EPISODE SUMMARY
Kim Krans is a visionary artist, author, and creator of the New York Times Bestseller The Wild Unknown Tarot. She joins us to discuss the magic of tarot, the collapse of 'The Artist' archetype in current culture and society, and the importance of showing up to support our own inner artists as the most important thing we can do to heal the world.
There is an incredible guided mediation at the end (in the homework section) and Kim does a tarot reading in the interview for everyone listening. Don't miss this one!
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SHOW NOTES
Have you ever had a tarot reading and been bewildered by how the exact right cards for you in that moment showed up? Kim is an expert in tarot and gives us a beautiful history of the cards and a really cool explanation of why this happens, explaining the universal magic behind this phenomenon.
Kim Krans is a visionary artist, author, and creator of The New York Times bestseller The Wild Unknown Tarot and she joins us to discuss the magic of tarot and the importance of showing up to support our own inner artists.
Kim does a tarot reading for us - I had her pull a card for all of us (that means you) and her reading is absolutely poetry to listen to - I can almost 100% guarantee that you will feel like she is speaking directly to you. It will send shivers up your spine.
At one point she guides us through an amazing exercise with tangible instructions of how to contact the creative field and harmonize your being with that energy. I had never heard something so concrete to point to something so esoteric. It was amazing.
There is some beautiful homework at the end of this episode, a great little practice that if you really give yourself to, can be powerfully transformative in bringing you even closer to your own ocean of creativity.
A prolific creative influenced by range of mystical traditions, Kim has published three oracle decks and guidebooks, one memoir, an interactive journal, and five children’s books. Kim is also known for her work as a multi-media artist, filmmaker, and musician.
At 15 years old, Kim left her small family farm in Michigan after receiving a scholarship to Interlochen Arts Academy where she double majored in Creative Writing and Visual Arts. She later moved to NYC and received a BFA in drawing at The Cooper Union and an MFA at Hunter College. Most recently she received an MA in depth psychology and the humanities from Pacifica Graduate institute, where she studied alchemy, archetypes, shamanism, and other esoteric modalities as they appear in the arts.
Describing her approach to creativity, Kim stated, “I’m a shapeshifting, multidisciplinary artist who creates doorways to the imagination - to other realms. My job is to make the portals too beautiful to resist, so people slip through without realizing it. What I am truly interested in is the power of image, and the power of ritual, to transform the individual and the world.”
Kim is perhaps best known for her drawings in The Wild Unknown Tarot, which was first self-published in 2012 and later rose to become a NYT bestselling title, now translated into ten languages. Her occult-turned-mainstream drawings can be spotted on tarot cards, handbags, books, snowboards, celebrity social feeds, and tattoos across the globe.
Kim teaches events and workshops around the world that activate the forces of creativity and radical transformation through art, meditation, mysticism, and movement. She is currentlY working on her newest and final oracle deck and guidebook, which will be published with Chronicle Books in 2022. Kim is also adapting her graphic novel Blossoms and Bones—a story about addiction and recovery based on her personal experience—into a film script.
Additionally, Kim has recently returned to making music after a 10-year hiatus from her musical project Family Band, where she was the lead singer and songwriter on two albums and creative director of multiple music videos.
Kim currently lives in New York City.
"To be an artist is to be absolutely active in each passing moment of ones life, deciding, ‘where am i going to put my attention and how can that further service my role in the world to give?"
WHAT WE TALK ABOUT
-What is at the core of all the problems we face today and how stepping into our creativity is the path out of the mess we’ve made of the world.
-How cultivating & supporting the artist is so important right now because we need new solutions, we need beauty & hope.
-How answering creativity’s call is the most important thing we can do - and it can feel so meaningless - it is easy to think, ‘Why would I journal about my own life with everything going on in the world?”
-Kim shares her biggest learnings have been over the couse of 10 years bringing a big body of creative work into the world.
-Why we might want to approach our entire lives as though they were a work of art… (including rest) and how to begin to do this
-What is tarot, and why does it seem so magic? How its used and why it has been compelling and powerful for people over the centuries - and the true gift and magic of tarot
-She does a tarot reading for us - that is absolutely poetry to listen to - I can almost 100% guarantee that you will feel like she is speaking directly to you. It will send shivers up your spine
-Why we back away from the mega power place of creativity inside us - and how it is the most beautiful generative place to be
-She guides us through an amazing exercise, tangible instructions of how to contact the creative field in such a way that you can give any of your concerns to it and let them go and truly have a sense of trust that everything is going to be taken care of. I had never heard something so concrete to point to something so esoteric. It was amazing
-A wonderful little thing you can do on the days you are not sure, to prove that you really really matter.
Thank you to all my Patreon supporters Your support is so important. You are amazing humans. I love you so much! I made you a beautiful 30 minute guided meditation called’ Finding Stillness in the Midst of Chaos’ - it’s already in your patreon account!
And if becoming a Patreon isn’t right for you at the moment, but you still want this meditation, but you can treat yourself to a copy of it here
REVIEWS
Beautiful reviews have been steadily coming in (thank you to everyone who has left one) please leave one if you have not yet.
CREATIVE GENIUS FAMILY - PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP
Join our private Facebook Group ‘The Creative Genius Family’ a safe space to share about your creative struggles and triumphs and connect in person with other listeners for support & inspiration.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Kim Krans 0:02
The power that's inside any instrument inside any drawing tool inside your journal. Inside the paintbrush is there's literally power in those instruments, whatever they are movie making, even like preparing food for friends and family in kind of a radical way and thinking about where it comes from and putting energy in the food, any of these practices, there's mega power there. And it's easy to avoid it because we don't know where it's going to take us and we want to stay safe
Kate Shepherd 0:45
Hello, gorgeous is what I call my kids. And I was thinking about how I imagine you. And I don't imagine you get that Mike that you're my kids. But I love you from the same place. So Hello Gorgeous is. I'm really excited about today's episode. I'm talking to a visionary artist and amazing author and creator of The New York Times bestseller The wild unknown Taro. It's an amazing conversation. I'm going to tell you a little bit more about Kim and the conversation in a minute. I wanted to share with you first I revisited Lynn ripples episode again this week. That takes us back to season one, episode 16. And I just had this like spidey senses moment where I felt like I needed to tell you that whether you're new to the show or not, or you've or you've heard that episode, go back. I feel like there's a reason I'm being called to tell you to go back. Because I you know, I think sometimes we can get caught up in the idea that we have to take our work seriously and make it happen. And I know that happens to me sometimes. And everything about Lynn ripples energy reminds me and I think will remind you about the importance of playing, not just in life, and not just in our creative practices, but anywhere where we rely on creativity to bring the best out of us in our day to day lives. So go back and listen to Lynn Whipple. I think she will delight you. She's an amazing human being. And I think it'd be really happy that you went back and listen to that one. So joining us today from New York City is Kim Krantz who is a visionary artist, a tender soul, a generous creator, and also the author of The New York Times best seller, the wild unknown Taro. And Kim is an expert in tarot, and gives us a beautiful history of the cards themselves. And a really cool explanation of why they work. So well. Have you ever had a Tarot reading and been just bewildered by how the exact right cards were pulled, and you got the exact message that you needed to that day, it happens all the time. That happens every time I pull a card from the creative genius deck for our conversations. And she explains this universal magic behind this phenomenon. And I really appreciated hearing that because I didn't know all of the things that she told me. And she does a tarot reading for us, I had her pull a card for all of us, that means you and her reading is absolute poetry to listen to, I can almost 100% guarantee that you'll feel like she is speaking directly to you, and that it will send shivers up your spine. It's gorgeous. It's beautiful. And I have a feeling it's exactly the message you needed to hear today. And maybe it's even why you tuned into this podcast today. So make sure you stick around for that part. And at one point, she guides us through this really incredible exercise with tangible instructions for how to contact this creative field. You know, a lot of time we talk about creative flow, and the creative field. And this magic that surrounds this sort of aspect of humans. And I don't know that anybody's ever been able to give me concrete instructions to point to something so esoteric, it was amazing and beautiful. And her words are actually in this practice is actually something that I've brought into my day to day life. And I have to tell you, the transformative power of this small practice is enormous. So I really want you to take that with you in your day, and have that in your creative toolkit as you go forward. And on that note, stick around to the end of the show, because I'm going to have some homework related to that for you. To help you do that. I want to give a shout out to my Patreon supporters. Thank you, thank you, thank you, your support is so important to me. You are amazing humans. I love you so much. And a couple of weeks ago, I made you a beautiful guided meditation about finding stillness in the midst of chaos. And if you're already a Patreon It's already in your Patreon account I have to do is log into your account and you can get downloaded right there. And if you haven't become a patreon yet, this may be a perfect excuse to do that. You can go and find out all that you need to know about that by going to patreon.com/creative Genius podcast and if becoming a Patreon isn't right for you at the moment but you
still want this meditation and think it'd be cool to buy something that might support me in this work, you can treat yourself to a copy of this meditation on my website, which is Kate Shepherd creative.com. And there'll be a link in the show notes. And I want to share with you a beautiful review that came in last week. You know, I read the reviews every week, and they just make my heart you can probably hear my voice, they make my heart feel so much bigger. And I wanted to share this one with you because it just really made my day it came from Chloe star and Chloe writes, inspiration to play. Thanks, Kate, for your exploration and inquisitive nature. It's inspiring and joyful to hear from different people, and have them share their creative journey. art and creativity is for everyone. And I hope this podcast empowers people to feel free to play and express themselves. Whatever Avenue it takes them in, look forward to listening to more, and also where your calling takes you as well. And then she left a little heart. Thank you, Chloe. That is also my wish for this podcast, I hope that it empowers people to uncover how they've been maybe holding back their creativity and find ways to let it out. Because I think that's honest to goodness, the most important thing we could do on planet earth today, every single one of us. And in this conversation with Kim, today we talk about that we talked about how creativity and art and art making and journaling or anything that's you know, any of these things can seem
trivial in the face of the enormity we're facing with challenges on Earth today. But how actually, it's really the most important thing. So thank you, Chloe, for pointing at that because it is absolutely true. And I'd like to invite you all to join our private Facebook group. It's called the creative genius family. And it's a safe space to share about your creative struggles and triumphs and connect with each other other listeners. You know, we're this group of people who have so much in common and are part of the beginning of a massive movement. And having this this quiet, intimate, gentle community where we can connect with one another and support each other and provide inspiration for each other is powerful. So you can find out about that in the show notes as well. Just go to Kate Shepherd creative.com and search family to find out more about that. At 15 years old, Kim left her small family farm in Michigan after receiving a scholarship to Interlochen Arts Academy, where she double majored in creative writing and visual arts. She later moved to New York City and received a BFA in drawing at the Cooper Union and an MFA at Hunter College. Most recently, she received an MA in depth psychology which we talked about, and humanities from Pacifica Graduate Institute, where she studied alchemy, archetypes, shamanism, and other esoteric modalities as they appear in the arts, Kim sees herself as a shapeshifting multidisciplinary artist who creates doorways to the imagination to other realms. She feels it's her job to make portals too beautiful to resist, so people can slip through them without realizing it. What she's truly interested in is the power of image and the power of ritual to transform the individual and our world. Kim is perhaps best known for her drawings in the wild unknown Taro, which was first self published in 2012, and later rose to become a New York Times bestselling title now translated into 10 languages. Her occult turned mainstream drawings can be spotted on tarot cards, handbags, books, snowboarders, celebrity social feeds and tattoos across the globe. Kim teaches events and workshops around the world that activate the forces of creativity and radical transformation through art, meditation, mysticism and movement. It was an incredible conversation, and I'm honored to be able to bring it to you today. I feel like this is one of those conversations that can actually shift something in your DNA. Maybe it's because she sends us through a portal, just with her energy. But I'm delighted to bring this conversation to you today. Here it is my conversation with Kim Krantz. Hi, Kim, how are you?
Kim Krans 9:05
Hi, Kate, thanks for having me. I often say that I feel like humanity is glitching. And I feel like it's because we've become really disconnected from creativity really disconnected from the intelligence that that the energy the the because I feel like creativity is more than just like a thing that we do. Sometimes I feel like it's this living breathing thing that informs you know, our intuition, our gut instinct, our inspiration ideas, like so many more things than we sort of tend to think about as creativity, our creativity, and we've become, well I saw as an artist, I saw my paintings and jewelry in a busy public market. And for years, I've seen people just kind of come up to me and other me, you know, like, Oh, you're an artist. You're this other magical thing. And you have this power that I don't have and I wish I had it and it made me so sad for so long until I realized oh, that that wish is actually creativity trying to kind of break out of that person and that's why they're
Kate Shepherd 10:00
Having that wish. And so that's why I started the show. I wanted to start to have conversations with people who are clear open channels for creativity so that we can start to recognize it in ourselves and heal that thing that's causing us to glitch. I'm so glad that you gave me that background, Kate.
Kim Krans 10:17
It's really such an important subject to me. And I don't know if we've officially started the show yet or not. Yeah, we're at it. Okay, great. I've been, I've been seeing this image of the artist.
I hesitate to say it because it's a bummer image. But in meditation, and like during prayer after my practice, and it just in these deeper moments of contemplation, I've been seeing the image of the artist as collapsed, like literally like on the floor. And when I saw that it was just a couple of weeks ago, and a meditation, and I just cried, I cried so hard, because it's a part of me that still feels that collapse and disempowerment before I found teachers and practices and sort of places and ways to get my art moving through me and into the world. But I also see it right now, as a particularly harrowing image of what you're alluding to is kind of the core problem of all the problems, I feel like we've disempowered. The artist, and I don't mean the painter, I mean, the creative side of all of us that can find new solutions and is comfortable in the unknown. And that finds life to be extremely vital, and this like wild adventure, and therefore can use the materials of their life to sort of make new solutions and find new pathways. And we need new solutions right now. so badly, we need beauty, we need hope we need collaboration. And and these are things that can, you know, it sounds so kind of passive, but to be an artist is to be absolutely active in each passing moment of one's life deciding, where am I going to put my attention? And how can that further service, my role in the world to give. And so I feel very passionate about strengthening the artist and getting this artists that's within all of us kind of up off the floor, off the couch, off the scrolling feed, and to build the confidence of each of us to know that we have something to give, and that's creativity doesn't matter what that thing looks like. But to give is like an act of creation to serve as an act of creation. So thanks for bringing that up. Because I just, I just really, I'm really feeling it these days.
Kate Shepherd 13:16
Well, it you know, as soon as I saw that, as soon as I saw that, that was what was going on that. Like I feel like every dysfunction, every war, every every single problem that we're facing on planet Earth can be traced back to this disconnection from this intelligence that we have within us. Because we have, you know, the rational mind and the you know, that is an important form of intelligence. But this other thing, this living, breathing, creativity thing that we all have in us. We've just disconnected from it. And as soon as I saw it, I was like, Oh, well, there goes my life, I have to dedicate my life to this now because I can't, I couldn't unsee it. Like I can't unsee that we need to talk about this. I feel like it's the only thing that we need to be talking about. And I love what you say about service, because that that's what it feels like to me is that this answering that call and even if that call is to go out to your writing room and write or to sketch something like I feel like it's calling us in all these different ways. Right?
Kim Krans 14:15
Exactly. And at the same time, that it feels like the most important thing, it feels so meaningless. Like it's so easy to go into that mindset of like, of everything that's going on right now in the world. Why would I journal about my life? Why would I draw a still life and study the shape of a pair? Right? Are you freaking kidding me the shape of a pair, look at the news, and yet our attention and our ability to to focus and make meaning in our lives is what brings us more energy and can help us kind of rally and come back together and Remember, why are we even wanting to be here and wanting things to be better. So allowing the mind to focus on something that generates energy and positivity and meaning is incredibly profound. So I am an advocate of everyone sort of suspending their disbelief around their creative work not mattering right now. And more than ever, like, if you do something creative for 15 minutes, it will be more impactful on you and your family and your life, then 15 more minutes scrolling the feed that I know, there's not many things that I know right now, it's such a wild time, but that I do know that it's very much an active kind of activism to be aware of, where is my attention? And can I aim it towards creativity and honing in on what my gifts are to give to the world? Well, and it's just such a compelling argument from that part of ourselves that doesn't want us to go there. Like that maybe might know that creativity could be the way out could be the way to heal, it could make us do the things that change, make the changes, we need to make that part of us telling us Oh, that's meaningless and useless. And like it's such a compelling way to keep itself in that driver's seat. Right, exactly. There's this amazing essay by Mary Oliver called on power and time. It's one of the best reads, I would recommend it to any listeners out there. Because it's about those two things, exactly. Power and time of creativity. And I was thinking this morning, about how when I just started to learn piano over the last couple of years, and I'm very much a beginner. I played when I was young, but I returned to it when I was in, you know, everyone was going through COVID I was like, I guess I'm going to relearn the piano. So I was really tricky. It wasn't as easy as it still isn't as easy as it might seem. Because when I would pass the piano, I had this specific feeling of I don't want to play that there's power there. There's this power, there's this like loose feeling of like, oh my god, that thing has power. Where will it take me? Well, we'll have to do next play in front of people record a song, I'm going to write a song on that freaking instrument. So I think the psyche knows there's power there. And so it, it's gets a little freaked out and wants to like bury the thing. And like, you know, it's more much more comfortable for me to like Netflix my evening away, then be like, Oh, my God, am I writing an album right now, which is what I ended up doing. But every step of the way, I was very aware of like, my hesitancy to mess around with the power that's inside any instrument. Inside any drawing tool inside your journal. Inside the paintbrushes, there's literally power in those instruments, whatever they are movie making, even like preparing food for friends and family and kind of a radical way and thinking about where it comes from and putting energy in the food, any of these practices. There's mega power there. And it's easy to avoid it because we don't know where it's gonna take us and we want to stay safe. While or what it's going to take from us. Like I often think about people like I don't know, Paul McCartney or Bob Dylan are like, you know, the greats, the icons of music. And like, they're just people. They're just human beings who had this massive channel of this thing moving through them, that they had to learn how to wrangle and master and steward and shepherd and live with right, it's this thing's living inside them. And I often think about like, we all have some version of that coming through us. And it's scary to think about, what's it going to ask of me next? It's very challenging territory, and it seems so easy from the outside. I was thinking a lot about this. This very much relates to the alchemy deck, which is what what brings me on the podcast now is the promotion for the wild unknown alchemy deck. It's the fourth and final of the wild unknown series, which I started 10 years ago, not intentionally, I just drew the Tarot deck because it was an artist interested in the images and interested in the concepts. So I drew the wild unknown tarot and I self published it. And then the animal spirit deck came two years later, and then the archetypes stack and now the alchemy that comes out. So it's this four part series. Last night I was at this class with one of my teachers and I was laying in shavasana and I suddenly saw and felt that I'd completed this project. This four part series of decks that I never imagined I would create is a task I feel I was put here to do. And I felt completion of that, in shavasana, I had to like rollover and have a little like tear on the floor because I saw the bigness of putting something out and kind of handling shepherding a project over a decade. And I've, this is kind of bizarre to be talking about myself, but I felt compassion for myself in in that I've put off a lot of other areas of my life, so that I could shepherd that project. And I didn't even realize it. A lot of other like, kind of pleasures in my life I put off having kids, I have really struggled with that I am very much dedicated to my work. And that has been challenging in relationship. And even just like walking around and having fun and like going wild. Without realizing it, I was very much indebted to this, this project. And in completing alchemy, I just said a prayer, you know, when I felt that emotion come up, I was like, helped me to complete this and let go so I can move on to the next phase of my life. And I think anyone that sort of oversees or creates something for a long period of time, it's a kind of psychic pressure that they might not even be aware of. And we see that in the art world, in the music industry. in pop culture, you know, there's really harsh ways that people deal with that pressure, because they simply are trying to manage the power that's coming through them. And then the pressure that comes with anyone that is visible, you know, that has visibility. So the artist has to have really reliable sources of restoration and things that build their strength, so that they can handle both the power that's coming through, and the response, positive and negative as visibility is gained. So people want visibility all the time, it's like make a drawing you want post the thing and get a bunch of people to like it. But we have to have the capacity to handle visibility as artists. And that's another reason why I feel that the artist is collapsed right now is because there's not the confidence or strength to hold the attention as it arrives. So you'll see people get some visibility, and then sort of there's a collapse, or there's another type of disjointed response to it, because there's simply not the kind of structure and support in place. And then we have like the list of you know, the suicides and overdoses and all these addictions of all kinds through the creative fields. To all of this is very much my interest, I feel now that I've completed the wild and then series, I can feel myself turning to more of a teaching role and more of allowing myself to be more visible in and helping creativity move through our culture. I hope at least looking back over the last 10 years, what would you say were your biggest learnings for how to hold the space for this big thing coming through you which is almost has this kind of like superhuman feeling to it, right? Like it's larger than life that won't leave you alone? Like probably if you had stopped and said, Okay, well, the two decks are done, I'll just, you know, it probably would have just, I'm guessing come back at you and like it wouldn't have left you alone, this thing chose you and it started through you. And you said yes. And so but then there's your human side to that comes in ego and managing the you know, the growth and like you said that people are recognizing you and now you've got, you know, suddenly it's a New York Times Best Selling thing. And it's like it's a whole other thing now.
Kate Shepherd 23:55
What were the biggest learnings you had what was the biggest sort of survival mechanism you learned or wisdom that came to through through being in that and holding that and walking through that for the last 10 years? I'm I'm still learning so much from the process. I think what I'm learning now, is that
Kim Krans 24:15
anytime I'm separating my art from the rest of my life, there's pain and discord. And right now very much in my practice is to think of my entire life. Every aspect of it as art making. And that's sounds like easy, like everything's art or your whole life is art. And it's like no, if you really put it into practice. It's a total paradigm shift. So that's what I'm working with now to run the circuitry of creativity that I trust fully, above all things and underneath all things. Run that path attorne through my personal life, my social life, my aspects of myself, I love aspects of myself, I don't love this podcast, the way that I look at the world, what I'm perceiving moment to moment and how I make decisions, if I just lately have been saying, my entire life is art, my entire life is art. So that when I'm practicing a breath practice, I'm not like, Oh, why am I doing this for half an hour, I gotta get, I gotta get back to work and thinking, No, my entire life is art. This breath, and my attention to this breath, is my practice. And then when I'm on my inbox, which is totally annoying to me, I'm thinking, my attention is in my inbox, and my entire life is art. So its presence, its presence. And it's a it's a tension, it's a sort of radical decision around attention, when it falls apart, and is hilarious. And all those things. When I get into my separating brain, I'm an artist, they're not there an artist, I'm not there, you know, anytime there's this comparison and categorizing and separating, it's, it's painful. So that's something we're working on. There's one other thing too, that I'll say is just like the process to speak to the last 10 years, the process slowly unfolded. I didn't know what I was doing, basically the entire time. But I was drawing and I was practicing throughout. So my drawing and my meditation and my interest in what I was working on, carried me through. I never knew any thing else. I didn't have a plan. So how did it start? You're I mean, you studied psychology, right? And you're, you've been an artist since you were a kid. And so at what point did this idea show itself to you? And how much of it was there at the very beginning of how do you write a tarot deck and book and how does it turn into what you turned it into? In 2012, there weren't indeed decks out the wild unknown Deck, the one I created was the first of its kind, it pioneered that space. And I don't say that, you know, trying to put myself on a pedestal, it really just led the way and it had its own energy from the very, very beginning. And I think I was the perfect vehicle for that new wave of interest in taro to channel through because I'm a student of depth psychology. Students have many different esoteric practices and lineage, a long standing student of drawing and art and, and writing as well. So the pairing of the image and the word on a tarot deck is very powerful. If you take either of those away, they're much less impactful. So I had been studying drawing and writing with my teachers at Interlochen Arts Academy since I was 15, daily, you know, five hours of art training and sculpture and figure drawing and writing. So words and image are, are like my jam. They're, they're my thing. So the Tarot deck is 78 conceptual pairings of those two things. And I was like, I hit the jackpot here. This is the most fun project I've ever drawn. I just delved into it. And I thought, well, I'll just self published. I don't want to wait around for the publishers they seem really slow. Turns out 10 years later, they still are, in my opinion, even as an established author, I, you can't get the machine to move any faster than it can. But once I studied the trajectory of the wild, unknown taro and wondered how it fueled itself, like how did it work so well? How did it so efficiently speak to all different types of people? Not just the wild unknown Tarot, but tarot in general. Then I started to I went back to grad school, I was like, I gotta understand this more and I studied Jung and psychology and archetypes and that's where the archetypes the third deck came from. And then what fuels archetypes is alchemy. If you break it down, it all comes back to the elements, these basic components of fire, earth, water, air and ether. And those take on different formations and form the archetypes and the archetypes. Fuel the taro. So it's this kind of stacked it's basically like the Russian doll image. Like I started with the Tarot and I dug inside and then I found the archetypes and then I took off another layer and I found alchemy. So the fourth and final deck being alchemy feels very much I just like a kind of conclusion in and of itself, which is alchemical in and of itself, this idea that you have your, your magnum opus, your final work. And it very much feels like that to me. And it doesn't because now I'm like, I can complete this project and move on to the beginnings of these other aspects of my life. I'm thinking about the person who's listening to this right now going, Okay, I've heard of tarot decks before, but what are they? And how do they work? And why would I want one in my life? Can you speak to that person for a minute? Sure. Taro is so fun and open ended because of this magical pairing of image and word. So it was first developed kind of by the people and for the people from playing card decks, somewhere in Europe, likely Italy a few centuries ago. And eventually, through a very kind of grassroots creative effort, the Tarot deck in its current structure was developed. So it's 78 cards, 22 of which are the Major Arcana, which are kind of like the trump cards, the big, the big Whammies of life. And then there's the Minor Arcana, which also represent different phases and aspects of one's life. And then artists can use whatever imagery they want when creating a deck, although there's some things that are kind of established and consistent throughout. And then each card has a title. So it will say, you know, four of Wands, or the lovers card, or the death card, or what have you. And the cards can really be used in endless ways, you know, you'll find your lifelong psychic readers use using the cards and they're very, very dedicated to the specific practice. And then you'll see people using them as inspiration for like, drawing or a yoga class or a conversation with their sibling. And it It runs the gamut. Now people can really use them in any way that we're like. And they're their true gift is their ability to activate the imagination. So you could say they're very psychoactive, the pairing of the word and the image will immediately like, conjure something up. If you find a deck that that resonates with you, you'll be reminded of things you'll be reminded of people and memories and dreams and sort of, it's sort of this reawakening of the mystical or imaginal that can get left behind in current culture.
Kate Shepherd 32:44
I have so many decks all over the place, I have a little deck that I use, you probably know this little one, the little angel card. Oh, tiny ones, so tiny, little ones. They're what they're one. They're just one word, things. I have a little wooden bowl carved in the shape of a heart. And before every episode, I pull a card, and I have always been just dumbfounded by how it was. It's before I talked to the guest, I pulled two cards for you today. It's I'm always dumbfounded by how they're the exact perfect words for that moment. And I've never understood how that works. Like how and why does that work? Because it's a magic that everybody knows about, even though if you don't believe in magic like it. It's right here.
Kim Krans 33:26
Well, first of all, are you going to reveal what the cards were?
Kate Shepherd 33:29
Yes, I am. I'm going to so you're too. So to have jumped out at me say this has never happened before. But to kind of came into my hand and wouldn't I wouldn't be dropped. And the first one was openness. And the second one was freedom.
Kim Krans 33:42
Wow, nice. Those are good. Those are good words. Yeah. Do they have images with them? They do. The openness is an angel. And she's standing with her arms wide open as though she's waiting for you to come and hug her. And she's welcoming you in. And then freedom. It looks like that same angel, but she's now facing the ocean. And she's naked, you can see her little bomb. And she's got her arms out and she's welcoming the ocean. She's like standing there in the sun and the sun is beating down on her. And she's like, everything is there. It's all in front of me. I'm I'm ready for this new thing. So they're basically like in the same formation, but one's facing us and one's facing the ocean. And I wonder what an Angels bum looks like that's so cute. I'll put a picture of it in the show notes so we can everybody can see it. I love that. I love that both of them are so similar. Well, one explanation, which is sort of, you know, gives words to and make small. This very big thing that you're talking about is this idea of synchronicity, that there's a certain circuitry where everything is connected and has a very fluid communication. And when we decide to or when we stumble upon that At connectivity, the circuits fire, like very quickly, so you start seeing messages everywhere you start seeing repeated symbols and numbers and you kind of the psyche is led towards something through a series of what seem like happenstance encounters. The idea is, the more that you kind of step into that field, the unified field, so to speak, the more that you start seeing the synchronicity and meaning in your life, and your life has been led in a particular direction, according to that circuitry rather than according to the ego, or what we think life should look like. Right? So it's magic. It's engaging with magic, which is engaging, I guess, simply to define that is engaging with otherness. That which we don't know, can't define isn't us isn't in our control. And building that ability to engage with other is a really important exercise to do as an artist, as a human, as anyone because it helps us accept all aspects of life, and we stopped shutting certain people out certain religions out, we stopped shutting things out, we start saying, I can engage with this to a certain degree. And I can find meaning here. There's something for me here to study whether it's a flower or you know, Buddhism, or the newspaper or your parents read that you don't want them to read whatever the things are, you can you can open to it rather than shutting things out. And that's where we can get involved with magic.
Kate Shepherd 36:53
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I wanted to ask you if you'd be open to pulling a card from your deck and doing a little reading for for us right now.
Kim Krans 37:28
Oh, sure. I'm happy to pull from the new alchemy deck. So these cards are hex shaped, which is really fun.
Kate Shepherd 37:35
Well, you gave me a set of these which just arrived the other day and I wanted to tell you, they're so beautiful. I love them, I think and my kids. I have a daughter who's seven, who is really like she's just a magical human being and she she came home from school and she threw a backpack on the floor and she saw them on my desk like she wasn't even interested in her snack. She just like went, what is that Mama? And she went over to my desk and she opened them all up. And then she said, Oh my god, sorry, can I Is it okay that I opened them and she spread them all over the floor. And she was picking cards. And then she was drawing pictures of snakes and like designing jewelry and she's like, Mama, can we make this into a necklace I need to make the snake into like she just had this whole I got the shivers just telling you that she said this whole amazing experience with this deck. I mean nothing because another story but like they are alive and they are magic. And my seven year old who had no story about it could feel it. You know,
Kim Krans 38:26
I love that there are a lot of snakes in this deck. So a lot of roses and snakes and bees. They're kind of the guiding glyphs have this particular deck. Is there a particular question we should ask? Or are you how are you feeling about this draw?
Kate Shepherd 38:45
Well, I feel like my heart has dedicated this work through creative genius to empower the emergence of creativity everywhere I wake up in the morning, and I know that that's my calling. I'm here to serve the emergence of creativity. I feel like creativity has become trapped. And I want to be in service to helping it emerge. And so I guess, on behalf of all the people who also yearn to let creativity move through them more freely. What What does creativity need from us to do? Or to be? Show us what we need to see? Does that make sense?
Kim Krans 39:20
Yeah, I love that question. We're gonna ask the alchemy deck. What do we need to see in relation to creativity right now? And will you tell me to stop when you feeling it?
Kate Shepherd 39:34
Sure.Okay, stop. Well, it's interesting. This card again, I drew the summer card. The alchemists were really into this idea of seasons and everything having its season. Whatever process you're in, it has kind of seasonal phases to it. So rather than fighting against the the winter season have a relationship, so to speak, you would you would roll with it knowing that you can go deeply into it, what kind of quiet of the relationship and Spring is coming? So, this summer card, we could go one of two ways I could just riff or I could read the description in the guidebook that I wrote, I think just riff. Okay. And with your permission, could I put, could I take a little photo of the page in the book of summer for the readers to read later in the show notes? Yes. Nina, the first line here is to experience summer is to be embodied. So the summer is very much about a kind of fullness and ripeness. It's not quite harvest time, but things are getting, like juicy and full. So thinking about what are the things in our life that are at that point of ripening, and it's deeply sensual, and very pleasurable. So thinking about like, summer nights, where you're with friends in a field, and there's tree, there's fruit trees, there's the river, there's, you know, I think, like upstate New York, but this kind of like full, wet, do we sexy, loving, touching central space, that is very much kind of suppressed in our culture. And, you know, usually, if you have a wild summer night, it's going to involve some kind of like substance that makes you more wild. But this is like the soap, the sobering wild, that doesn't need any of that doesn't need anything else, the fullness of the sound of the lightning, the lightning bugs in the sound of the cricket by the pond, that kind of immersing oneself in a sensual space and place and season, almost as a way to experience part of ourselves that we, we miss or that we dismiss. So in that relates to creativity to like what projects are ripe and full now. And when they're ripe and full, they're offered to people for tasting, they're offered, then to the world. That's what the apple tree does, like brings all this fruit to fullness and then drops its its fruits. So what are the projects we can stop kind of holding on to and and start releasing? As fall is coming, you know, fall is coming up next. So I don't know where that relates for you in your life with, you know, with this podcast, or your gifts or what have you. But sometimes there's this tendency with creativity, to think we need to do more before people see it, or before we let go, but This card indicates it the thing is full. You know, for me with Alchemy, and the release of this deck, it's like, oh, yeah, I did the thing it fully ripened. And now I can move in to a summer that is full of more pleasure and more. Getting out into the world in the physical world, perhaps making out on a blanket under a tree, you know, in the fire. Yeah, totally.
I had a guest on yesterday who was talking about, you know, early in his music career, he felt like he or he had this idea that he sort of had to hold on to the good songs until like, he was bigger and more people would hear and but he just realized, like, I just had to keep letting it go, like making them and letting them go and making them and letting them go. And I catch myself doing that too. And I think you know, probably all the listeners can find themselves all of us can find themselves in, in that tendency to want to hold on when actually the whole purpose like the apple tree, like it's not waiting for the right person to cross the orchard and pick the fruit. It's just like making the fruit and then it will be time to rest. You know, that wants to actually go back to something you were saying earlier about everything that was art, and you want to be really present in every moment. And when I heard you say that I felt a little bit like ah, When is she going to rest to like I feel like it's exhausting to be so present all the time And aren't we supposed to have built in because I feel like as an artist, we do have the tendency to especially once we found our voice feel like okay, now I need to be expressing all the time and but maybe like we need to rest sometimes to what I want to just clarify that because I wasn't sure
Kim Krans 40:47
it's such a great question. And that rest and sleeping is included in that art making. Okay, so that's the that's the challenging part is to be like no really every everything everything my entire life is art. Ah, so how I sleep how I talk to myself about sleeping and not in a way to put pressure on like my sleeping has to be beautiful and grand. Not like that at all. Just like right these, these are the elements of of humaneness of being a human. And one of them is resting. Yeah, I think we resist that a lot. Yeah, exactly. And I also do a lot of like, yoga nidra. And that kind of active resting, so that it's like part of my day, very much acknowledging that the body needs rest. Was that hard for you? Oh, yeah. Are you kidding? This is the hard part. You know, if I use that phrase, my entire life is artists putting everything that I'm unsure of, and that I exclude from art under the umbrella. So my dating life? I don't see how that's art. I'm like, No, that's like, confusing. And I don't know, it's fun sometimes. But it's janky. And who knows? Like, no, it's also art. And I don't have to, that doesn't mean again, I got pressure myself to be so amazing on a date. But to just simply be curious about it. That's all that art comes from is like continued curiosity. If I can approach and put these things that I have separated from art back under the umbrella of art, it really actually takes the pressure off of me to sort of figure out those aspects of my life. What am I going to do about dating? What am I going to do about having a kid? I'm 42? What am I going to do? But if I just approach that with the same curiosity and reverence at each moment, as I do with my artmaking, I can be like, let's see what happens. I'll just put one foot in front of the next and something else will occur. And then we'll just see what happens. What do you do? What do you do with that small part of you, though? That's like, Yeah, but what about what about? Don't forget, but um, what if we don't like that little voice? Like, what do you do with that part? While you're because it's still there? I'm assuming, right? Like, oh, yeah, it's still there. It's still there, for sure. But the vastness and generosity of the creative space is so huge, and magnetic and, and loving, that it's subsumes. It can take all the small voices I want to throw into it. It's like this huge vacuum cleaner. That's like, from Mama from the great mama of creation. And I can put all my woes, all my triggers and fucked up thinking like, all this stuff can go in there, it's totally non exclusive space.
Kate Shepherd 47:52
I'm wondering for the person who feels like I have no idea how to make contact with the space that she's talking about. Where but I want to, where do I start?
Kim Krans 48:01
It's such a good question, while you're just on it with these questions, I love it, go to something in your life that worked and is working, go to one aspect of your life that you're like, I get, I get that part, I'm a, I'm a great mom, or I have a I found a partner, or I love my job, whatever the thing is in the life and go deeply into that pattern, that quality or characteristics of that thing. And if you sit with it, and even if you're just like, I love my grandparents, I have great grandparents, and you sit there, and you just go fully into the relationship that you have with them, or them with your pet you with your pet, and you fully like expand your consciousness into it and find reverence in it. And soon the Wonder will happen. You'll be like, Oh my God, it's actually amazing. How did I find my cat? Can you believe they were at the shelter when I was at the shelter? Oh my God, I didn't get that other cat. This one. And this cat is so incredible. And you start seeing it as a freaking miracle that's just like, the relationship is so kind and so sweet. And Dustin, that's like, you go into that. And once your heart and your mind get into that space, you can put anything into it and it will swallow it up and be like I'm not worried about that. You're going to be just fine. Follow this follow this feeling and this tone. This is seek any Thank you.
Kate Shepherd 49:42
I feel like you just really opened a door for me like I because I mean I was asking that question on behalf of listeners. But I was asking for me. Right like I want to know how to go to that place because I I have this strange experience of this big calling. And I don't totally Understand how to hold it, how to steward it how to, you know, and, and my, my little, you know, I came from a very traumatic childhood and I've got all kinds of tennis stuff that's like all the little voice that I'll get, but what if What have you how do you and what you just said, I feel like everybody on Earth can find themselves in that. And it's such good directions for how to begin, how to begin to reprogram re harmonize your whole filter, the whole way that you see the world, I think what you just shared is extremely powerful. Thank you.
Kim Krans 50:33
It's a harmony, it's a harmonics thing, just like you just said, and it can't be done. It couldn't be done, at least for me intellectually, when people would say just think of motherhood as art making. And I would really be like Su, do you know how painful it is to hear that, because I have like, 15 books right now and a bunch of stuff, a bunch of art people will find later, when I've passed so much art, unbelievable. It's not the same thing as having kids. So I get very resistant, when people would say they're just the same. So I don't take any of this lightly. It's not like a woowoo practice for me. But because I couldn't do it intellectually, I had to go into the part of my life that has worked and is generous and is a gift. And once I felt the harmonics of that, then I can put motherhood, biological or not whatever happens. It's okay. I can just see it through the lens of that. That frequency, so to speak.
Kate Shepherd 51:33
It's so beautiful. No one's ever given me like actual tangible instructions. I've always heard these like very esoteric like, Oh, you just have to. I just feel like those were that was really, really helpful. Thank you. Great. Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful.
Kim Krans 51:46
It's been working for me. I've taken a lot of pressure off of myself around these parts of my life that I don't have quote, figured out yet. And, and who knows what will happen? I don't know. And I don't get to know right now.
Kate Shepherd 51:59
I'm going to try it out. And I'll let you. I'll let you know, I'll check back in with you and let you know how it works out for me.
Kim Krans 52:03
Great. Yeah. And it's like, you don't need to know exactly what the project is because you have the patterning from this podcast in your work that you can go into and reference.
Kate Shepherd 52:15
Right. You wrote something in the book I wanted to just ask you about, you wrote, when the student is ready, the teacher disappears. And that's opposite from the proverb that we've heard, I want to ask you about that it really jumped out at me.
Kim Krans 52:28
Yeah, I was really excited about that title, I want to just write a whole book that's just called that because we always hear when the student is ready, the teacher appears. It's part in an homage to my teacher who was my first drawing teacher who passed she she passed when I was probably 17, or 18. Her passing has been something that I have mulled over many, many times and still do to this day, because I didn't say the things I wanted to say or thank her in the ways that I wanted to. And also as I go into in the introduction of the book, the kind of last thing she says to me is very much a Zen riddle about life and creativity. To answer your question more directly, I do think the teacher disappears. At some point when the student is at a point where they're either ready for a different teacher or teaching, or they've attached themselves to the teacher in a way that is, has found its limit. So when I left my teacher, you know, I worked with her for three years, like basically five hours a day, I was off to New York City to study art, and my life was about to really change. And a lot of the values that she's She raised me with creatively I'm very grateful for but they were about to be blown open by New York City. And, you know, post modernism, and like all of these wild, you know, suddenly you're seeing like, art in the new museum is like a garbage bag with stuff in it. Compared to the you know, she was showing me Rodin sculptures and Mary Cassatt drawings, and I needed to have my paradigm like kind of shattered. And so when I left for school, and then she passed, I know that that that passing was also a destined part of our work together, that I am made to ruminate and mull over the things she said to me on our last time together. And I by no means have that sorted out, but it's some there's something there that that disappearance is, as you can tell, I'm still working, working through what it all means.
Kate Shepherd 54:52
Yeah. And I think that that's what they say about grief and about loss and about, you know, it's that it's always it's always is always in there and it's always a part of us. But I love that she gave that to you. Right? Like I love that she gave you all in all that she actually gave you but then also even in her passing it's you've got this thing that you have to figure out and that's like it that in itself seems like it's a gift.
Kim Krans 55:14
It's all a gift and the deck the alchemy deck is dedicated to her for that reason she's
Kate Shepherd 55:20
This is Miss parsons right?
Kim Krans 55:21
miss Parsons, Jean Parsons, she's a She's like the mascot of the deck and in a way me like a kind of guardian of of it. And each of the decks have their own guardians that are personal to me that that people don't necessarily know about. But with this deck, I made it more evident in the introduction, that it's very much an homage to and form Miss Parsons.
Kate Shepherd 55:48
So while we're here, this feels like the perfect time to ask you to tell us where if somebody now wants to go and get this deck for themselves, what's the best place for them to go? Where can they find more about you and your work?
Kim Krans 55:59
They can find me online on Insta I met Kim Kranz, and the wild unknown has its own feed, which is at the wild unknown. And then my, I guess my personal website hasn't been updated in a while much to my publishers dismay, but at the wild unknown, you'll find information and where they can buy the deck, both local bookstores and and then online retailers, you can also just Google it and find a selection of ways to purchase the deck.
Kate Shepherd 56:27
Okay, so and we'll put I'll put links to all that in the show notes too, too. So if you're wondering about that, you can just head over to Kate Shepherd creative.com, and look for Kim's show notes page, and all the links will just make it really easy for you. So all that will be right there. Great. Okay, I feel like I don't want to draw us to a close, but it's time to so I have one final question for you that I asked everybody at the end of every show. And it's it's I call it the billboard question. And so if you could imagine that you had a billboard that everybody in the world who longed to connect with this beautiful intelligence of creativity, but just either didn't believe they had it in them believe they got passed over believed it was for somebody else, whatever their story was about it. But they were going to see this billboard, what would you put on it?
Kim Krans 57:13
I'm just gonna go with my first impulse. Yeah. It would say you matter. It might be strobing rainbow light. Yeah, but very big, it would just say you matter. Because I think that is at the core. That's kind of the core thought form underneath the disempowered artist, that the anti thought that I don't matter, and painting this bird doesn't matter. And playing piano doesn't matter like that. That's the antithetical sort of a dharmic thought form underneath the lack of creativity that we have that support in our culture right now. Yeah. And so just remembering that you matter, is a first step along the way. And that can be proven by asking like any other person in your life, or thinking about the impact others have had on their on your life, you can kind of read reverse, prove it to yourself, and how much each of our friends mattered to us and what they do with their lives. It really, really matters. If you run down your phone list. It's just like very evident that each of us has impacted each other. And we've got to stay committed to that.
Kate Shepherd 58:48
Yeah. And it's so hard to see it about yourself. And so, you know, if somebody hasn't said this to you lately, I want to just thank you for all that you've put out into the world and how you've all that you've given us and are continuing to give us because it I don't want to sound corny or cheesy, but it really does matter. You know, I've you, you are touching people in ways that you don't know and, and thank you for doing that. Thanks, Kay.
Kim Krans 59:13
I think everyone should just hear that every day. I think so you matter. Thanks for what you do, Kate, you matter.
Kate Shepherd 59:22
Yeah, I try to say it to people now. Because if and it feels corny, but I try to say it to people. It's hard to give somebody like sometimes I cry when I give somebody like a heartfelt thanks because I feel so moved by my own gratitude for them. But that's such a strange space for us to be in like we're not used to being so authentic with each other. And I just have lately I've just been pushing my way through that because I think we need it more than ever. Now. We need to hear that from each other.
Kim Krans 59:47
Yeah, that's the space. That is the umbrella that I was talking about earlier that you can put any project into and it's wildly powerful and Emotional there. That's why we like back away from it because it's intense. But that I think is the mega power place. If we spend a little bit more time there, it's like it's very generative. Yeah.
Kate Shepherd 1:00:13
It's very generative. But I don't know about you, I find it a little bit difficult to navigate, because I do, like, I listen to a song and I'll just burst into tears. But I'm like, what, in the bank with my earphones on? Like, Why is she crying like that? And, but I just feel like I've almost been thrust into that place lately. And I can't I mean, I kind of can't avoid it anymore. But it is. It's a it's a strange thing to hold. If you're not if you don't have a frame of reference for it. Yeah. Yeah, I think we're all we're all we're all kind of being ushered into that, that, that space of love more? Yeah, whether we, whether we're ready or not.
Kim Krans 1:00:49
So great. And it's like the artists the song, you know, the, the songs help us get there to whatever you were listening to and your earphones. And so it's easy for the artists to think when they're writing the song, like, why would I write this some matter? But there's that decision point, when the artist has to decide like, I'm going to write a song instead of doing something else?
Kate Shepherd 1:01:12
Yeah, well, I was lucky enough to I was interviewing the artists who wrote the song. And I was actually listening to the song and to prepare for his interview. And so I got to tell him directly how that he, you know, and he, he's kind of he's a pretty well known artists that he gets, he's got a lot of fans. And I'm sure it's not the first time someone's told him that. But there was a genuine like, Oh, my God, like, I love that song, too. And here's, here's the story. I was on the bus when I wrote it. And, like it was a real became a real thing. And it was a real human that it came through. And we do, I could see that he even he was like, oh, think like, Thank you for saying that. And I, I feel like we're just so scared to say it to the other person. Because, oh, well, who am I to tell you that you're great. You're gonna be like, it's such a weird, we're just, we should just go around telling each other how, how great we are and how much we matter. My take away, thank you so much for coming. I've really enjoyed this conversation with you.
Kim Krans 1:02:06
It's been such a treat, I really appreciate it. Okay.
Kate Shepherd 1:02:09
I feel like this conversation pointed directly at the thing that matters the most, which is that you matter, creativity matters. Making the thing that you're obsessing about making or endlessly interested in or can't stop thinking about matters more than you could ever know. We are relational beings, living in a relational universe. Everything that happens, has ever happened. And ever will happen is happening for you by everything else. And that applies to everybody. And when you don't do the thing that creativity is trying to do through you. You not only stop that energy from moving inside your being, which is painful. But you stop the other beings and everything else in the universe, from being able to experience that magic, that joy. Keep being keep creating, keep going. You matter. It matters.
Okay, so the homework to go with this episode is an exercise that I hope will help you find your way into the creative field that Kim talked about. You know, it can be really easy to get stuck in our rational mind, sometimes for entire lifetimes, there are people who get caught up in the rational mind and never find their way back out. And the thing is, is that the power and the energy and the magic of life resides in this creative field. And when you align with that energy in this field, you become infinitely more powerful, infinitely more creatively insightful. I believe that's when we feel the most alive and at peace. When we're in alignment with the energy that's in the creative field. It is the most common grounded, confident, peaceful feeling that I ever get. So these instructions are intended to help you find a portal to that field within yourself so that you can spend more time there and start to create a life for yourself that's based on a place of pure alignment with this energy. So the first step is to get out your journal. Make yourself a cup of tea and sit quietly somewhere and give yourself about 20 minutes to do this. What you're going to do is you're gonna start writing a list of all the things that are working in your life, all the things that are that are working and feel good and these can be really small like You've been drinking enough water lately, and you notice that your tummy feels good. Or you're getting out for walks that make you feel more alive every day or your gym practice or your yoga practice is going great, you really hit your stride with meditation. Or maybe you just adopted a cat or a dog or a hamster, or booked a vacation or went to the library, and it felt really great, big and small, and everything in between, jot down every single thing in your life that's working and feels good. And I really encourage you to spend the full 20 minutes really digging deep, and really mining your life for all the things that are working. And when you're 20 minutes is up, go through the list and pick your top five or eight things that feel the most juicy, like when you go down the list of them, there are going to be a few of them that almost seem to sort of jump out at you, or they feel more activated than other ones. And I want you to highlight those one. And then every day this week, I want you to come back to this list, and feel the one thing out of your top picks that feels the most alive to you in that moment. And then every day, this week, I want you to come back for a short meditation about one of the things from this list. So you'll come back to this list every day. And you'll look at it and one of them will jump out at you and it'll be a different one every day. And don't think too much about this part. Just let the one that jumped out at you jump out at you. And then again, sit quietly and give yourself I would say 10 minutes, you know, you can do more if you want, I wouldn't do more than 20 at first. But give yourself between 10 and 20 minutes, put a timer on and close your eyes. Let your mind wander. So this is kind of a different sort of meditation. Generally, when we go into meditation, we're trying to stop our mind from wandering. This is a different kind of meditation. This is we're trying to explore and elicit more of the energy that is associated with this thing in our being. So thinking about this particular smells associated with this thing, or the thoughts and ideas and the feelings in your body you have when you're doing this thing, or around this thing or near this person or whatever this thing is, what is the physical sensation of having that be activated in your life? And how do you feel? And what's going on in your body? And what kind of thoughts are you having, and really let these things wash over you likely what will happen is at some point, you'll start to feel very blissful, calm, happy, grounded feelings in your body. And it almost feels like maybe a smile kind of is just like bubbling up and out of you. And when you feel that happy feeling. And when you feel those sensations in your body. This is a good moment, to send a little gratitude to that thing or person for being in your life. Some of us just like beaming them, a wordless message, a wordless thank you with the energy of gratitude that you've just conjured, kind of as the vehicle for sending that gratitude itself. So you're sending this thank you to this thing for existing and for being in your life. And again, there will probably be a moment in that where
you can almost it's almost like another big smile washes over you. And when that feeling happens, generally, I feel like that is the sign that the object of your gratitude has received your gratitude. And now, there's this loop between you. Now you're connected, you're in some kind of wordless communication. And this is the moment when I want you to ask this thing to give you a little sign or symbol, something that can show you throughout your day as you go through your week. So when you notice this sign or symbol, it anchors you back into this place this field of gratitude and alignment and joy. And pretty soon you'll have a bunch of these little symbols. And whenever you notice them, they'll be a little reminder for you to just come back for a moment, to that thing inside of you to that place inside of you that you go when you're doing the thing that you love. It's a beautiful practice. And I think it can be a really powerful way to deepen your alignment with the creative flow of energy that's already and always has been inside of you. Make sure you're signed up for my newsletter. I pick a random person from my email list once every month and send them an original piece of my artwork. It's one of my favorite things to do. It takes a lot to put together the show. Please consider supporting me to do it. You can visit patreon.com/creative Genius podcast to find out more and please keep my job We are paintings, and especially gratitude birds, which keeps selling out in mind. Next time you're looking for a treat for yourself or for a loved one. You can find everything I've mentioned on Kate Shepherd creative.com. Thank you for being here, for opening your heart and for listening. My wish and intention for this show is that it reach into your heart and stir the beautiful thing that lives in there. May you find and unleash your creative genius
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