Get a cuppa tea and join us for a bit of story...
Stardust Memory
Shiloh Sophia
Somewhere, far away but not so very far away a young girl is walking home from the river with a white stone in her pocket that tells stories if you know how to listen.
The land is fairly humming with the anticipation of what might be, what could be, what has almost been and has not been yet. Every creature for a hundred miles of this place has their ears perked and the little bumps on their bristly hairs are standing on end. An inquiry is forming in the field of spacetime between us. I wonder what it might be? Let’s look.
Then it is time for the soul to dream in colors you have never seen. Then you will know that there is so much more than you imagined and hoped for. Then you will be granted a peek behind the veil of the mystery that is sufficient to blow the hair back from your head, squint at the brightness, and even shudder at the sight of what you have seen. And. Where you have been. It isn’t what you thought. You may not be who you think you are.
You see, a part of the soul has remained in exile no matter how much therapy you have done or strange trips to the mountains you have taken. You tried to call it back. You haven’t done anything wrong, you just weren’t really ready, yet. Perhaps you are now? If you are here reading this it is because there is a chance you are ready, only you can tell. Coming to a gathering like this is dangerous territory and not advised for those of you who are afraid of commitment. You can’t just start to call the whole soul back and then get too busy to finish the job. Not a good idea. The double-sided self will require your full attention, at least in the imaginal realm.
You thought you knew some stuff. You spoke what you were taught, even showed pride in the hard-won knowledge that you can remember. So when it is shown to you, that what you see is not even close to what there is. Truthfully, it may cause you to fall to your knees. If it doesn't, you might not be looking with the kind of seeing required. Yes. There is a kind of seeing required which some call cosmic goggles. But you can’t just buy this kind of seeing at a dimestore or borrow it from a friend or find it at a second-hand emporium. This kind of seeing is developed by looking for it, specifically. You look for the kind of seeing that already believes there are many more colors to the visible spectrum of light you normally behold, even if you have never seen them. You just know in your bones they exist. You have stardust memory.
Some of us beg forgiveness from the forces that be, for how we claimed to know any such thing at all. All those colors, all that light, those vibrations, those sounds, and that song that cut a path through from the old world to the new. But just because it is new does not mean it is better...not so. For if the new world does not carry some of the old established colors, creatures, and characters from the old world, no one would survive. We would just all have our minds blown open and our eyes would be wide with awe and none of us would survive the knowledge. But we do. And here we are as proof. And there is work to be done.
Did you know your blood is red from the iron of exploding stars? Ancient you are. Older than the hills. Enclosed within your mortal coil is a color red so vibrant with stardust you almost glow from the inside. But as soon as it touches the air, you can’t see that particular red anymore. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, it does, and now you know it and there is no going back to where you were.
Oh yes…the inquiry? You want to know what the question was that was formed in the field between all of our minds? Doesn’t everyone my dear! We aren’t telling those on the edges. The fringe-dwellers, the wait-and-seers, and the skeptics of romance will have to wait and see what arises from the council. It is far too dangerous to speak it when one hasn’t done the work it takes.
Would you like to know what the work is?
Well, let’s see. The Muse said I am allowed to tell you this. Our work will take 13 moons, a large woven surface, a magic carpet really, colors you have seen and never seen magic wands (aka brushes), and a lot of rituals. Ritual that may include making tea from the herbs between the boar's hooves, daring to stroke the flank of a fox, and confronting the snake-prince people, taking tea with Cinderbiter and his queen, and then making amends for the loss of the water maidens. But I can’t say for sure. I have never been where we are going.
Oh and perhaps most importantly, how all of this impacts your relatedness with love. And relationship. Scary huh? Yup. But scary times call for big actions that are studded with devotion. Don’t you worry though little darlin’ we will be right beside you even if we are across the pond.
“Truth-telling is the hardest magic,” says my companion guide on the magic carpet ride.
The thing is, 2020 has been quite a ride. It has bumped us, shaped us, carved us, and some of us will be marked for life. We will speak of it as we spoke of the year the bomb was dropped or September 11, a year when everything was different after that. But the trouble is, this ride isn’t over yet, it has only just begun. So what is there to do in 2021? Become better riders! Let’s ride the magic carpet of our canvas all the way to the council! Wonders will never cease, and neither will the miracles that are waiting for hearts like ours to visit them.
But there is a problem. I can’t be the great storyteller who breaks the spells that bind you. Only you can do that. Plus, “Storyteller” as a vocation like Shaman or Seeress or Curandera that I only aspire but can’t walk into in this century. Because I have given my life to the Divine I am required to stand at the gates and call to you. Those who tend to the deeper temples have other sacred assignments. I am just the gatekeeper with magic paintbrushes with my faithful companion, who walks stories. Yet I am fairly certain that you can break your own spell by becoming more intimate with the stories that live through you. There are thousands, yet we will pick just thirteen of them to begin and see what emerges.
So what are you doing in 2021? Want to join a Council of Colorful Creatives atop the Mountain of Musea and the Caves of Story? Peek at the underbelly of the moon and discover the natural pattern of the stars and the ritual that rises up from the ground? How does it sound to you to focus your year on intimacy with the romantic notion of being a storyteller AND a painter? Now that is holy ground.
When the soul is weary with the weight of conquest, then it is time to gather. Come to the Council of Musea.
The truth is I don’t know what is going to happen so I can’t tell you too much more than that. I have tried, in the following pages to do the left brain thing of letting you know the value of what you will get. Those who know they are called to gather know who they are no matter what the rest of the full website about this course has to say. And honestly, I can’t guarantee to do exactly what it says anyway. The Muse won’t have it.
You can think of this course RITUAL as a Foundation for Intentional Creativity in the Mythology and Artifact department of the Cosmic Library for a recently founded University in the future.
Get a cuppa tea and join us for a bit of story...
Stardust Memory
Shiloh Sophia
Somewhere, far away but not so very far away a young girl is walking home from the river with a white stone in her pocket that tells stories if you know how to listen.
The land is fairly humming with the anticipation of what might be, what could be, what has almost been and has not been yet. Every creature for a hundred miles of this place has their ears perked and the little bumps on their bristly hairs are standing on end. An inquiry is forming in the field of spacetime between us. I wonder what it might be? Let’s look.
Then it is time for the soul to dream in colors you have never seen. Then you will know that there is so much more than you imagined and hoped for. Then you will be granted a peek behind the veil of the mystery that is sufficient to blow the hair back from your head, squint at the brightness, and even shudder at the sight of what you have seen. And. Where you have been. It isn’t what you thought. You may not be who you think you are.
You see, a part of the soul has remained in exile no matter how much therapy you have done or strange trips to the mountains you have taken. You tried to call it back. You haven’t done anything wrong, you just weren’t really ready, yet. Perhaps you are now? If you are here reading this it is because there is a chance you are ready, only you can tell. Coming to a gathering like this is dangerous territory and not advised for those of you who are afraid of commitment. You can’t just start to call the whole soul back and then get too busy to finish the job. Not a good idea. The double-sided self will require your full attention, at least in the imaginal realm.
You thought you knew some stuff. You spoke what you were taught, even showed pride in the hard-won knowledge that you can remember. So when it is shown to you, that what you see is not even close to what there is. Truthfully, it may cause you to fall to your knees. If it doesn't, you might not be looking with the kind of seeing required. Yes. There is a kind of seeing required which some call cosmic goggles. But you can’t just buy this kind of seeing at a dimestore or borrow it from a friend or find it at a second-hand emporium. This kind of seeing is developed by looking for it, specifically. You look for the kind of seeing that already believes there are many more colors to the visible spectrum of light you normally behold, even if you have never seen them. You just know in your bones they exist. You have stardust memory.
Some of us beg forgiveness from the forces that be, for how we claimed to know any such thing at all. All those colors, all that light, those vibrations, those sounds, and that song that cut a path through from the old world to the new. But just because it is new does not mean it is better...not so. For if the new world does not carry some of the old established colors, creatures, and characters from the old world, no one would survive. We would just all have our minds blown open and our eyes would be wide with awe and none of us would survive the knowledge. But we do. And here we are as proof. And there is work to be done.
Did you know your blood is red from the iron of exploding stars? Ancient you are. Older than the hills. Enclosed within your mortal coil is a color red so vibrant with stardust you almost glow from the inside. But as soon as it touches the air, you can’t see that particular red anymore. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, it does, and now you know it and there is no going back to where you were.
Oh yes…the inquiry? You want to know what the question was that was formed in the field between all of our minds? Doesn’t everyone my dear! We aren’t telling those on the edges. The fringe-dwellers, the wait-and-seers, and the skeptics of romance will have to wait and see what arises from the council. It is far too dangerous to speak it when one hasn’t done the work it takes.
Would you like to know what the work is?
Well, let’s see. The Muse said I am allowed to tell you this. Our work will take 13 moons, a large woven surface, a magic carpet really, colors you have seen and never seen magic wands (aka brushes), and a lot of rituals. Ritual that may include making tea from the herbs between the boar's hooves, daring to stroke the flank of a fox, and confronting the snake-prince people, taking tea with Cinderbiter and his queen, and then making amends for the loss of the water maidens. But I can’t say for sure. I have never been where we are going.
Oh and perhaps most importantly, how all of this impacts your relatedness with love. And relationship. Scary huh? Yup. But scary times call for big actions that are studded with devotion. Don’t you worry though little darlin’ we will be right beside you even if we are across the pond.
“Truth-telling is the hardest magic,” says my companion guide on the magic carpet ride.
The thing is, 2020 has been quite a ride. It has bumped us, shaped us, carved us, and some of us will be marked for life. We will speak of it as we spoke of the year the bomb was dropped or September 11, a year when everything was different after that. But the trouble is, this ride isn’t over yet, it has only just begun. So what is there to do in 2021? Become better riders! Let’s ride the magic carpet of our canvas all the way to the council! Wonders will never cease, and neither will the miracles that are waiting for hearts like ours to visit them.
But there is a problem. I can’t be the great storyteller who breaks the spells that bind you. Only you can do that. Plus, “Storyteller” as a vocation like Shaman or Seeress or Curandera that I only aspire but can’t walk into in this century. Because I have given my life to the Divine I am required to stand at the gates and call to you. Those who tend to the deeper temples have other sacred assignments. I am just the gatekeeper with magic paintbrushes with my faithful companion, who walks stories. Yet I am fairly certain that you can break your own spell by becoming more intimate with the stories that live through you. There are thousands, yet we will pick just thirteen of them to begin and see what emerges.
So what are you doing in 2021? Want to join a Council of Colorful Creatives atop the Mountain of Musea and the Caves of Story? Peek at the underbelly of the moon and discover the natural pattern of the stars and the ritual that rises up from the ground? How does it sound to you to focus your year on intimacy with the romantic notion of being a storyteller AND a painter? Now that is holy ground.
When the soul is weary with the weight of conquest, then it is time to gather. Come to the Council of Musea.
The truth is I don’t know what is going to happen so I can’t tell you too much more than that. I have tried, in the following pages to do the left brain thing of letting you know the value of what you will get. Those who know they are called to gather know who they are no matter what the rest of the full website about this course has to say. And honestly, I can’t guarantee to do exactly what it says anyway. The Muse won’t have it.
You can think of this course RITUAL as a Foundation for Intentional Creativity in the Mythology and Artifact department of the Cosmic Library for a recently founded University in the future.
We have called women to gather for a Council of Colorful Creatives. Together we will embark on a practice of healing. Practice, is just that, something you do regularly in the same or different ways overtime to make it your own and gather momentum with others.
You will be doing the healing practices over 13 moons and are invited to live according to the moon phases for real, AS WELL as really make your studio a temple. You will be invited to keep your year in a daily and weekly practice. The more time and care you devote, the more powerful the results will be in both the imaginal and physical realms.
This experience is equal to a creative spiritual practice for 2021 and can easily be combined with any other Intentional Creativity classes since it is not intellectually or study heavy - rather it is about experience and embodiment.
RITUAL is designed to fortify (strengthen) your other work in painting and life. The primary creative practices are Medicine Painting and Intuitive Writing.
The painting process will reveal an intuitive abstract expressionistic talismanic whole soul archetype that has two sides. You could think of them as twins, or light and shadow, or inner and outer, but not opposites, rather, companions. The images that emerge will be revealed in time, layer by layer, moon by moon, as you become more and more self-expressed.
Our intention is the healed healer awakens within you. You are as alive, embodied and whole as your soul will allow you to be. You show up for this healing. This empowers you to be more prepared in your healing work with others in the ways that you choose.
RITUAL is what happens when you Combine Painting. Writing. Meditation. Inquiry. Walking. Thinking. Dreaming. Acting and Making Amends. THE FRAMEWORK of the ENTIRE EXPERIENCE INVITES YOU TO work through specifics of your relationships internally and externally to MEND them so that you can be as free as possible to be you.
Exploring the Double-Sided Self philosophy that we will be working with.
There are myths of old that speak to the Double-Sided Self. It is said that until you can make friends, or even better, become lovers with the Double-Sided self that there will never be peace within. Yet this union is not as easy as simply knowing the paradox exists or embracing the union of opposites. To discover this wholeness for yourself, you will have to enter the territory of mythic imagination and it could be dangerous to default settings. Will be, dangerous.
To gather this exiled self from wherever she has been hanging out will require some sacrifice. A belief. Your time. A change of mind. She has been hanging out in impossible places looking for you even if you haven't been looking for her. She may be in the badlands running a bar with habanero tequila, or in a business suit in silicon valley tearing down an empire with her perfectly polished teeth. She may be a mother of five somewhere in the mid-west of a land you have never heard of digging potatoes. She may have taken up residence passing for a man, wearing a cowgirl hat and boots and riding a bronco that no one can stay on but her. She may be hanging out with Eve and Lillith at the no-can-do cafe where women go who are ready for a return to a garden that loves us as we are. She may be a wounded healer at the festival of hearts that everyone goes to see because she can see about you what you cannot see.
To get this part of ourselves out of exile is a healing journey that may require the completion of a lifetime of healing or being the wounded healer. If you give that up - what else might there be? Is it audacious to become 'healed enough'? To no longer persist in the version of woundedness we have been courting for so long? Know this - other healing awaits beyond the threshold, but if you will not cross, you cannot find what is waiting for you. Yes of course healing is an ongoing journey but at what point do you land and begin again in a new way? This could be the day, the year, the cycle, the painting. You choose. Only one thing about you is certain, this is your story to tell.
Some may say this riddle of the double-sided self is a paradox. Others, an unsolvable riddle. Some speak of an evil twin. Or the neglected child that comes back to make war. Will the mother who longs for a child, eat the white flower or the red flower? Is Red Riding Hood's grandmother the wolf as well? Do both the grandmother and the wolf live in a hut in your own belly?
Some speak of this phenomenon as the angel or the devil on our shoulders. Dr. Martin Shaw speaks of courting the wild twin. Dr. Estes told us of the wild woman within and how we must gather her bones and sing to make her whole again. Jenafer Joy may ask us about our relationship with multiplicity and invite us to dive in with scissors and a muse attitude. Some may speak of this as the shadow but it is so much more than that if you know how to look and with what kind of seeing.
The shadow isn't just the unknown becoming known. Jung has shared that the shadow is the unconscious aspect of the personality that we may not identify as part of ourslelves, the unknown. But there is more to this than we have been working with because in Intentional Creativity we think of the sub-conscious as much more knowable than many of us have thought in the past. What happens if we bring what societal and therapeutic norms have called shadow or sub-conscious into form through painting. Jung certainly did. Then he formed his content from that.
The inner and outer selves. The above and the below. The invisible and the visible. The anima and animus of Jung. Dolly Parton speaks to haloes and horns. I may speak of Cosmic Cowgirls, women who are earthy and cosmic. Sue Hoya Sellars spoke of her Guardian Angel, a uniting with that which is cosmic and that which is earthy.
Do we all have a double-sided self? And what happens in a life when we deny the one and praise the other? When the good girl wins and the bad girl retreats? The parable of self is rampant across many cultures and used in many different ways.
What might be possible from a soul development perspective if we truly dance with both selves, honoring each and giving each a say, a voice, and then finding a union, instead of a battle. The Labrys of the ancient feminine, that double-headed ax cuts both ways and yet it is one and it is for use in ritual, not war.
The notorious Chicana author, Gloria Anzaldua says this: “I am an act of kneading, of uniting and joining that not only has produced both a creature of darkness and a creature of light, but also a creature that questions the definitions of light and dark and gives them new meanings.”
African Mythology speaks to a "Twinship is a predominant theme in much West African myth and ritual, because the human body is conceived as the twin of the cosmic body... the primordial beings were twins, and twins, therefore, represent the ideal."
So once again we have found a common red thread that runs throughout the cultures of the world weaving in different ways. Yet at the heart of it remains this one thing which is two things...what ritual will call the selves together again, to reveal the wisdom of each?
Each moon you will work with relationships as you navigate your healing journey as well as practicing the basics of ritual using the elements as well as altar building, sacred napping, earthing, and prayer with the RITUAL MAP.
The experiences and benefits of Intentional Creativity through Medicine Painting + Intuitive Writing will bring you into the primary relationships we navigate every single day. We are inviting you into the imaginal realm as well as the physical realm of relationships.
Each initiate will work with her inner relationships to strengthen LOVE and COMPASSION in her physical relationships - personal, professional, romantic, transpersonal, inter-personal, and collective life experience.
Ritual happens when as an artist you choose to see your life work as an act of romantic devotion. The universe responds with all kinds of flirtations and invitations that would otherwise be hidden in the compost of yesterday’s forgotten phrases, missed kisses, and symbols you have left behind.
Ritual happens when as an artist you choose to see your life work as an act of romantic devotion. The universe responds with all kinds of flirtations and invitations that would otherwise be hidden in the compost of yesterday’s forgotten phrases, missed kisses, and symbols you have left behind.
Medicine Painting is all about self-healing through creativity. Bringing what you want to heal or illuminate into the creation and sensing the hidden material and bring it forward in a way that you never have before.
In the RITUAL Medicine Painting practice, we will provide inquiries for your process, yet the medicine is all yours. You are in essence becoming your own healer, shaman, oracle - to connect directly with what you know and feel.
Our hope is that through joining this Council of Colorful Creatives you will be connected to your WHOLE SOUL and BODY, have an experience of embodiment, and develop new ideas and practices. Along with the painting, you will also be writing a mythic narrative, as not only do we as women need a new story to work with, so do the women of the world. Often trapped by the myths of old, we need supportive structures for our archetypal frameworks to emerge.
Shiloh Sophia, your guide for the experience, has been leading healing journeys with Intentional Creativity for over 27 years, exploring healing trauma and wild self-expression.
Medicine Painting is all about self-healing through creativity. Bringing what you want to heal or illuminate into the creation and sensing the hidden material and bring it forward in a way that you never have before.
In the RITUAL Medicine Painting practice, we will provide inquiries for your process, yet the medicine is all yours. You are in essence becoming your own healer, shaman, oracle - to connect directly with what you know and feel.
Our hope is that through joining this Council of Colorful Creatives you will be connected to your WHOLE SOUL and BODY, have an experience of embodiment, and develop new ideas and practices. Along with the painting, you will also be writing a mythic narrative, as not only do we as women need a new story to work with, so do the women of the world. Often trapped by the myths of old, we need supportive structures for our archetypal frameworks to emerge.
Shiloh Sophia, your guide for the experience, has been leading healing journeys with Intentional Creativity for over 27 years, exploring healing trauma and wild self-expression.
Medicine Painting is an ancient practice woven throughout human history. We are seeing a revival in modern times, as people are called to take healing into their own hands.
In our methodology, Medicine Painting is painting with an intent to heal and receive insight. In this introduction, I will share some examples of painting within a healing context in the ancient world. I will review how we approach the practice today. As well as share stories of how this has informed my body of work and has sparked into a global art movement. Tens of thousands of women around the world work with this approach to embark on a healing journey through Intentional Creativity®. We have been practicing this way of working in our creative lineage since the 1930s.
The practice, process, and product of Medicine Painting are unique to every person. In this brief video, you will see some of the paintings I have worked with over the past few years that demonstrate my version of Medicine Painting, and some of the potential beneficial impacts. I have experienced these beneficial impacts personally and have had students share with me the incredible impacts they have experienced from their medicine painting journeys.
I encourage you to get a cup of tea and have 'cafe' with me. Take your time and see what arises for you. Perhaps you will feel called to bring Medicine Painting into your own healing journey.
"Never in my life could I imagine a place where all falls away. Where I am so whole yet I feel as if my borders, the lines of my body shimmer and flow into the universe, the canvas, the portal. This freedom is nothing I’ve ever felt before." ~ Lexanne Leonard
"What surprised me most was how this Intentional Creativity process led to deep knowing and profound healing. Thank you Shiloh Sophia and Team. I am forever grateful for this experience! " ~ Julie Ridenour
"This year has been the greatest adventure of my life! I don’t have words to express how grateful I am to have met Shiloh Sophia, the Intentional Creativity team, and all the beautiful women who walked on this path with me. There is such a strong connection thanks to the Red Thread and so much loving support. It’s like if the pieces of the puzzle are now coming into the right places and the voice of the critic is more and more replaced by the voice of the Muse, thanks to the fact that I am finally prioritizing creativity in my life. So if you feel called, don’t start thinking about it, trust your inner wisdom, and go for it!" ~ Nona McKinney
"Shiloh, you teach us so much more than the principals of Intentional Creativity, or how we can summon our art as a healing agent or even how we might find and experience our own sense of the divine within the stardust that courses through our veins... you teach us to believe in ourselves, to take the leap—by letting us watch you claim your dreams... it’s so very exciting and inspiring. I’m with you, my friend... go light up the world one woman at a time."~ Stephanie Vietor
