going to beand do it on purpose.”Join me on October 3 Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

Ancestor Ceremony - 24X48 if you are interested, it is available at 40% off. Please let me know!All upcoming events including in person circles, and free classes and book launches are available at www.musea.org Join us for the Elements of Grace book launch - with Bethany Zare - I illustrated the cover and the inside art. No Time to Turn Back This is no time to give up on what matters to you. This is not a time to surrender into despair. The signs of the times are not a sign to stop. We are weary and it is good and normal to admit it. These times are also not a sign to use all of your energy in fight mode.We need to reserve our strength. To choose ever so wisely how we will steward our life force and where we will put our resources and how we can live our lives not in constant reaction. The power over structures and constructs want us to be caught up in their power struggles. Women’s voices shouting into their deafening silences.We are rightfully dismayed and disgusted but we will not be stopped for our sacred work.What you love and care for and desire can still be at the center of all of your choices. Each day we choose again and again to serve the highest good while not exhausting ourselves. We can choose to find the beauty everywhere while not turning from the suffering.We can cultivate the depth of community that we long for and not wait for someone else to do it. You do it and I do it and we do it. Call the circles or come to those of us who are calling them ourselves. These are hard times indeed. Our grandmothers warned of them.My grandmother called this “the end times”. These are times where goodness is alive because we are co-creating it. Move forward according to the power you have in your heart and body. Each day, whatever it is, is enough. Trust that power in connection with the sacred and the natural world.Choosing always what is right and good for you before any other choices. Many of us, oh so many, are here beside you. Sound women with sound voices and sound medicine are gathering now. On the mountaintops, in the forests, in the valleys. We are always gathering. We’re gathering each other. Now. Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

BE HER NOWThe sun is setting over the soft magenta anemoneswith golden centers where the bees drink.And I can’t stop wonderingabout where all of this began,this narrative to be more,do more,become more,achieve more,more,more than you are.More.More than you need to be.More.By someone else’s standards.More.To the degree that you losewhoever you already were.For a time, of course —whoever you already were can never be lost,because that’s all within you anyway.But the narrative of strive and driveand carry the burdens of the ancestors’ crimesis too much to ask.The band-tailed pigeons are fluttering in the valley oak,both of them on the watch list right here.I listen to the sound of their wings.And when the ravens come and the squirrels run,how they all communicate together.I can’t help but wonderwhere that whole narrative started.Whose grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmotherfirst had to step out of the matriarchal frameworkinto the dominant framework in order to survive,and how this errant thoughtthat there was something better over there to become.Something better over there to have.Something better than what she had.Something better to achieve,to receive,to compete for.To even ask for,but worst of all,to want for.To want for something other than what there isin one’s own self and life and being.Something betterstirring us to look outside of ourselves.And I just can’t help but wonderabout those moments in each of our lineageswhen we are striving towards something better,which really makes whatever we have seem somehow less,and us seem somehow less as a result of it.The hummingbird is pausing at the rose,red-trimmed white petals bloomingbeside the golden sun-kissed tomatoesand the mint,the basil.Everything wants to be enjoyed.It doesn’t want to be compared.It wants to be appreciated for what it is.The tomato and the rose and the mintdo not have a story of needing moreor being better.They become the fullest versions of themselvesin this sun,in this full moon energy.And I’ve been writing for days,decades,to articulate the unarticulatable.To share that which I cannot find the words to share.There’s a sacred urgencyhumming in my stardust bones.And it’s about this:how everything we really need is already here and innate.It’s with us.We don’t have to earn it.We don’t need more.It doesn’t need to be better.But the riddle isthat isn’t how we experience it,and it’s not what we’ve been taught,and it’s not how it feelsin the daily struggles of our lives.And yet there’s this sacred unhooking that happenswhen we realize,or just to come from,for a cycleor an afternoonor an houror the length of a poem walking through your heart,that everything that is needed is innate.That there’s no place else to get to,nothing more to add,and nothing better to become.And that doesn’t mean we don’t wishfor a small patch of grassto lay on our back and look at the moon.That doesn’t mean we don’t wishfor sturdy, solid bootsthat will last for more than one wet winter.That doesn’t mean we don’t wishfor everything to be organic and sustainable,and the salmon to not be farmed,and the strawberries to not be GMO’d.We do wish for these things,but it’s how we internalize them,how we make it mean somehowthat we’re something less.Everything I’ve been moving towardis toward this ideaof revealing ourselves to ourselvesas the ultimate act of sacred sovereignty:to not need more,not be better,not need to be seen and acknowledged.Not need to have a title or a designationor an affirmation by others,but to simply acknowledgethe innate majesty of who we are.And the journey, really,of recovery,of making new promises to ourselves.Not promises about more and better,but promises about being.Not promises about needing to belong somewhere else.Not promises about needing to heal some ancient woundthat happened before we were ever bornthat we’re trying to heal this lifetime.And not just to simply be here now either.More likebe her now.Like even for a couple of seconds.Right now.Right now.As the butterfly bush dieswith the purple rain-colored flowers,beckons for a kiss from the passing flutterby,just looking for that connectionthrough the sun and the air.A place to be met within one’s self.A space and a placewhere identity just rests in itselfthrough this expression of soulthat has always been here.That is so easily forgotten,not because we forget,but because it is hidden from us.Some gorgeous way to access the truest voicewhich is held within usand set it free from the constraints of silence.Some way to curate this gorgeous consciousness that we areso we can design our own mindsand liberate that self-expressionwhich is begging for form,for matter,for energy equals matter at the speed of lightto become matter at the speed of light.Plus love.Approximately equals the stardust bones that you already arein this cooling sack of stars.Where you can source your own presence enoughto embody your sensuality with more pleasurethan you could ever have imagined belong to you.To manifest the prosperitywhich is in alignment with the generosity of all of creation.Because everything we need has been provided,and it’s so hard to remember thatwhen scarcity is enforced.When the morning light came on the pink lady applesand there were enough apples to eat throughout the day.What generosity,what generosity.Prosperity manifested,to see it as suchand love it,to be in love with the apple.To be so in love with the applethat you could spend an afternoonor an houror five minutescatalyzing your calling,not to have or be more or better than,but because it’s just innate and natural for youto want to create beauty.Not to save the world,but just to create beautybecause your hands want to,because your heart sees some potential.Not to rescue,but just because it’s f***ing beautiful to make beauty.And it’s enough.And you are enough,and you know this.You know this deep down in your cells.That you are a sovereign initiateof this cosmic unfolding.That you, like me,are part of an ancient futuristic Stardust Lineage.That we don’t need to do anything to become it.We just say yes to it.And then the practice is the lifestyle.A lifestyle of pleasure and beauty and self-expressionwith intentionof continually arriving in the now.Be her now.No permission,no apology,no need to become.Just being for the sake of beingis the beauty unfolding right now,as this poem runs through my bodylike a wild horselooking for a view of the harvest moon.Shiloh Sophia Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

Good morning everyone! I dreamed all night about the ranch. Here are my rambling thoughts about what Rose and an invitation for you to relate to where you live in a new way! Have a beautiful day! Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

Good morning! In today’s episode, I’m inviting you to design a point for yourself. To fall in love with the tedium. And to do five things today with With Me. Tune in to find out. Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

How is your relationship with pain dominating your life?Do you create the space for pleasure?Today's podcast recorded from the convertible today on the way to the "spa" aka gym is a dare to do this practice three times today. The Muse is asking - will you listen? Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

A poem about stepping outside of our comfort zones... and meeting the old woman of the forest. Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

This is a reading from my book, Tea with the Midnight Muse, Invocations and Inquiries for Awakening. This one’s called Medicine Woman, and it goes way, way, way, way back to when I was 30 years old. It was at one time published inside of the Mother Tongue Publishing We Moon Calendar.And today I am painting with Havi Mandel, co-director of Red Madonna. And you are still invited to join us for a 13 moon journey in the sacred feminine where you activate your medicine woman. Okay, ready? Ready? Medicine WomanThe wild one lives within all women.She is known as Medicine Woman. She holds the tools for healing in her magic basket. She sings her prayers, you know. Medicine Woman knows stars and sums. She listens between worlds. Medicine Woman cannot be domesticated at all, ever. Even when we don’t recognize her, she is always here.She has blue butterflies and red roses in her hair and golden boots with wings. She’s at the movies with teenage girls on Friday night. She gets a tattoo of the Guadalupe on her left bicep in San Francisco’s Mission District and the Sacred Heart of Jesus on her right bicep.You may catch a glimpse of her silver striped leggings as she roller skates through New York’s Central Park. She teaches workshops on right brain, left brain, the critic and her lover, the muse, or the geometry of numbers or raw food or revolution for breakfast. She pays for everything with cash.She paints glitter on her toenails, fire engine red. Just don’t think you have her figured out. She will always surprise you. She shows up in a crimson dress sewn with a white dogwood bodice and a bay leaf hem. She is the sound of bells. She may let her armpit hair grow.She is the place within all of us that wants it all and wants to give it all up. She swims naked in the ocean. She rides motorcycles up the coast. She paints and writes and dances and dreams and she has multiple income streams. She is medicine woman. She heals the unexpressed in us.She asks the question, who are you not being? Her life is her own. She is on her own and she likes it that way. Don’t be surprised if she asks you to miracle tea and you find yourself drunk with aliveness and honeycomb cake. Shiloh Sophia Today I wish to dedicate this to three incredible members of our teamwho have shown up in extraordinary ways this week. And many weeks, but in particular, right now. The one and only Curate Kelly House. Co-leader of Sacred Echoes, Isabelle Guzman Stark. And live streamer, Vicchi “V” Oleski Thank you. You are all medicine women to me and to our community. And I love you. Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

Making ritual conscious. First, there are three long spoons laid upon a napkin from Hawaii, handmade on top of a cutting board made by a teenage daughter. A cup from Monet’s garden and the ingredients. First, filtered water in a teapot from New York. First, smelling roses from three beautiful godchildren.Laying out the honey from where I grew up, Lover’s Lane. Grinding coffee, mold free and you beginthe whole thing I learned from a Muse by capitalizing the word Coffee and organizing the ingredients in beauty. Once the coffee has gone into the French press and the water has boiled The rest of the process begins.The scoop of honey goes into the cup. A scoop of coconut oil goes into the cup. Cinnamon and nutmeg and vanilla go into the cup and stir the little mash into a ball. When you put the water into the French press,don’t forget to set your alarm for 5.33 minutes, and only then do you froth the half and half. When the time feels right after you’ve looked out the window and pet the cats and pondered your attitude for the day, only then do you add the half and half, the milky foamy substance Into the mix in the cup. And then you stir vigorously, making a slurry of yumminess. (Resist the temptation to drink this elixir.)Make sure everything is emulsified. Look out the window again. Text that one person that you know needs to hear from you, that they are loved. Then stand around in fuzzy socks and breathe deeply as if you have all the time in the world. Smell everything. Love everything.And when the alarm goes off, smile as you gently press down the coffee. But then wait. From here, as you ponder the deliciousness of coffee. Coffee, or what we call Tea with the Muse. You set your tone for the day one more time to an outlook, not just of gratitude, like, hey, I’m grateful for that, but active appreciation, anticipation of bringing beauty and amusement. Call your Muse right then, right before the coffee is ready to pour. She is usually sitting with her group of friends cackling on the dark side of the moon. She loves this dark new moon solar eclipse energy. When you are ready, invite her!Don’t take your eyes off of her as she comes because she may slip through the cracks in the floorboards if she doesn’t quite feel your presence. The quality of your presence in this sacred in this less than 10 minute ritual that will determine whether or not the Muse actually appears.When you call her you know she’s a bit of a fickle one and a bit of a wild one. She demands a quality of presence. She demands ceremonial time. Kairos instead of industrial time and Chronos. The Muse doesn’t have any clocks but the moon. And believe me, she wants to be with you.But she will only appear and only stay if you slow down.Then, pouring it into the cup and stirring again. Then finding the perfect place for you and the Muse to sit in fuzzy socks and fuzzy blankets and recognize you began the day with making ritual conscious and every single other action in this day will be shifted as a result of the quality of your presence. Life is good. As our art matriarch used to say, being an artist is so romanticWith love, Shiloh SophiaWe start this weekend - Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe