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Conscious Creativity 2019
CAPTION FOR VIDEO ABOVE:
Hi friends! So… I always come over here because it’s shady and I have very pale skin and need to stay in the shade. AW! I just got excited because I just found a little tiny poplar leaf. Love notes from the universe, I love it!
Ok so this week I am sharing several photosets that are from last fall when Lior Allay and I went to Michigan and did our Conscious Creativity event. I’m really excited to share these with you. I have photos taken from Lior, photos that were taken by… oh gosh I have a bunch of photos… I’m sharing the photos that Doug Pierce took (Hi Doug!) and photos that were taken by a person that their screen name is Brat_trainer, he took double exposures with a roll of film that I took in Valley of Fire… what other photos am I sharing? I think that’s all of the photos I’m sharing from the event. (EDIT I’m also sharing photos from Robert Beech who shot wet plates!) It was an amazing event, it was so fun! It was one of the last events that I did before covid hit and made it so that it’s harder for people to get together in person. Somebody is mowing their lawn… or something. Do you like my new glasses? Yeah this event was super awesome, I had a really amazing fun time there, it was super great, it was really connecting, it was really fun, it was hot. It was at a permaculture farm outside of Detroit called Crossing Hedgerows Sanctuary very much recommend anyone that’s out in that area to check them out, it’s an amazing location and I’m so thankful for them giving us the ability to hang out and have our event there, that was wonderful. I’m just thinking back fondly, it was really fun. It was a creative educational community supportive fun gathering, it was just great.
What else do I want to talk about this week? Oh! I just created a pay what you can membership, the membership is either $15, $10, $5, $3 or $1 based on what the person’s ability is to pay. The $1 ones are specifically for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color only. The reason I’m able to have a pay what you can membership is because of those of you who have the higher level memberships. Your membership is allowing me to have those discounted memberships for other people, so thank you so much for that. I appreciate you so much! Yeah I’m just excited about it, I want my work to be accessible to everyone and I think this is a great way to make it accessible. I mean, I already have a ton of free stuff, but in terms of my memberships for the paid things, I want to make them accessible and this is the way I’m making it accessible, and it is thanks to yalls help because you’re already here supporting me and that allows me to support the rest of the community with cheaper options for memberships so I thank you so much! The pay what you can membership is basically the video membership at a discounted rate. I went through and did more planning and organizing and I figured out that I have enough content to go through Halloween at least! I have so much content, it’s ridiculous yall. Honestly it can probably go longer than that, that’s just what I planned out for, and that’s still including me not really creating anything.
Last Sunday I took a self portrait set for the first time since last summer, so that was interesting. I did a double exposure self portrait set with photos I took in Utah over the summer last year. I am a little bit disappointed because most of them didn’t come out. More than half of the roll is just landscapes because I should have overexposed the images of me and I didn’t, I wasn’t paying as much attention to the exposure because it was me taking self portraits and I was just trying to do it quickly and easily and I should have been more particular with how I was doing it but, it was a fun experience and that’s all that matters. I did get a handful that are really good that did come out as doubles, but a lot of the roll is just all you can see is landscapes and very very very very faint maybe see a body in some of them so… a little disappointed in myself that a chunk of the roll didn’t really come out as doubles but I love the landscapes anyway because it’s one of my favorite places.
AHHHHH I just noticed a snail! Oh my gosh so cute! I don’t know if I can show you… let’s see… I’m gonna just like, cheat it. Nope I can’t do it, I can’t show you, I mean I maybe can, lets see…. oooop this thing doesn’t want to. I’ll take a picture and show you later. I just looked down in the grass and there’s this real cute snail just like slinkin along in the grass it’s really adorable. Yeah it’s so cute, so yeah, me, excited. Ok sooooo what else do I want to tell you? I don’t think I really have anything right now. I’m focusing my efforts on gathering information and figuring out what I want to do to do my part to make Black people’s lives better. As a white person that’s my job. If you’re also a white person and you don’t know where to start, you can go to my instagram and I have a whole bunch of stuff saved in my “protests” highlight, I have 2 of them now. So check those out if you need a place to start. I’ll probably be sending out an email newsletter with a lot of resources also in the coming weeks. I’m still gathering resources and still thinking about what I want to do. I have some ideas of what I personally want to do to help my local community, I’m still figuring that out. Yeah I think that’s all I have to say today. I’m excited to share these Conscious Creativity photos with you. I love you so much! Thank you for being here. I look forward to all of the changes that happen in the future because I know more are coming and I know it’s going to be for the better of everyone and… yeah. Thank you. I love you! Have a good day.
Here’s the cute snail I saw:
Lior Allay‘s photos:
Doug Pierce‘s photos:
Robert Beech‘s photos:
Brat_trainer‘s photos:
Video members:
click here to view the full photoset taken by Lior Allay
click here to view the full photoset taken by Doug Pierce
click here to view the full photoset taken by Brat_trainer double exposed over my images of Valley of Fire
click here to view the full photoset taken by Robert Beech on wet plates + 1 medium format film double exposure
click here to view the BTS videos & photosFirst Look members:
click here to view the 10 minute vlog – an intro to Bunny Luna! (I shot this in December and haven’t done anything with it yet haha)
click here to view the unedited self portraits I took at my sister’s house last year -
FREE ARCHIVED BLOG & PHOTOSET
I originally wrote this for Patreon on March 4th 2017. I no longer use Patreon and have replaced it with my website (here) but thought I would share some of my old blogs with you for FREE to show my appreciation for you visiting my website! <3
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Wow, I can’t believe it’s March already! Time is flying for me, is it flying for you too? I’m not complaining though, every day is a day closer to spring and summer and warmth! This week’s sets were actually taken outside! We’ve had a few abnormally warm days here in NC so I got to take advantage and I went to a park that has this wooden amphitheatre and took a couple of self portrait sets for you! I wanted to take more photos but I had to hastily put my clothes back on when someone started walking in my direction. One day the general population will be open minded enough to not freak out over nipples and butts… I know that has to be coming in the future. It has to!
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This week I wanted to share more personal stuff about me, especially since I’ve been doing the informational metaphysical posts these last few weeks. I really love talking and sharing information about metaphysical stuff (I hope you enjoy it too!) but it’s been a while since I’ve opened up to y’all. I barely share personal things on social media because I’m usually much more of a private person. However, I savor the opportunity to reveal more of myself to y’all – my supporters, my confidants, my friends. <3 Thank you for being here with me!
So, lately my life has been pretty hectic. I work a 40-hour work week, take aerial silks classes 2-3x a week, model for figure drawing sessions a couple times a month, I have a husband and roommate to spend time with, I try to find time for yoga and/or meditation, and I usually spend a weekend a month at my parents’ house for quality family time because they’re amazing and I don’t see them as often as I used to since I live further away from them now. I really appreciate and look forward to the time I set aside for myself to create for patreon – for YOU. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t spend near as much time being creative. It wouldn’t be a priority and I would end up with a lot of other important things that would take up my time before I could make time for art. So, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Being creative is my passion and what I essentially want to do as a career. You are helping me get one step closer to being creative full time, and that means so much. Haha I said I was going to open up to you and immediately started gushing about how amazing you guys are. <3 <3 <3
Anyway… (I’m going to add some metaphysical stuff in here, get ready!) so I’m a Sagittarius. I’ve always liked reading horoscopes in newspapers and magazines, but a couple of years ago me, my parents, sister, granddaddy, and a couple of my parents’ friends started getting together once a month to talk about astrology. There is SO MUCH to learn and it can get overwhelming because there’s not just the 12 signs, there’s all the houses and aspects and the different planets… we’ve barely touched the surface. BUT, learning more about the signs in particular has helped me get to know myself better and to know others better as well. My sister Kitty is a Gemini and essentially starts her life over every 2 years or so, it’s amazing… and it’s totally a Gemini trait to do that, they’re all about change. Sagittarians are lucky, cheerful, independent, free spirited, versatile, have a bad case of wanderlust, and are always searching for knowledge. This is 100% me. You know what my dream is? My biggest dream (as of now, I’m sure it will change and grow and evolve over time) is to buy a big giant work van, convert it into a camper van, and live in it while exploring the country on a lifelong road trip, creating, meeting new people, and learning as much as I can about as much as I can. Oh my GOSH y’all I just… I really dream about this every day. I am the luckiest person in the world, too, because Antisocialdisposition/my husband is so super supportive of me and says that even though he doesn’t want to live in a van for longer than a few weeks, he is totally fine with having a home base where he lives full time and I can go off on my merry adventures for a few weeks at a time. My goal is to buy that van by the end of this year and finish the build out before AD finishes his electrical engineering degree in Dec 2018. This is gonna happen, I’m going to make it happen.
What are your dreams for the future?
All members have access to the complete 33 image photoset by clicking here and the complete 25 image photoset by clicking here.
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Amanda Jane Maternity
CAPTION FOR VIDEO ABOVE:
Hi friends! Today is Thursday again, so I’ll talk about the photoset that’s coming out this weekend first. I wanted to come out here where it’s shady. So this weekend I’m sharing a photoset that I took a year or two ago of Amanda Jane who doesn’t, well, she does have social media but she wants to be anonymous, or kinda anonymous. She is actually the partner of my exes brother who I photographed her in Florida, if you’ve been a patron for a while you’ve seen the pregnancy photos I took of her in Florida, some of them were in the ocean in the water it was awesome. She had that baby and then she got pregnant again and I’ve photographed her while she was pregnant for both of her pregnancies. This one that I’m sharing with you this time were images that I took of her in my back yard (here!) during her second pregnancy, so I’m excited to share those with you, I think they’re really awesome. I believe I have Instax AND film to share with you so look forward to that!
What else do I want to talk about? Um… so much has been going on in the world. CONTENT WARNING: I’m going to be talking about racism and violence from the police so if you don’t want to hear about that you can skip through. When I’m done talking about that I’ll wave my hands a bunch so you can skip to find that, how about that? So when you see me doing this then I’m done, it’s the end of the trigger warning.
So what’s going on this country right now is FUCKED UP and it’s been going on for 400 years basically and its seemingly just now coming to the surface for most white people who are actually finally realizing this is happening sadly because we’ve all been gaslit and lied to basically our whole lives, and we’ve been taught and had propaganda shoved down our throats about how cops are good and how everyone is equal, which both of those are lies. I have been really mad a lot lately and it’s totally justified and yeah rage is valid and I’m going to say it could definitely be healing, especially for Black people. If they can let their emotions out then that is excellent because they deserve to be able to have all of their emotions even if they’re hard for us white people to witness or understand. It’s our duty as white people with fuck tons of privilege to let Black people have all the feels that they fucking want to have. Period. So yeah I’m totally FOR everything that Black people are doing to have their voices heard. If you’re a white person and you’re talking about how looting shouldn’t happen and violence and fires and stuff shouldn’t happen, you can either google why that is totally wrong and why all of these things are valid and worthy expressions of emotion and if you have a problem understanding that then please send me a message and I can send you some resources because you should not be reaching out to Black people for that because they already have enough on their fucking plate than having a white person coming into their emails or DMs and asking for education. It is not their job to do emotional labor for free for a fucking white person. So as a white person, I am taking on some of that emotional labor, if you really need some resources about how everything that’s happening right now needs to happen, then reach out to me and I can send you some info. You don’t even really need to reach out to me, you can just go on my instagram and look at my protest highlights, there’s a fuck ton of information, I have 2 highlights now because I filled up the first highlight. And also in my instagram bio I have a link to a lot of resources for things that you can do to help with this cause. I know that police violence and racism is something that’s really big for a lot of people to talk about right now because that’s what’s happening, but that doesn’t mean that this is the only time that its happened and it doesn’t mean that right now is the time to talk about it and then next week we’re going to forget about it. This has to be an ongoing conversation until police are abolished and the fucking militarization of our country in general is taken down and ended. My personal view which I think a lot of people would agree with me is that we need to completely abolish police and all military, period. All it does is further separates us and further traumatizes us and hurts everyone and if instead of spending all the money on military and police, if we spent that money on healthcare, mental health, trauma resolution, trauma healing, food banks, housing (especially for Black people), if we took all of the money from military and police and put it towards our communities, we wouldn’t need the police anyway. They just continue and provoke and incite violence. I have a lot of feelings about this and if you have different feelings from me please don’t try to convince me otherwise because I can’t be convinced, because I know that especially Black people deserve way fucking better than this and we need to start working in that direction. Also reparations need to happen. Just because you personally didn’t own slaves doesn’t mean that your ancestors didn’t. As a white person it’s our responsibility to dismantle racism, it’s not Black people’s responsibility. They are the victims of racism, it’s not their responsibility to do anything about it, they just need to survive and take care of themselves, and do whatever the fuck they want to do. Period.
END OF CONTENT WARNING if anyone was fast forwarding you can come back to me, I’m going to talk about different things now.
This weekend I’m going to be offline Friday Saturday and Sunday, so that’s starting tomorrow. I planned this a couple weeks ago where I’m going to be doing an at home retreat and self care. I’ve been doing a bunch of things up to now in terms of helping people and giving information to people about the things I was just talking about. And also doing actionable things myself but I don’t want to say exactly what I’ve been doing because it’s important to not give evidence to the cops haha. This weekend is kindof an emotionally big weekend for me. There’s an important date this weekend that I wanted to make sure I was taking care of myself around. Also on Friday there’s a fucking um… (it will have been yesterday by the time you watch this, bc today is Thursday but when I post this it will be Saturday) so yesterday, Friday, was a full moon and an eclipse and if you haven’t already noticed it in your own life, full moons, even without eclipses, full moons like turbo-charge our emotions and eclipses intensify that even more. So I wanted to definitely make sure I was taking care of myself, also because the moon is in Sagittarius, which is my sun and moon, the moon is in Sagittarius during the eclipse on Friday so that felt personal to me. And just with everything going on and I’ve been really stressed out and feeling all kinds of feelings so I know that I really need to take care of myself. So I won’t be available this weekend at all. I probably won’t even be on my phone or on Instagram or anything, I plan on spending a lot of time outside and moving my body and taking baths and doing ritual stuff and whatever the fuck I feel like doing. So if you need to reach out to me, expect for me to answer next week.
So… yeah. In terms of what I already had planned for my photosets and video releases here on my website, this weekend was the last one that I had planned, but I do have a lot more content to share I just haven’t planned out what I’m sharing when, so I know I still probably have at least a month’s worth of content to share with you. Once I get through all that content, I still haven’t taken any new photosets, once I finish that, I know I’m going to continue doing videos and probably photos at some point, I just don’t know when. So the way that I have my website will probably shift a little bit more again. I’m thinking about doing a pay as you can membership and just having all of the members, except for the All Access members who get a monthly one on one hour long video chat with me as part of their membership, with the exception of those, all of the other memberships are going to have all of the same content and it’s just pay what you can. So that way it’s more accessible for more people at different price points and then you can just pay literally what you can. Any amount will help me because any amount is better than nothing because this is literally my whole livelihood. I’m thinking of doing that and once I go through all the content I have backlogged I’ll still continue to make videos but I might not have as much in terms of quantity of content that I share every week, that might shift, BUT I have over 11,000 photos and over 2,000 videos that are already in my archives. Especially if you’re a new member you probably haven’t seen it all, I have a FUCK TON of content. I don’t think that there will be any lowering of quality in terms of memberships, there just won’t be as frequent of new updates, because literally I already have a fuck ton of content already on here and its definitely worth the membership cost to have unlimited access to it every month. So I don’t exactly have all of it figured out and planned out yet, it’s just what I’ve been thinking about doing because accessibility is important to me and because I think people…. hi fly, there’s a fly flying around me right now. I think the people who are able to afford the higher memberships, that’s wonderful and I super appreciate that, and I think that your higher membership cost is what’s going to allow people at lower membership prices still be able to have access to my content. So for anyone who is considering any membership, I appreciate you, and the people who don’t have the ability to pay as much as you, probably appreciate it too that your higher priced membership allows them to have a lower priced membership, so thank you for that.
I think that’s all I have to say right now, my hand is getting tired from holding this, it’s hot out here and I have a lot of other computer work to do, plus this is a really long video already, it’s almost 15 minutes, I usually do 10 or less. I just wanted to say I love you and thank you so much for being here, and I appreciate you and I literally couldn’t do this without you. Literally, you’re the reason I can pay my rent and buy myself food. So… I don’t know what’s in store for the future, but I know that I’m always going to be doing my best and I’m always going to be creating something, whether I’m taking a really long break from creating or not, that doesn’t mean I’m done creating forever, that just means I need a break because I burnt myself our this summer. Okay, I love you, thank you for being here, I’ll talk to you next week.
If you haven’t joined in on the members only video chat with me on Thursdays yet, I’m inviting you to come join us! It’s really fun, there’s usually a handful of us there, we sometimes talk about a certain topic, sometimes we just chit chat about our days, sometimes I do things, sometimes we’re just hanging out, it’s always different. It’s been really fun, it’s every Thursday at 6pm eastern, I would love to have you join me! I always post a post with the link usually within about 15 minutes of the start of the chat so if you’d like to join us please do! I love you so much! Bye!
Video members:
click here to view the full film photoset of Amanda Jane during her second pregnancy
click here to view the full Instax photoset of Amanda Jane
click here to view the body awareness meditation at sunset in Goblin ValleyFirst Look members:
click here to view the self portrait photoset of sunset near Canyonlands
click here to view the self portrait photoset of sunset on the edge near Canyonlands
click here to view the BTS video -
FREE ARCHIVED BLOG & PHOTOSET
I originally wrote this for Patreon on February 25th 2017. I no longer use Patreon and have replaced it with my website (here) but thought I would share some of my old blogs with you for FREE to show my appreciation for you visiting my website! <3
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This week’s photoset was taken by Takama Photo (formerly known as Marc Andre Photo), a talented and engaging photographer local to Charlotte. He told me to bring anything I might want to shoot with, so of course I brought a couple of my skulls and some of my crystals and they made it into a few of the photos. Marc got some fantastic light in the studio and I really love these images. I’m excited to share them with you, I hope you guys like them as much as I do!
Last week’s post about crystal grids has me wanting to share how to cleanse them. There are many different ways to cleanse crystals, so you can choose which way (or ways) work best for you. Why should you cleanse crystals? Crystals not only send out their own individual energies but they soak in energies as well. When you use crystals in a grid, for energy healing, or any other purpose, it’s best to cleanse them first so that they don’t have any unwanted negative energy in them. How often should you cleanse crystals? Right after you acquire them, before using for ritual or healing, and every so often at whatever frequency you feel is best based on how often you use them.
-Ways to cleanse crystals-
-Set them in a windowsill or outside during a full moon
-Waft sacred smoke over your crystals
-Bury them in the earth, either straight into the earth or you can wrap them in cloth before you bury them
-Use reiki energy to cleanse your crystals
-Use other crystals that have already been cleansed, such as surrounding your crystals with quartz points or placing them on an amethyst druze
-Bury them in a bowl of flower petals. The petals you choose have their own energy, so you can choose petals based on what energy you would like to immerse your crystals in (rose for love, lavender for healing and relaxation, etc)
-Use nearby sound vibrations, such as Tibetan or crystal singing bowls
-Set them in a windowsill or outside in the sun (not all crystals should be cleansed this way, some will fade from sunlight such as amethyst, citrine, and rose quartz, so make sure your crystal can be in sunlight before you use this method)
-Run water over your crystals (water can badly damage or ruin some crystals such as selenite, malachite, and desert rose, so make sure your crystal can handle water before you use this method)—————————————————————————-
Check out the videos folder for 3 new aerial silks videos!
I’ve also added a practice/preliminary positive affirmations video. Honestly I hesitate to upload it because it’s not what I want the final video to be like, but since I have it I might as well share it. I had a few minutes and wanted to see how long it would take for me to read out all the positive affirmations I had written down. The message and feeling in it is exactly what I want but for the real video I plan on it being different visually, not just me sitting talking into the camera. What do you think?
All members have access to this complete 36 image photoset by clicking here.
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Waterfall self portraits
CAPTION FOR THE ABOVE VIDEO:
Hello! So this week I am sharing (oh, it’s very muddy in my yard) I’m sharing a couple of photosets that are self portraits that I took, probably a couple years ago honestly, it’s been a little bit, from when I was traveling by myself in the mountains of North Carolina. It was probably 2018 or 2019. I got a spiderweb on my phone! Also I just got this fancy stabilizer for my cell phone which is why it looks so good and I’m not bouncing you around everywhere! Yeah so, these photosets, I really like them, it’s just me spending time out near waterfalls in NC which is one of my favorite things to do! I’m rolling up my pants so I don’t get them wet, we’ve had a lot of rain here and the ground is still pretty wet.
For the First Look members I’m sharing the double exposure photoset that I took of Tiffany Helms on Bainbridge Island outside of Seattle Washington from my trip last summer. Let’s see what else? I’ve been doing a little bit more computer work the last couple of days which I’m kindof excited about because I’m getting closer to doing things that I want to do. Today I just posted (today is Thursday, I usually do these on Thursdays) I posted Energy Medicine/Energy Healing 101 to my instagram story and I saved it as a highlight so if you go to my instagram you can still find it even if it’s gone from my story. I think it’s pretty cool, I’m excited about doing these educational video things, well actually that wasn’t a video but, I have a lot of knowledge, I know a bunch of different things, I’ve been learning a lot of various healing things over the years and I’m excited to share them with more people. The healing things I’m probably most excited about, but I love photography and that kind of thing too, and witchy stuff. I’m looking forward to sharing a bunch of my knowledge with people and I feel like sharing that information for free through my instagram and youtube channel is beneficial to everyone so I’m looking forward to doing more of that. I feel like I’m starting to get kindof a plan of the things I want to do. The next thing I’m gonna go over is witchy things and rituals and stuff, after that I’m going over gender, and after that I’m going over ecosexuality more, even though I already have June and July every Monday on my youtube channel I’ll be going over ecosexuality and another topic, looking at the topic through the lens of ecosexuality such as sex, gender, attraction, consent, money, spirituality, so I have a bunch of those coming up in June and July on my youtube channel for my lives on Mondays. I’m really excited about those because I’m so obsessed with ecosexuality and I want to share it with everyone! I think that’s going to be a really good way to spread information about ecosexuality is through youtube.
So I feel like I’m starting to have a little bit more of a plan of things I want to do so that feels good. A lot of what I want to do is share information freely with people without having a paywall between them and the information that I have. But I also at the same time do need to make money so that I can live. Literally the money I make from my website is how I pay my bills. I really enjoy spending time with yall on Thursdays and I think that’s a big benefit to being a patron/member, is you get to support me and we get to hang out every week! Which, I really love that. I’ve been enjoying that. I feel like the last several weeks I’ve just had us hang out and talk and not had a topic or thing to do or activity. I might start having planned activities or specific topics to talk about so it’s not just chit chatting the whole time. I don’t know, I really like hanging out and talking to yall so I might just stick to that, but I don’t know if yall are maybe getting not necessarily bored, but you might want more out of those Thursday hangouts than what we’re doing so far. I know we talked several weeks ago or more like a month or so ago, about different things that I could do for the Thursday chats and I do really like the idea of planning out what I’m going to do but at the same time I don’t want to hold myself to this really rigid schedule either. Especially since it’s with yall and you might not always want to talk about the topic that I have or whatever. I like that they’ve been really organic and whatever comes up we talk about, but I’m also open to having more structure at the same time.
I just noticed that there’s a Magnolia flower starting to bloom on the Magnolia tree and that makes me really excited and happy. It’s really muggy and hot out here, it’s been raining for about a week and a half, just about every day, it’s not raining today which is why I’m outside and I’m very excited about it but I expect that it’s going to be raining some more over the next couple of days because that’s what the forecast has said. Maybe that tropical storm is still at the coast of NC, I don’t know, I know that it’s been there for a while but I don’t know how fast it’s moving.
So, if you have any topics of conversation that you want to discuss on Thursdays let me know. I probably might do a self portrait session during one of them at some point. I’m not sure if I’m quite ready for self portraits again yet, just because maybe I’ve stressed myself out about it enough that I haven’t been doing it, and like oohh I need to do it.
Not this weekend but next weekend I’m taking the whole weekend to myself, the 5-7th, the first weekend of June. It’s kinda a big weekend for me emotionally so I’m being extra gentle with myself. Plus I think there’s a full moon eclipse that Friday, I’m pretty sure, I need to look it up again but I think that Friday is a full moon eclipse. So I feel like energetically and emotionally it’s going to be a big deal for me and I’m looking forward to not doing any work and just focusing on self care and doing things that feel good to me. I also have planned to do a bunch of mushrooms! Because I fucking love mushrooms and I learn more about myself every time and I feel like I get a deeper connection with myself and the universe and the Earth and nature and my understanding of the world every time I do them and I just… fucking love mushrooms. I’ve never taken a really big dose, I’ve always just microdosed, which has worked really well for me. I’ve had, every single trip I’ve had has been really good spiritually, emotionally, and physically enlightening and positive for me. My sister however has had more bad trips than good trips but I think she’s had bigger doses than I have and that might have contributed. The worst I’ve ever felt when I’ve taken mushrooms was a little bit of a belly ache because sometimes the psilocybin in the mushrooms doesn’t do super well in your stomach, but for me that hasn’t been anything really negative at all. The benefits very far outweigh the negatives for me. Yeah I love mushrooms! I might make some content when I’m doing that self care weekend, I haven’t decided yet. Just depends on how I feel, I don’t want to pressure myself. I don’t do well with expectations or pressure so I don’t want to do that to myself, it’s not nice. That’s another reason why I super appreciate the people in my life that don’t put expectations or pressure on me because they know how much I despise it and how much it makes me want to do the opposite of whatever it is I’m “supposed to do” so I really appreciate everyone who doesn’t put expectations or assumptions on me because that’s like the worst thing ever for me.
So how do you like this smooth video? I really love this stabilizer so far. It is a little heavy to hold, but I won’t be doing 30 minute videos with it or anything. Plus it came with a mini tripod, it’s really adorable, so I could just put it on a tripod. Since I have this stabilizer I’ll be making more dynamic videos and more videos that aren’t just static and are actually moving around and stuff. Combining videos to make more artistic short videos that have some movement and some static video in it. I’m not really looking forward to the computer work that it will require, but I think once I finish my backlog of videos, I think I only have 4 or 5 left, then I wont be as stressed about making video content because it’ll be like well I just made this one thing and it’s the only thing I have to edit instead of I made this thing that is piling on top of all of the other things that I already still have to edit.
This is a long video already and I want to get started on prepping the post for this weekend and I’ve said basically all the things I want to say. I love you so much, thank you for being here. I appreciate that you support me even when I don’t know what I’m doing. It means a whole lot to me that you’re along for the ride. I love you so much! I’ll talk to you next week!
Video members:
click here to view the full self portrait photoset in the NC mountains (Shadowed Falls)
click here to view the full self portrait photoset in the NC mountains (Bright Waterfall)
click here to view the Earth connection meditation video
click here to watch the 13 random videosFirst Look members:
click here to view the double exposure photoset of Tiffany Helms on Bainbridge Island
click here to view the BTS video -
FREE ARCHIVED BLOG & PHOTOSET
I originally wrote this for Patreon on February 18th 2017. I no longer use Patreon and have replaced it with my website (here) but thought I would share some of my old blogs with you for FREE to show my appreciation for you visiting my website! <3
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I am so excited to share this set with y’all! It was not planned at all, but somehow the very best of everything seems to always happen when there’s no plan for it.
I went to my parents’ house to meet up with a model and shoot because my parents are awesome and the house is really pretty….. but the model never showed up. I was a little upset at first but not for long because I decided I was going to make art anyway. I took self portraits with the help of my mom!! <3 <3 <3 The first half of the shoot I had the camera on my tripod and I set up the shot and the focus and everything, got into position, and had her click the shutter when I was ready. The second half of the shoot we put the tripod away and she took the photos! She shot a pack of Instax too! The shoot took a couple hours because I would set up a crystal grid, set up the camera, take a few photos, and then break down the grid, set up another one, take some photos… the process was really fun, creative, and rewarding. And I always love spending time with my mom, she’s one of my very best friends.
Not only is this set special to me because I created the images with my mom, it’s also special because we incorporated crystal grids! I have always loved crystals and stones and have been collecting them since I was little. I love making crystal grids, meditating with crystals, displaying them in our house, using them to send positive healing energy to others when they are not physically here, collecting them, looking at them….. ahhh I love crystals!
-Into to crystal grids-
A crystal grid is an arrangement of crystals, usually in a geometric pattern (most often sacred geometry), created with a specific intention in order to direct energy toward manifesting a goal. Individually, crystals have their own energies and power, and when combined with other crystals in a grid, their energies combine and strengthen your intention, sending that energy out into the universe. You can make a crystal grid to help you sleep, to attract wealth and abundance, to assist in healing… whatever your intention is you can create a crystal grid to enhance it.
There are many different ways of creating crystal grids, and not one specific way is the ONLY way to create one. The best way to make a crystal grid is to follow your intuition and do what feels best for you.
-Basics of setting up a crystal grid-
1- Cleanse the area where you’ll be creating your grid. You can use sacred smoke, reiki, or whatever you prefer to cleanse an area.
2- Choose your intention, what do you want this crystal grid to do for you? Enhance peace & happiness? Attract wealth & abundance? Assist in healing? You may want to write your intention on a piece of paper or keep it in your mind while you set up and activate your grid.
3- Choose crystals that work for your intention, make sure they are cleansed.
4- Choose a place for your grid. You want it to be somewhere that the crystals won’t be disturbed. Maybe on a table, on a tray (so you can move it to different rooms in your house), or maybe even in a special place outside. You can even make or purchase a sacred geometry grid layout made of wood or fabric (like these here and here).
5- Arrange your crystals in a pattern that feels right for you. If you wrote your intention down on a piece of paper, fold it up and put it in the center of your grid. Some people like to place their center/master/focus stone in the grid first (it has a lot of names), and some people like to place it last. Most grids are circular with the center/master/focus stone in the center and all the other stones around it, but your grid doesn’t have to be circular if that doesn’t feel right for your intention. Do what feels right to you! <3
6- You can arrange other special/magical objects in and around your grid, such as feathers, bones/skulls, oracle/tarot cards, etc to enhance it and its energy.
-Activating your grid-
Take a few deep breaths, focusing on your breathing and letting go of any excess thoughts. Hold your intention in your mind. Using a clear quartz crystal or crystal wand, hold it over each crystal and imagine it awakening and activating each crystal’s energy. Use the quartz or wand to “connect the dots” between each crystal and visualize them connecting energetically to amplify your intention. Some people like to “connect the dots” from the outside in, some like to do it from inside out, some like to do it clockwise… whatever feels right to you. If you have time, meditate in front of your grid for a few minutes while continuing to hold your intention in your mind. Visualize the energy of the crystal grid flowing up and out into the universe. Meditate with your grid every day if you can, and keep the grid set up for at least a couple of weeks, but a month or more is even better. Reactivate it whenever you feel it needs it, maybe every other day, every week, or every couple weeks.
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Looks like I need to make another post about how to cleanse crystals and how to choose crystals based on their energetic properties/which ones are used for love, abundance, protection, etc. I’ll do that soon!I haven’t forgotten about making the positive affirmations/meditation/metaphysical videos! I haven’t had time this week to make a good video but that’s coming soon! I have some ideas I want to try… =]
Ok now it’s time for photos!! <3
All members have access to this complete 36 image film photoset by clicking here.
All members have access to the complete 10 image Instax photoset by clicking here.
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Maya Tihtiyas
CAPTION FOR VIDEO ABOVE:
Hi friends! This week I’m sharing 2 photosets, one that I took of Maya Tihtiyas (I apologize Maya if I’m saying your last name wrong!), she visited NC and came and hung out with me at my house for a little bit and we photographed each other, so there’s a photoset that I took of her and a photoset she took of me. This was probably OVER a year ago for sure, I could look up the exact date but it isn’t super accessible to me at the moment, so it’s not that big of a deal for me to know exactly when these were taken. I have a habit of hoarding photos for a really long time and not sharing them, so yeah… I don’t really know why I do that. BUT these photos I really like. I think the set I have scheduled to share is the double exposure set I took of her and I really like them they’re really cool.
Today is a weird day for me, I don’t know, I emotionally don’t feel like super here, and my period is LATE and I’m trying to not be too annoyed or like freaked out by it, but I think that’s maybe part of why my emotions are feeling weird right now. Also a friend of mine that’s barely more than an acquaintance, like we’ve hung out twice and we used to go to the same yoga studio before lockdown, reached out to me because she has some similar relationship experience to me in terms of polyamory. She’s going through a rough time right now and wanted support and I am not in a place emotionally or time wise to be able to give her the support that she needs. We’re taught through our culture and through movies/tv shows/songs/peoples expectations that we’re supposed to abandon ourselves in order to help out our friends or the people we love or our partners or whatever, and I did that for years and years, and I’m not doing that anymore. So it was hard to set a boundary but I did it, I said “I appreciate that you trust me to hold space for you, but today I don’t have the time or emotional capacity to do justice to the kind of support that you need. Do you have someone else you can reach out to for support?” I don’t know if I’ve really ever done this before because I’m the kind of person, or I have been in the past, that has always felt like if I’m a good friend then I need to support people or help them out in their time of need. So it’s hard to set boundaries and say “hey, I know myself well enough to know that I’m not capable of doing a good job of supporting my friend right now” so I’m going to be honest with them and say “hey I don’t have it in me to be able to do this today.” And this is something new that I’ve just started being able to do. It’s not easy and it’s like… it goes against what a lot of our culture teaches us is expected from us. It sucks because it makes it really hard. And I’m not the kind of person to beat around the bush. I like to be direct and be like “this is what’s going on and this is what I need and this is the thing” and this conversation was through text so I was worried that she would take it the wrong way or be mad at me for not being able to “be a good friend” but I can’t abandon myself for anyone anymore. I’ve done that a lot throughout a lot of my life and I’m not doing it anymore. And I hope you don’t do it to yourself either, because it sucks. A lot. It hurts.
It’s been raining for 4 days straight and I’m glad that I just took a walk because it wasn’t raining when I was taking a walk and now it’s raining again. I took a walk in the rain yesterday. I just… feel gloomy today and the weather/rain is totally matching my mood. Or I’m matching the weather, what came first, the chicken or the egg? My mood or the weather? I don’t know if I’ve told yall before but I am capable of weather magick so I don’t always know if my mood came first or if the weather came first because I’m very connected to the weather. If you don’t believe me that’s okay. But I can tell you that there have been at least 5 times in the last couple of years that it has been about to start storming, like very obviously storming is about to happen, and I have calmly and gently and politely asked the weather to please wait until I’m inside with all of my things before it starts raining and… guess what happened? I get inside with all of my things, even if I have a delay, and then as soon as I close the door it starts POURING. This has happened at least 5 times in my life. I have a relationship to the Earth and the weather and I know that I am capable of weather magick. Whether or not the atmosphere/nature wants to listen to me is a different story, but it’s like a… what’s the word I’m looking for? Uhm, I have a relationship with the Earth and the weather.
I don’t know, I don’t have much else to say, I don’t want to be gloom and doom and make yall feel sad, because I want to be a source of inspiration and happiness and joy and education and love for everyone that I meet online so I don’t want to talk too much about my sad feelings. I know it’s really needed sometimes but I feel like since the pandemic I’ve had more gloomy/sad things to talk about than happy things to talk about so I don’t want to tip the scale in the sad direction anymore than I already have. So… I love you! I hope you’re doing well! I hope it’s sunshiney and happy wherever you are. I love you forever. I appreciate you being here supporting me, and I’ll talk to you next week.
Video members:
click here to view the full photoset of me taken by Maya Tihtiyas
click here to view the full double exposure photoset I took of Maya Tihtiyas
click here to view the video of me getting into my body
click here to view the video of me lounging nude in the sunFirst Look members:
click here to view the self portrait photoset on a desert rock in Utah from my cross country road trip last summer
click here to view the BTS video
click here to view the self portrait photoset of formations at dusk in Utah from my cross country road trip last summer
click here to view the BTS video -
FREE ARCHIVED BLOG & PHOTOSET
I originally wrote this for Patreon on February 11th 2017. I no longer use Patreon and have replaced it with my website (here) but thought I would share some of my old blogs with you for FREE to show my appreciation for you visiting my website! <3
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Happy day-after-the-full-moon-eclipse! The self portrait sets I’m sharing this week kinda don’t really match what I want to talk to you about… I’ll explain. These self portraits were taken when I was feeling pretty low. Scared for the future of our country, scared for my future and your future, feeling hopeless because I didn’t know the actions to take to make any kind of difference, upset because I had read too much online about all the terrible things happening. Some of my emotions show up in these photos and I’m glad I took them when I did, when I was sad/upset/hopeless/scared. I used self portraiture to work out some of my feelings and it helped me feel a little better.
What I want to talk to you about this week is positivity and the power of our minds. The power of positive thinking. All week I’ve been listening to youtube videos of Abraham Hicks speaking about the law of attraction, Eckhart Tolle speaking about the power of now, Louise Hay‘s positive affirmations, and various other positive affirmations. I’ve spent at least 4-9 hours each day, Monday through Friday, listening to all these uplifting, encouraging, powerful speakers. It has honestly changed my life already. I know I did an intro to positive affirmations blog post recently, but I can’t tell you enough how influential and POWERFUL they are! A day or two ago (after listening to a couple of day’s worth of these videos) I made a vow to myself that I will be positive in all aspects of my life, and I have already felt so much more joy and beauty and happiness since then. I am choosing to see everything from a positive perspective and boy is my life wonderful!!! I took a wrong turn and totally didn’t go where I meant to? Well look at this super cute little town I discovered on accident! I had to go grocery shopping after work yesterday? I wouldn’t have seen that amazingly beautiful sunset as I walked out of the store if I hadn’t gone! I spent a bunch of money on art supplies? I’m super excited to start making those color zines for you next month!
I highly encourage you to click some of the links above (any of them, or even better, all of them) and do some reading. You know those days when you wake up on the wrong side of the bed and your day starts out shitty and continues to be shitty or gets even shittier? That’s because of the law of attraction, when you start your day thinking about how crappy it is, the rest of your day is of course going to be crappy! That’s the energy you’re sending out so it’s the energy you receive. It works the other way around, too. If you wake up thankful for having a bed to sleep in, a house to live in, thankful that you’re ALIVE and you WOKE UP for another day, thankful that there are a million other things to be thankful for, happy that today is a brand new day that you get to be one more step closer to making your dream come true… the rest of your day and week and month and year are going to be amazing! If you send out the energy of gratitude, love, happiness, joy, and abundance, then that is exactly what you’re going to get back. If you set your mind to something, whatever that something is will happen. It may not be immediately or this week or this month or this year, but if you truly want it and work toward it and think about it excitedly and happily and as if it is on it’s way to you, it will happen.
My dad has said that he wishes he had reached higher, because he has gotten everything he has ever asked for and worked toward: a loving wife and children, a successful career, even a white cadillac. And you know what? It’s not too late to reach higher. He just recently got the best job he’s ever had (and he’s had some pretty good jobs already), he’s working LESS and making MORE.
REACH FOR THE SKY! Things may not happen the way that you expect them to but if you travel through life with gratitude and love then you will always be happy and successful.
You never lose, you either learn or you win.
I might go into this more in depth in the next couple weeks, I really want to talk to you more about Abraham Hicks, Eckhart Tolle, and Louise Hay. I just think this blog is pretty long already haha. I may start doing some videos about this too….. I’ll probably do a poll to see what you think, and I always love getting comments and messages from you!
I love you, thank you so much for being here with me and I hope I can bring some love and light into your life, even if it’s just through a computer screen.
***EDIT*** March 24 2020 as I’m scheduling this post: Three years ago I didn’t know what spiritual bypassing was, and this post sounds a lot like spiritual bypassing. Here’s a definition from Wikipedia: “A spiritual bypass or spiritual bypassing is a “tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks”. The term was introduced in the early 1980s by John Welwood, a Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist.”
I want to point out that while being positive is certainly a good thing, it is NOT good to ignore or avoid the full range of emotions and experiences that are an integral part of our lives. We are allowed to have “bad” days. It’s okay to not feel/be okay. Whatever you’re feeling is worthy of your attention, curiosity, and care. I might do a post sometime about feeling ALL of our emotions, and why it’s important.
All members have access to this complete 43 image basement self portrait photoset by clicking here.
All members have access to this complete 18 image antler self portrait photoset by clicking here.
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Nude Beach Gathering – images from Jake & Kayla
CAPTION FOR VIDEO ABOVE:
Hi friends! This week I’m sharing a photoset with you that was taken by Jacob Webster and edited by his now wife Kayla Webster during the nude beach gathering I facilitated outside of Portland Oregon during my cross country road trip last summer. I think this is the last photoset that I have from that event that I’m sharing with you so, yeah I think this is the end of that. I really love the photos that they took, these include the photos that were taken by the drone. Jake had the drone and used it at the end of the shoot for the big cuddle pile that was really wonderful and super fun. These are some of my favorites from that day, I love all of them but these are probably some of my favorites. A giant cuddle pile and you could see all of us from above? Yeah definitely.
I… I keep going back and forth in terms of how I feel about the things that I’m doing and I’m kinda concerned about how I probably only have a month or two left of content backlog to share with you and after that I don’t really know because I haven’t really been making anything other than videos. In the future, after the next couple months once I get through the backlog, I might not be sharing as much as frequently in terms of photosets, because I just have not been inspired to take photos since like, last fall basically. I kinda totally burnt myself out doing a LOT last summer. Then with my realization that I’m trans, and the realization that like… I don’t know. This isn’t the only thing I want to do with my life and I still am kinda struggling to figure out what the rest of that is. I don’t know… I feel like I need to have an answer about who I am and what I’m about and the message that I want to spread but the overall thing that I have is like “lets love each other and make everyone equal.” The light here is really bright, let’s see if I can get… that’s better. I think it’s important to point out the injustices that exist in our society because we can’t make any positive change unless we acknowledge that there’s a problem. I feel…. I feel like I should have it figured out and I totally don’t and I’m trying to be gentle with myself in the process. It’s kinda scary because my website is basically my only source of income and if I don’t continue what I’ve always been doing is anyone going to be interested in what I’m doing? If I change too much is everybody gonna bail and I’m going to be without an income? I don’t know. I really want to be true to myself and I really don’t want to force myself to do things that don’t feel right, which is taking photos right now. I do at some point in the future want to start taking self portraits again, but that’s not anything that I’m going to but a day or time commitment on because that’s a surefire way to get me to not want to do it is if I feel like I have to. I’m such a Sagittarius! I don’t want to be nailed down to anything, I don’t want to commit! So.. I don’t know, everything is weird. Maybe part of it is that I’m still not bleeding and I’m supposed to start my period sometime and I always get weird emotionally before my period so maybe that’s part of it.
But something I’m looking forward to, is tomorrow, so today is Thursday, I always do these early, so by the time you watch this it’ll be yesterday, but TOMORROW is Friday and I am doing a livestream on IG with Lior and we’re going to be giving a little preview of the vulnerability talk that we’re doing jointly with Roarie on Monday as a full discussion, and that’s something I’m excited about. It’s been really wonderful to connect with the two of them and spend time brainstorming and creating this discussion that we have planned out for yall. We’ve really loved getting feedback from other people. All 3 of us asked questions about vulnerability on our IG stories and the feedback we’ve gotten from people has been really amazing. And also the place that we have everyone signing up for the vulnerability discussion, which is FREE you should totally sign up! If you’re available, join us on Monday for free! 7pm eastern, the 3 of us are doing a whole discussion on this. And I’ve already lost my train of thought, but… yeah if you want to join us we would totally love to have you. OH! The place you sign up for it is a google form and it has questions about vulnerability, they’re not required for you to sign up, the only thing that’s absolutely required in order to sign up is your email address, but so far the responses that we’ve gotten from people in that too have been really amazing. I love the different perspectives that people are bringing to the table and some of the things that people are saying about vulnerability and how it shows up in their lives are things I haven’t thought about at all yet and it’s really wonderful that there’s so much to say about it. So if you’re interested, its free! I think when I made this video last week we were still in the planning stages and were thinking about having it be a paid event, but we’re like “you know what? lets just provide this for free for people” because it’s stuff that we want more people to have access to and we don’t want the barrier of money to be there. I’m excited, I think it’s going to be really wonderful. I’ve already really enjoyed spending time with Lior and Roarie talking about this so I know that the discussion on Monday will go even more in depth and we will be able to have conversations with the people that come to the talk. I think it’ll be eye opening and connective and just really wonderful, so I’m looking forward to that.
Hello little bird! It’s a little Carolina Wren right over there. I don’t know if you can see it. It’s over there. That kinda bird, we have a covered area over by the house and it has little troughs inside of it that have lights in them and these little, it’s usually 2 little Carolina Wrens will nestle up in the corners and sleep at night. They don’t have a nest or anything they just come and sit in the corner and sleep and it’s so cute! I haven’t seen them in a few days but they come and go randomly, it’s really adorable.
Okay, now that my neighbor is mowing their grass. I don’t have much else to share with you at the moment, but I just wanted to say thank you and I love you and I appreciate you going on this weird journey with me! I don’t know where I’m going so how could I expect yall to know where I’m going?! I appreciate that yall support me and that you’re along for the ride, because I don’t even know where this is going. I know that it’s going somewhere cool, and somewhere that fits me, even though I don’t know what that is, but I appreciate that you’re here and doing this with me. I love you!
Video members:
click here to view the full photoset taken by Jacob Webster and edited by Kayla Webster during the nude beach gathering I facilitated outside of Portland Oregon during my cross country road trip last summer
click here to view the BTS video
click here to view the nude yoga videoFirst Look members:
click here to view the self portrait photoset during desert dusk in Utah
click here to view the BTS video -
FREE ARCHIVED BLOG & PHOTOSET
I originally wrote this for Patreon on February 4th 2017. I no longer use Patreon and have replaced it with my website (here) but thought I would share some of my old blogs with you for FREE to show my appreciation for you visiting my website! <3
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I hope you’ve been liking my introduction to meditation, mantras, and positive affirmations posts these past couple weeks! I’m probably going to do a post about altars soon. =] I’d love to hear your feedback, please comment or message or email me! <3
So I’ve started going back to silks 2-3 times a week and I’m LOVING it! I’m nowhere near where I was before in terms of strength but it’s coming back pretty quickly and I’m really happy about it. It’s frustrating sometimes that I can’t completely do everything that I used to do before I got wrist drop at the end of May. It’s been so long since I’ve regularly done silks I can’t expect my body to still be at the same level of strength that it was. But it’s coming back! I notice myself getting stronger every time I go. Starting class again was really serendipitous, I went to a beginner class on Sunday a couple of weeks ago and the teacher for that particular class is my favorite one, Mandy. She asked me after class if I was going to be going back to the intermediate class since the next unit was starting that Tuesday. Guess which unit was starting? The one I started but was unable to finish when I was injured! It’s also the unit I am most excited about because scorpion is part of the curriculum!!! I got one class of scorpion, the thing I’ve been most pumped about learning, before I couldn’t come back because of wrist drop. If you’re new here I got wrist drop from a shibari suspension when I was at an artists vacation at the end of May. I had hardly any use of my right hand for 3 months. Anyway, the new unit was starting in just a couple of days but I wasn’t sure if I was ready for it or not since I needed to build my strength back up. Mandy suggested I at least go to a class or two to see how I felt. I’m really glad I went because I’m totally ready and intermediate is building my strength back up quicker than the beginner’s class would have. Be ready for silks videos pretty often now. =]
All members have access to this complete 51, 71, and 36 image self portrait photosets by clicking here, here, and here.