• How It Feels To Take Self Portraits In A Group

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    CAPTION FOR THE VIDEO ABOVE:

    Hi, friends! Today I’m going to talk about how it feels to take self portraits in a group.

    This is something that I have experienced several times in my life. I’ve hosted nude gatherings in person and online, and taken self-portraits in groups for several years and to me, it’s one of my favorite things to do so I wanted to talk about why I love it so much!

    So self portraits, I’ve already talked about why I love them in general, but specifically self-portraits in a group of people to me is really special because the collaboration and the communication and the energy of being in a group of people and making art together is really special. There’s something magical about meeting people, sometimes for the first time, and over the course of a few hours getting to know them and getting close with them, and feeling comfortable enough to like merge our bodies together to create some kind of art is just, *muah* I love it. It’s incredible.

    Some of my favorite experiences have been taking self-portraits in a group of people. For instance, I did a nude gathering outside of Portland, Oregon at a nude beach in 2019. And we roamed around the beach and took a bunch of photos, and then at the end we all made a huge cuddle pile on the beach and took photos together, and that was like, amazing! And most of those people I had never met before, and I felt comfortable enough by the end of the day to be naked and cuddled up with all of them, that it was just, it was such a connecting experience and I felt so comfortable in myself and in my body and with these humans that are lovely that I just, it was yeah, it was amazing. I hope you get to experience something like this. 

    I’ve also done a nude gathering at my house in Charlotte, here, this is technically my backyard. In the house, because it was a pretty hot day, I think it was in August of 2019 when I did that nude gathering. That also was, we created together and by the end of the day we had a naked cuddle pile. Those are my favorite! They’re my favorite. I’m a really like physical touch, cuddly person, and the fact that you can get to know someone and get close to them and feel safe with them and it be multiple someones, and by the end of the day have a good… what’s the word I’m looking for? Like a good relationship with them enough, that you feel safe to be naked and like cuddled up with them for photos. It’s the best. I love, I love it so much and the energy of just being in a group of people creating all together is really special. 

    So excited. Also in 2019, we had Conscious Creativity for the first time. Me and Lior Allay hosted it and that was in Ypsilanti, Michigan. And we, again, people that we hadn’t met before creating all together and by the end of the experience, we were all together in a group taking self-portraits. And yeah, it’s just so special. I’m really excited to say that Conscious Creativity in Ypsilanti, Michigan is happening again in person this year in 2022, August 27th and 28th. If you would like to join us, the whole premise of Conscious Creativity for this year is taking self-portraits, and at the end of the experience we’ll be doing a group self-portrait.

    YAY! Conscious Creativity!

    So, if you would like to participate in one of these experiences, please join us. We would love to have you. I’ll put all the information below. Yeah, if you have any questions that are not answered by all the information on the Eventbrite, let me know. You can email me or put a comment here on this blog. Yeah, I’m so excited, please join us. Let’s take self-portraits together in a group! I’m so excited! Okay. Thank you so much! I love you and I will talk to you soon! Bye!

    Join us for Conscious Creativity! Details + tickets are at this link!


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  • Do you need focused time to work toward your goals? 📝

    An Invitation: Queer Creative Coworking!

    Do you have a list of things you want to do, but for whatever reason can’t get around to actually getting them done?

    Coworking / body doubling is a process that allows for mindful preparation, a distraction-free environment + group accountability to help us work toward our goals. When we set up focused time on a regular basis, we are more likely to make progress on projects that matter to us.

    Itinerary:

    • gathering

    • dive in with quick tips + review of community guidelines
    • introductions (name, pronouns, intentions/goals for the session)
    • somatic practice
    • 1 hour of focused work/creation broken up into 2 x 25 minute blocks with an optional 10 minute break in the middle
    • journaling +/ writing down plans for next steps
    • sharing our progress

    Join us live on zoom!

    Wednesdays at 10am EST

    January 5th

    January 12th

    January 26th

    February 2nd

    Tickets are sliding scale, pay what you can!

    Members of bunnyluna.com get FREE tickets!

    This is an experiment! There are only 4 sessions scheduled to see how it goes, so if this sounds like something you’re interested in, join us while you can! I’m not sure if I’ll continue doing them in the future. ❤️

  • 5 Ways to Support Your Creativity

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    CAPTION FOR THE VIDEO ABOVE:

    Hi friends! I’m here to talk some more about creativity because I know that that’s something that a lot of you are really interested in and I obviously am also very interested, since that’s like, I’ve turned that into my life. So yeah, I wanted to share with you. I created this like, short list of five ways to support your creativity. I’m just going to dive right in.

    So, I feel like a lot of us think that creativity just like comes to us and we’re just like hit or struck by the like lightning bolt of creativity and it’s something that we don’t really have to like work toward. It’s just something that like happens to us, but from my experience, if I wait for that then it kind of never comes. And you kind of have to like hold space for and create the, like, conditions for creativity to be able to thrive. So this five ways to support your creativity list is something I just came up with this morning because I was thinking about it and I was like, yeah, let me share this with you.

    So the first way that you can support your creativity is by creating a routine, or a ritual, or a habit around it. So whether that’s every morning when you wake up, writing 5 words in your Journal, whether that’s every afternoon after you have lunch you doodle for 5 minutes, whether that’s once a week, you have a day set aside to walk around the park and take pictures. Whatever that works best for you is something that is a repeatable like consistent time that you set aside to do something creative, whether it’s five minutes, an hour, a day. And whether that’s every day, once a week, once a month, just like something that’s consistent that you can be like, oh that’s my day to be creative, and that really helps a lot. Because I feel like if I don’t make time for being creative then it kind of like goes to the wayside and other things become more important than it. So that’s a way that I’m able to make space for and ensure that I have like creative time is what I actually put it on my calendar and turn it into something that’s a regular thing. That’s helped a lot.

    And also I want to say I’m not perfect at any of these. I know that these things work for me, but that doesn’t mean that I always like stick to them because I’m human and things happen and like, same for you. If you miss a week or a day or whatever, like it’s not the end of the world. You can always pick it back up. Don’t beat yourself up because beating yourself up really doesn’t help anything, it just makes you feel worse. So that’s the first one is creating a ritual or habit or routine around your creativity.

    Tip number two is create a space for your creativity. So that kind of goes along with the creating a routine around your creativity. So the routine is kind of like a time a time space, right. So this space that I’m talking about is like a physical space. So whether that’s like I’m going to have a corner of my room, be just for my like notepad and pencil and pens and like all the things that I want like to draw with. I have this like little desk and that’s, that’s my creative desk or it might be you have a whole room. If you have the privilege of having that kind of space, like having like a studio space, and be like, this is my photography studio space. And that’s the only thing that it’s there for, and that is like the dedicated space for my creative photography stuff. If that’s possible, if that’s available to you.

     

    If you don’t have the kind of like physical space like a desk or room, you could also like create temporary physical spaces for your art. So like maybe if you’re a writer, but you don’t have a desk, like maybe you share a desk with another person or you just like have to randomly find a spot in your house to do writing whenever you have time. Maybe to set that space and like turn it into that dedicated space like physical space, you could add some kind of ritual to it, like maybe like get a cup of tea and light a candle and like when you do that your brain is like, “oh I know what we’re about to do. We’re going to be creative because this is what you do every time you’re creative you like get a cup of tea and light a candle”. Like that’s the physical space that’s kind of created through that like repetitive like ritual of like creating like this isn’t my only, you know, I have to share this desk with someone, but when I do these things together, that means that like the space is for creativity.

    Yeah, that’s the second tip or way you can support your creativity and that’s the having a dedicated space for it. Whether that’s like physical or whether that’s something that you set up temporarily.

    The third way to support your creativity is to set a timer and do something, anything. So if I’m like, I don’t know what I want to do. Maybe I’ll just set like a five or ten minute or fifteen, however long timer you want on your phone and just like Doodle Draw Journal, take random photos, experiment like whatever your creative thing you want to work on is, do like five minutes of that. Even if you’re like, I have no idea what I’m doing. Just be like, it’s okay I don’t have any idea. I’m just going to experiment and play and I’m just gonna do it for five minutes. I’m just going to do it for 10 minutes. Whatever that time is that you’re able to alot. So within that ritual and routine of the first like time ritual, the first tip or way that you can support your creativity, that time ritual can be once a week. I’m going to at least five minutes. Every day, I’m gonna do three minutes of doodling, whatever.

    And then you have also that dedicated physical space, that’s either permanent or temporary where you set a timer and do the thing. Just be like, I’m just gonna do it, whether you like it or not like is maybe not as important because you doing the thing is going to help your brain and your body remember like, this is a thing that I like to do and I do it repetitively and… no one is perfect 100% of the time. Like that just doesn’t exist. Sometimes we just need to give ourselves the space to like make a bunch of shitty art and that makes the space for us to have like the art that we super love. The time that you know, everything comes together perfectly. So as long as you’re just doing it, whatever it is and it doesn’t have to be perfect. Let the perfection go out the window, because that’s not important. It’s the act of doing it. When you do it, it’s more likely that you’re going to get something that you like because you’re doing instead of not doing it.

    The fourth way you can support your creativity is through having, whatever your creative supplies are… so like if your’re a writer, your pens or pencils. If you’re like a sculptor, then your sculpting supplies. If you’re an animator or something, then your computer or your like markers or, as a photographer like me your camera, your maybe your tripod, whatever, whatever the tools are that you use for your creativity, put those in a space that you see often, and that it’s easy to reach and like “Oh my camera’s right there, I’m just going to grab it and take a few photos because I like I’m inspired!” If the tools that you use for your creativity are like hidden away, then it’s going to be harder for you to like see them and be like, “oh I have an idea” or it’s also going to be like a barrier to getting you to doing the thing. It’s like, oh, everything’s packed away. I don’t really feel like unpacking all that stuff right now. I’m just not going to do it. 

    Like make it really easy on yourself. Have it somewhere that’s like in plain view, easy to reach, easy to get to. So that as soon as you feel the like creative urge then you can just be like, I got it. Let’s go. Let’s do it! So that’s the fourth way that you can support your creativity, is having your supplies in an easy to see and easy to reach place. Having it just being easy on yourself.

    The fifth and final way to support your creativity is to have an accountability buddy, like have a friend that you say I’m gonna do art every Friday at 4:00 for five minutes or however long. But at least five minutes, every Friday 4:00. Tell your friend, be like is a thing that I really want to do and actually like think it’s going to be good for me and I’m telling you because I don’t want to just hold myself accountable. I’m hoping that you might also hold me accountable to doing this thing every Friday. And you don’t have to do with me. I just maybe… can you check in on me and see if I was able to do it every Friday, like maybe in the evenings like 5:00 or 6:00, see if I was able to do the creative thing at 4. Just having a friend that you can talk to about it and like to remind you or support you or encourage you through doing this thing. It’s really helpful.

    And even if it’s not just like a single person. Maybe you’re going to post, maybe go post on social media be like “hey, this is my day and time to do this thing. Just telling everybody, I’d love to hear what your like art routine is.” Just if you are able to put it out into the world in a way that’s not just like it’s just something you’re doing for yourself, it’s some you’re doing that other people know about you’re more likely to do it and like hold yourself accountable whether other people that are also holding you accountable to doing it.

    You also kind of in that same accountability vein, you could do like a co-working or body doubling session with someone or a group of people. Coworking and body doubling to me, I kindof use them interchangeably, but it’s basically like having a set day of time where you and one or more people get together, virtually, or in person, to do your own work individually, but like in the same space either in person or virtually.

    So like for instance, maybe on Zoom every Friday at 4:00 is the time that I meet up with like two of my friends and we all like, we’re all in the same place, we might like chat in the chat box. But what we’re really doing is, like, focusing on doing whatever projects are working on. We’re going through photos, we’re writing up letters or, you know, but if it’s… it’s not necessarily like these are the things that I’m doing here. Will you make sure I do them? And also this is all the stuff that I’m doing, like, while I’m doing it. It’s more of like, you can do that. You don’t even have to really talk about what you’re doing. You can just be like, hey I’m going to do this thing. Thanks for being here with me. Let’s do it. Okay, bye.

     

    And then you’re like, sitting all on the computer and doing your own individual work. You’re just together in a space. That’s another way for like accountability. Because like whether or not you actually discuss what it is you’re doing, which you can, or you don’t have to, just having another person working alongside you on their own stuff is like a lot of encouragement and accountability for you to also do whatever your stuff is. So yay, that’s the five ways to support your creativity! And I’m going to go through those again really quickly just because I feel like I rambled.

    So here’s the list, five ways to support your creativity: create a ritual routine or habit around it. Have a dedicated space for your creative project or idea or thing. Set a timer and do something, anything, even if it’s like five minutes. Get accountability buddy or co-worker or body double. And store your supplies and a place that’s easy to reach and see so that you can use them in a pinch really quickly. 

    Yay! Creative things! If you liked this, please let me know. I might do more videos like this if you’re interested, I’ll put the link to my survey below and you can let me know what kinds of things you want to hear from me if you haven’t yet. And if there’s something that you want to like you want me to talk about that I haven’t yet. I’d be happy to hear your feedback. 

    Survey link is below and yeah, I want to make the things that you’re excited about receiving from me. So yeah, hope you have a wonderful day. I hope these tips to support your creativity are helpful to you, and I hope that you have an awesome day, weekend, whatever time it is where you are, okay. Have fun being creative! Support your art dreams! I love you so much! Thank you for being here!

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  • 5 Steps to Produce Ideas / 5 Steps for Being Creative

     

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    CAPTION FOR THE VIDEO ABOVE:

    Hello, good morning, or afternoon, or evening… whatever time it is where you are! I’m glad you’re here. I think this month I’m going to talk about creativity. I’ve already talked about creativity a bunch, but I feel like there’s a lot of things to say about it. So I’m gonna keep talking about it because so far in the survey that y’all have answered. Some of you have answered.

    Most people have said that they’re interested in…

    How to be more creative? How do I get inspiration? How do I love myself more? How do I…. Ah what were the other things that yall have said? How do I be more confident in myself? How do I embody my true self? How do I… How do I make friends? How do I… be happy?

    So I feel like a lot of the answers to a lot of these questions are kind of similar or along the same vein, or like have threads that go through a lot of them. And I think most of us struggle with the same things. Like I want to be creative. I want to be inspired. I want to be myself. I want to make friends. I want to be happy. And I imagine most of you also do. 

    So I recently shared to my my email newsletter that y’all may or may not be on. Hopefully you are. If you’re not I’ll put a link below if you want to sign up for it is free and I share stuff, occasionally. I try to do something at least once a month, but I recently shared on there a really quick blurb about this article that I found a couple months ago, that was kind of like a mini overview of a book that was written by James Webb Young in 1939, and it’s his like technique for producing ideas, which to me is kind of the same as like, how to be creative. It’s a five step technique, five. And I wanted to share some of that with you today because I think it’s really helpful, and I think a lot of us don’t really think about it in this way. So, yeah, I want to share that with you.

    CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR MY EMAIL NEWSLETTER

    So, if you already saw my email with this little thing in it, you might be like, oh okay, I know what you’re talking about but if you haven’t, I wanted to make a video about it.

    So the five steps to produce ideas / 5 steps for being creative.

    Step number one is gather your materials and resources, like gather your inspiration, gather stuff. So like if you’re like working on a project that has to do with trees, of course, you know, I’m thinking about trees all the time, then maybe you’ll gather books about trees. Maybe you’ll listen to a podcast about trees. Maybe you’ll take a walk in the forest to be among the trees. Maybe you’ll sketch trees, Maybe you’ll find some books about trees. Maybe you’ll see if there’s like some movies or documentaries about trees just like, gather all the information about whatever it is that you’re wanting to do or work on or like be inspired by. So just  gather all those materials that step one is gather.

    Step two is digest the materials. So that means read the book, walk in the woods, listen to that podcast, sketch those trees. You know, I’m just going to keep with this tree theme. That’s step two is like actually digest the material like absorb it and play with it and do some stuff with it. And I think number three is the most important part, most important step.

    So the third step is to have unconscious processing, which in other words, is set it down and forget about it and do something else. And I think this is, Both amazing and also really difficult to do sometimes because if we’re like really excited about something we really want to like I want to figure this out and do it. Like I don’t know how to draw this branch perfectly, so I’m just going to try it 5,000 times. Sometimes, the best thing to do instead of like hyper focusing and like forcing and like doing doing doing making it go, go go, sometimes really, the best thing to do is just be like, okay. I’ve like done a bunch of this. I feel like I’m getting frustrated, I feel like I’m getting kinda stuck, so I’m going to set it down. 

    And do something else for a little bit, and that little bit can be a few minutes, a few hours, a few days, a few months. Only you know what a little bit is for you and what that works best for you. So, unconscious processing, let your like rational conscious mind, let go of it for a little bit and let your like, subconscious like instinctual primal mind mull it over in the background while you’re doing other things. So like not consciously thinking about it. This is unconscious, this is most important but also the hardest! Do all those things and then just let it go, and don’t do it. Just do nothing about it or just like set it aside for an amount of time. That’s step 3.

    Step 4 is actually the aha moment, because while you’re in that do nothing step three, step four will naturally come. The, aha moment is when, like things like somehow like click together while you’re not thinking about it and you’re like, *gasp* I know exactly what to do now, or like, I just had the best idea!!! Your mind, and your brain, your body, like, everything’s always doing stuff behind the scenes even when you’re not really thinking about it. So sometimes, once you give it the space to like, not be stressed about it and just, like, doing something else. That’s when that aha moment comes and you’re like, Ohhhh I have this realization. Oh, now I know what to do. Oh, that tree, it just told me it’s story, The aha moment will come if you’re able to release that like force and do. So that’s step, four. Is that aha moment.

    And then step five is when your idea meets reality. So once you have that aha moment, step five is like, okay, now that I know what to do, I’m going to do it, Now that the tree has spoken to me, I’m going to write it’s story. Now that the image of this perfect branch just appeared in my mind, I could now sketch it. When this idea just appeared out of nowhere after mulling over for a while, now I’m going to do something about it. That step five is doing something about it, like, whatever that aha moment was, allows you to get to the space where you could do the thing. 

    Yeah, I think in this society was like capitalistic white supremacist colonialist imperialist, like, all of the shitty systems of oppression that like most humans have on them. It kind of makes us think, in this society kind of makes us think that like, we have to force things in order for them to happen. We have to constantly be going doing in order to be like, worthy of making stuff or anything like, this society makes us feel like we’re not good enough and we have to be constantly producing in order to be worth anything and that is not true. 

    It in a material way, sometimes feels like it might be true because we live in capitalism, like it…. How do I say this? We live in these systems of oppression, and they make us think that we’re not good enough, and that we have to constantly be forcing and doing and going. But in reality, when we allow ourselves to slow down, and to do what really feels best in our hearts and our bodies and our minds, our souls, but really feels best to us, and what really actually works for us, which includes rest and doing nothing that unconscious processing. Then that’s when we can be our most creative.

    When we’re not stressed, when we’re not freaking out, then we can be more of our true selves, which, in my opinion, out true selves are like infinitely creative. That’s like, a part of being a human, is the ability to be creative. So next time you’re feeling stuck and like you really want to do something creative, maybe you just doodle. Just like get a piece of paper and a pen and just do a lot of this and don’t think about it and just be like, what is, what feels good? Let me just scribble a whole bunch and just get some energy out. Like, it doesn’t have to be anything and lets your brain kind of turn off and just be like this feels fun to make shapes.

    And see what comes from that. And if it’s nothing, that’s totally cool. You just like rested your brain for a little bit, awesome. And if you have some epiphany that that’s also cool. And you can do something about it if you want, but it’s not necessary for us to be constantly doing stuff all the time. And sometimes the rest and the doing nothing is just as important. So, if you want to be creative, there’s your five steps for how to be creative and produce ideas from James Webb Young from 1939.

    CLICK HERE FOR THE ARTICLE ABOUT THIS 5 STEP TECHNIQUE FOR PRODUCING IDEAS

    Okay. Yeah, I think that’s all I have to share today. Thank you for being here. I’m going to add the link to the survey below if you want to tell me what kinds of things you want to hear from me. Yeah, I love you so much. Thank you for being here. It means the world and I couldn’t do any of this without you. So thank you so much. I love you. I hope you get some down time and doing nothing time sometime soon or today or tomorrow also.

    Click here to respond to my survey + help me create content you want to see!


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