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How Can Embracing Creativity and Nature Transform Your Spiritual Journey?
334 Plays27 days ago
Welcome to The Bell Witch Podcast, your gateway to witching in the 21st century.
In this 46th episode of "The Bell Witch Podcast," host Swailes, converses with Chris, also known as CJ who a spiritual higher realms artist and author. They explore themes of creativity, spirituality, and the human-nature connection. The Artists way is a connection with both spiritual practitioners, and they marvel at the doors this process has unlocked for each of them. Swailes demystifies the term 'pagan' and Chris discusses his book "The Spiritual Artist," his creative process, and the importance of connecting with nature. He shares insights on overcoming self-criticism in art and the emotional healing found in his retreats. Swailes and Chris emphasize the magic of creative flow and the lessons nature offers, encouraging listeners to embrace their creativity and spiritual journeys. Hear CJs show 'The Spiritual Artist Podcast' at- Spiritual Artist | Spiritual Artist Today
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Transcript
Introduction to Tea Tonic and Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Are you ready to sip on something extraordinary? May I introduce the Tea Tonic, where every cup is crafted with care, nature's finest ingredients and a touch of magic. The Tea Tonic is 100% natural and have a wide range of single leaf teas, unique blends all handmade to order using their specially designed recipes. The Tea Tonic use fully compostable and recyclable packaging and can also create bespoke blends just for you. Visit theteatonic.com and receive 10% off your entire order with the affiliate code B-E-L-L-W-I-T-C-H.
00:00:48
Speaker
And take a moment with the magic of spiritualities with the Tea Tonic of Leeds.
Welcome Back and 2024 Reflections
00:00:58
Speaker
dark cast network bringing our indie podcasts out of the shadows
00:01:35
Speaker
Did you see that the Yorkshire accent has been voted one of the most sexist accents of 2024? Just saying. Now then, witches and beautiful souls, welcome back to the Bell Witch Podcast with me, Swales, a friendly green witch, witching in the 21st century. It is December, yes.
00:02:02
Speaker
The festive season is upon us and it's all get your shop on, get ready for that Yule log burning, how exciting. And do remember to decorate your tree in your house with ornaments and such like is absolutely a witchy act and a spot of house magic for you right there. So 2024 is coming to an end.
00:02:29
Speaker
It has been a heck of a year
Personal Updates and Podcast Plans
00:02:31
Speaker
don't you think? I think this year has been a year of learning to adapt and transform and it's been very opposites I feel. It's been a very yin and yang year really. Personally for me it's been a fantastic year in terms of smashing goals, winning awards, doing stuff that scares me. But globally we can't deny it. It has absolutely been m a mess.
00:02:57
Speaker
Let's not dwell on that. You are here for good vibes only. And I know, I know it's supposed to be a solitary rich episode, but dear witches, my life has been consumed by my little PTA and organizing the massive Christmas event for my kids' school. It has been a mammoth job.
00:03:21
Speaker
and it finally came to fruition. Last weekend, it was a great success. I am rather chuffed, raising a good total of money. We've been planning it since September and it's got slowly more and more work. So I just had time to pull myself together to get a in-depth and well researched solitary witch episode.
Engaging with Listeners: TikTok and Patreon
00:03:43
Speaker
Therefore, the next one definitely will be a solitary witch episode because I have more time to breathe.
00:03:48
Speaker
And also you'll get your bonus bonus episode from me on Christmas Day because I really like that tradition and I'm gonna keep it, yes. That will be the last installment of the elemental meditation series. It will be water so it'll be a lovely little meditation around being in the sea or swimming under some kind of lake or something. I'll have to write it first.
00:04:15
Speaker
And I hope you enjoy it and I hope it helps with the Christmas Day chaos that we all seem to swim in on the 25th of December. In other news, I'm still prattin' about on the TikTok thingy bob. You can follow me on the Belle Witch podcast, all one word. I'm doing quick little snap8 videos about witch tips and sarcastic tarot meetings, which is just loads of fun.
00:04:42
Speaker
and also jogging like witchcraft or jogging and just bits of my life really. It'd be lovely if you could join me over there and support
Introducing Guest CJ, Spiritual Artist
00:04:50
Speaker
this witch. Other ways you can support this witch on this podcast is buy me a coffee.com join the patreon for as little as £1.50 per month. That's even less than a cup of chai for this witch or just share away and tell your friends.
00:05:08
Speaker
Give me a rating. What's really awesome is at the moment I've got 907 Spotify followers. How awesome would it be if I could get 1000 followers for the new year? Start 2025 off the right way. If you could help me with that, it'd be just amazing if I could smash just one last goal of this amazing transformative year.
00:05:34
Speaker
Anywho, I will press play on this fantastic moot loot from my second international podcast guest, CJ, who is a very talented spiritual higher realms artist, published author, fellow podcaster and all round good egg.
00:05:58
Speaker
Again, this was recorded quite a while ago, and I am slowly catching up now. I am really slow at doing the interviews and then getting them out, but I'm getting better. So I hope you enjoy it. And the next one will be just little old me talking to
Exploring Spirituality and Creativity with CJ
00:06:12
Speaker
you. So sit back, relax and enjoy.
00:06:17
Speaker
Welcome, Chris, a.k.a. CJ, to the Bellwidge podcast. How are you doing? Are you all right? I'm doing good. How are you? I'm good. I'm so excited to have my second international podcast guest. Go me. But you sound kind of famous, to be honest, from my Googling and researching. So if you would like to tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do. I wouldn't say I'm famous, but i I have had people reach out to me from around the world, which is interesting. I published a book during COVID called The Spiritual Artist.
00:06:55
Speaker
And I am an artist and I've been painting for like 20 years. And the book is about how do you practice getting in that place where you feel like you're receiving information from whatever you want to, you know, some people want to call it God, a greater power, an angel. You know, there's so many different names. I'll find myself painting.
00:07:17
Speaker
And suddenly I just i'd lose track and and I become something more than me. And then the painting kind of takes its own life and it it creates its own story and it goes where it wants to go. So I wrote a book on, I started watching my process and I was like, well, how do I do that? how do Why is it that on on Monday I have a wonderful experience And I feel that incredible sense, people call it in the flow. And then on Tuesday, I'm i'm getting angry and I'm hitting the canvas. And one time I even ripped a hole in the canvas because I felt like I was, I couldn't get to that space. So I wrote the book called The Spiritual Artist, which is each chapter is by itself. You can just flip through it. And it talks about how do you get in alignment with that greater power, which I call, I have learned to call creative intelligence.
00:08:08
Speaker
So would you say it's like the universe, like ah universal energies and stuff? I think so. Yeah. that's And I keep clarifying it more and more, but it's the space before manifestation, right? We're we're on the physical plane. It's the spiritual world, the world of the unmanifested.
00:08:27
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, did you find me by looking for stuff about the artist's way by any chance? I have, I do actually mention ah the artist's way in my book because my book came out of, out of journaling morning. Have you ever done morning pages? Oh yeah, they've changed my life.
00:08:43
Speaker
You know, I took a ah class once and I was telling the teacher how much they changed my life because it gave me the ability to stand back and kind of watch myself. Like I would write notes and then I started rereading them like a year later and I'm like, look at this. I kind of just go into little little loops, right? Like fear loops or lack loops. And so by stepping back, I could realize that there was a pattern in my life And if I could step back from the pattern, I could be different or something different than what I had been. I really loved that process, but it's funny, I took a class and the lady, I said, don't you ever reread your notes? And she said, no, I throw them out. ah So have you do you have you reread yours? or I never reread them, no, straight in the bin they go.
00:09:37
Speaker
Do you still have them? Not anymore. I've got some but I binned a lot of them because that's the point, isn't it? It's like you empty your mind to create space for new creativity and that's why it's so freeing because you're not going to get ridiculed on it or it's not going to get read even by yourself, which is brilliant and it gives it power, I think.
00:09:58
Speaker
yeah you know i think it there's I see both sides, right, um to just release it because she talks about getting it out of your head, and that is also help helpful. But I just guess I found that when I went back, I could see how I actually – you know how we they say we're all pretty much like a program that we're given a program from our family, from our religion, from our nation of origin. And we automatically follow that blueprint over and over again. I suddenly realized, wow, I could change it if I step back and and I, you know, I could, maybe I don't have to be so full of fear or anxiety.
Artistic Journey and Spiritual Practices
00:10:34
Speaker
All the baggage that were given, have you done the eyes way? I didn't do, no, I only did the journaling part. okay I mean, I've done pieces. I did the, the um, what did she call it? An artist.
00:10:47
Speaker
retreat or a day. Oh, the artist date. Date, yes. I do that and such. And um yeah, she she definitely was a... Her book was cutting edge and it is still used by a lot of people.
00:11:02
Speaker
And that's how this podcast came about because I was stuck, I did the artist's way, I started to do poetry and then I was listening to a podcast that abruptly stopped and I were gutted and I was really upset about it. And I said to the person, please come back, please come and do this podcast. And they said, no, why don't you do one if you're that bothered? And instead of me going like, as if I actually went actually,
00:11:27
Speaker
Yeah, why not? And I think because I'd done the eyes way that allowed me to react in that way. And the rest is history because here I am. Here you are with your own podcast, right? yeah I love, I love, I do a podcast as well and I love talking to different people about their creative process and how they think it's, it's always, you always learn something from other people.
00:11:51
Speaker
Absolutely. From all over the world, which is just amazing. Do you want to share with us your process of art and tuning in and stuff? How does that work? Yeah. you know I was listening to what you just said was a really good example. You were saying how someone critiqued and and said, well, why don't you do your own?
00:12:09
Speaker
And that's kind of what I believe. I believe that we learn, I developed these bands and they say, listen, because I believe that we should be listening to this voice inside of us that's leading us. And I believe that we i believe that we are guided, guided from this, what I call creative intelligence. And sometimes even when something bad happens that we think is bad, like you you you know getting knocked off that podcast that your first reaction could be, this was bad.
00:12:37
Speaker
but there was a gift in it. And you step back and you go, oh, maybe I should do my own. And say, I think that's really this divine creative intelligence is is poking you. you know it's like It's nudging you, nudging you to follow a direction, right? And I'll tell a story to your listeners. I'm working it on a solo art show and I was painting this weekend and have this huge painting. And I was just doing some touch-up and I started touching it up. And when I was done, I looked down in a big,
00:13:05
Speaker
A horrible gob of paint had dripped down, fell right into the middle of an area of the painting that was a beautiful mix, like a blend of color that I could not recreate. And it it was right there.
00:13:18
Speaker
And my first reaction is, ah, right like ah what what went wrong? And then I thought, wait a minute, maybe creative intelligence is telling me something here. Maybe I should take that shape out. Or maybe I should draw a new line there. So what I did is I extended a line and I changed the shape so that it would cover that mistake. And I stood back and I go, it looks even better.
00:13:42
Speaker
I mean, it looks better, but I would never have done that. I wouldn't have taken that risk had not something happened that was unexpected and and even unwanted. trust Trust in the process. Yeah. And so when you do a podcast, I'm sure it's the same way. You just sit there and you're present and you just let it flow, right?
00:14:01
Speaker
You get ideas as you live, don't your stuff comes to you and then people ask you questions on stuff and you go like, oh, that'd make a really good podcast topic. So it's been open to new opportunities. I love to engage in, I'd love to ask you, how do you define a witch?
00:14:17
Speaker
Somebody who's in touch with the earth and follows the seasons and like listens to the messages from nature and celebrates sabbats and does magic. I mean, it's not all about magic. It's about celebrating the earth really and looking after it. That's my definition. yeah I am working on a second book and I started, I say downloading it, right? It's about just that. It's about looking toward nature.
00:14:45
Speaker
for for guidance to to see how the rules of nature apply to us as humans. And if we if we pay attention to it, we can learn so much from nature.
00:14:57
Speaker
I think because we're all just so distracted as a nation of humans, we're just all so unplugged from it. So I think there's going to be a movement now to get plugged back into it and get your feet on the grass and what should be just being a bee and you know, you not you don't always have to be completing tasks, making money, hustling, you know, just enjoy, be present and I love it. I i think you're right.
00:15:25
Speaker
i think that that there's going to be a I sense there's going to be a great movement back toward alignment with nature. I feel like we've done a horrible thing. that we're so you know My son, he hardly goes outside. you know This young generation, they're on computers all the time, and there's a separation from nature. And nature is so grounding.
00:15:46
Speaker
but It also, what what I love about it and what I talk about in my book a little bit too, is my book talks about finding your creative DNA, that there's something unique within you. And when I look toward nature, that's what I see. When I was a kid, I remember collecting nuts and stuff and I was fascinated by acorns. I'm fascinated by an acorn. The texture, the smoothness, the color, the multiplicity of them, you know, just the sheer number of them that fall down from the tree.
00:16:15
Speaker
But then I'm also fascinated by like a pine cone. And a pine cone is so different too, the way they open up and the seeds fall out. They're doing the same thing. they're they're They're supposed to spread the seed, right? But how different, right? They're so individualized and unique and how they do it. The creativity of what they do, just like what you're doing with a podcast is is very different from mine and yet the same. We talk to people, we're sharing ideas, we're talking about nature, coming from two different ways.
00:16:47
Speaker
and You are sounding like a little bit of a witch there, CJ.
Paganism and Nature's Spiritual Role
00:16:56
Speaker
I think i think pagan Pagan has gotten such a ah bad rap, the word itself, right? There's people that bristle or the word Pagan. i When I was raised Catholic,
00:17:07
Speaker
And I'm going to tell you a story. I'm a little older than you, but are you what were you raised as? My mom was a spiritualist and a medium. So we were I always grew up with spooky go-ins on and tarot and oracle and crystals. Oh, you're so blessed. I mean, that really you're lucky that you had you're so lucky to have that. you know I did not. I was raised a very traditional Catholic. And when we were young,
00:17:35
Speaker
They would have these drives where we would make donations, I kid you not, donations to save the pagan babies. What? Yes. they would have They would collect money to send to far off countries to to save pagan babies. That's how they worded it. Pagan babies as though they were just this horrible thing.
00:17:58
Speaker
Who are the pagan babies? I don't know. I don't know, you know, just anything that wasn't Catholic, I guess, right? I mean, I find it funny how how there's such duality and religions want duality and separation. And so I am like a witch that I want inclusive. I want connection, oneness.
00:18:19
Speaker
Yeah, and a pagan is somebody who works with the earth, who looks after the earth. So if you've got an allotment or you recycle or you divide your cans and your glass, your garden, all them things mean you're a pagan because you're working with, you're working with like mother Gaia and earth, you're helping earth. So you are a pagan by doing it. Well, I love it. I mean, you know, I recently took a I studied theology and all, and I took a class in the Old Testament and the pagan, well, I wouldn't know if I'd used the word religion, but the pagan sense of looking at the world was here long before Jesus Christ and all the Bible. I mean, there was a history of of that throughout man's. It's very old, you know? I mean, it had to be that way because people back then had to depend on earth to survive. So they had to learn how to work with it and have a relationship with it and stuff. So it was unavoidable to not
00:19:17
Speaker
to be a pig and you had to be just to survive it. And we're back to that, right? We're getting there. Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely a shift back to it. I'm here for it. and I'm here for it. And we have to take care of the Earth. I mean, it's even more today where we're like, we've got to take care of this. Stewards of the planet. the planet. I like it. Is that the title? Could be the title. That's the title. Now, my book has nature in the title, though.
00:19:43
Speaker
When you're doing creative, when you write, it changes. And so right now, it is just about that. It's about looking toward nature to heal yourself, looking toward nature, not just in this, you know, you might say, hey, looking to nature to, you could try some herbs or, you know, you could try some medicinal things. But I'm also talking about the psychology of looking toward nature. Let me explain. If someone is struggling with abundance and they're feeling like they don't have enough money,
00:20:09
Speaker
and they come to you and say, hey, I feel like there's not enough in the world and I'm afraid and I don't have money. You can sit them down and say, there is a spirit, I call it a spiritual law of nature. And that spiritual law of nature is abundance. I mean, right, when when you sit under that oak tree and you see 200,000 acorns, right, coming from that tree, there is abundance in nature. It's it's a law.
00:20:35
Speaker
And so I can affirm for someone who might be feeling without or poor that, no, no, look, align with that. Just align your consciousness with the abundance that's already here and you will be abundant. People are, and you know, I think one of the things I would love to talk about with you is I read in this book recently that that um a great misjustice was done with Darwin because Charles Darwin claimed that nature was competitive.
00:21:02
Speaker
that yeah you know the whole survival of the fittest and what he did is he put that into the mindset of people that the strong one is the you know you want to be the strong one and you want to beat the other one but actually nature is very cooperative. It has harmony and cooperation and it's balanced, right? You know, if if an owl seeks a mouse, you know, it's balanced. There's too many mice. You know, it's all totally balanced and you don't want one. You certainly wouldn't want all um ah all mice or all owls. There's a beautiful harmony already built into nature. So that's pretty neat.
00:21:40
Speaker
I never thought about that yeah about how he was saying it was survival of the fish and it's just not true. No and it's what it's kind of don't you think swales it's what it's sort of what we're looking at on the whole global world right is this idea that if I take your land this country taking that country this these people taking that people that's not that's not That's still in that survival of the fittest, right? yeah I will subjugate and take away. No, the the the so the societies that have lasted the longest on our planet have lived in harmony. you may um I will produce this, you produce that, we exchange, we're in harmony, we're in flow. Yeah, we all need to get back in there. We are working to get back there, but capitalism prevents it.
00:22:26
Speaker
It sure does. I'll tell you what. I've always walked around my life going like capitalism boo. You know, there's features, I was telling my husband this morning, there's there's benefits to capitalism, but there's holes in it, right? There's big holes in it. And we have to be able to balance that, you know? We have to have the knowledge to say, okay, we can't let one company just take over the whole world, or there has to be a balance just like nature.
Meditative Art and Spiritual Retreats
00:22:53
Speaker
You can learn a lot from nature, we just need to get off his phones, get off his tech, and look.
00:23:06
Speaker
Autumn's Oddities is a strange and unusual podcast made by the strange and unusual me, Autumn Groobie. Each week, I'll be taking you through some of the creepiest cases true crime has to offer. It won't only be true crime, I'll also be covering cryptids, haunted places, haunted things, and the true stories that inspired horror movies. Listen every Monday and Friday for new episodes and remember, if it's creepy and weird, you'll find it here.
00:23:44
Speaker
So what's your favorite story about nature? Like what's your favorite message from... you need the lightness and you need the dark you need the summer you need the winter because you can't have one way out the other which is very much what witchcraft is about in general you know like shadow work and light work you you brought up thinking life to be successful it's always positive and you can't be feeling sad you know because then you're depressed and it's a spiral but it's not if you kind of live with both duality like you said balance and all all that you know it works well if you let it work if you kind of like take your hands off the controls and follow the momentum of life that's how i'm living at the moment i didn't used to live like that i used to be really hell bent on being in control of everything all the time and it's exhausting it really is
00:24:35
Speaker
Yeah. And just trust that that I, you know, I like to ah use that word creative intelligence, but that it will guide you. that When you do that, suddenly that paint drop was actually guiding me. And, and the same thing with you, you know, it's, there's four, there's a force that's talking to us. And sometimes it talks to us, like you said, in dark, you know, sometimes it's not always fun. Right.
00:25:00
Speaker
Totally. Yeah. I want you to talk to me about your art because this is what it's all about. Tell me the story of how you got into it. I like how it becomes a higher realm type type thing. Okay. So I believe that when we create art, we are creating where some power, some energy is coming through us.
00:25:19
Speaker
I believe that it's about stepping into that energy. And all of these lessons that we just talked about, like you just just mentioned about letting go, is kind of how I create a painting. So I teach, I do retreats. I do spiritual art retreats. And I'm doing one in Texas this fall. And then in the spring, I'm going to be in Santa Fe. And I'm trying to work on one in in in Spain.
00:25:42
Speaker
Oh, wow. so i Yeah, I'm getting overseas. Yeah, maybe. And what what I do is i I get people together and I teach them how to be in that that creative art space. And so part of it is is also feeling your body. So we do what's called physical repetitions and we'll sit in front of a canvas and use a brush and I'll have them do what's called a semic drawing.
00:26:10
Speaker
And a semic drawing is where you kind of do a ah scribbling. It almost looks like calligraphy. It's not channeled writing. It's not readable. you know how I'm sure you've heard about people that channel and and write. It's not that. It's more just like this expression of you through scribbling. I have it on my YouTube channel, a demonstration of how you do it. And you blend the colors around. And what I believe is that you will identify that if we took 20 people,
00:26:37
Speaker
And we put them in a room and gave them a box and gave him three colors of a crayon and a piece of paper and said to do this, a semic writing. Each one of us is gonna do something totally unique. And so I believe that that is spirit coming through us in the uniqueness of who we are. And so I walk around the room and I'll show all the students, look, you have a uniqueness to you and you need to learn to follow it.
00:26:59
Speaker
So they follow it by recognizing, well, I like curves. Another person, I like maybe jagged lines. Some people might want to make it make their art really dark. Some really light. Some half and half. But I show them from the very basics. You know, when you were a little kid and you would sit on the floor and you would take crayons and just scribble. Have you ever done that?
00:27:21
Speaker
it yeah It's sort of like that. So i use that I use that to teach people how to become an abstract artist by building onto it up and up and up. So I have a show this fall. I'm doing a solo show and it's called the love it's called Love Roller Coaster.
00:27:36
Speaker
Each painting is based off of a song. So I paint it to a song. Some of them are happy songs about love. Some of them are not so happy. you know you know yeah I got a Billie Eilish in there. alright But you know how you feel that woman's depressing. But I love her music. So I paint them to listen to the music. And when you come to the show, everybody wears their ear pods and I've created a Spotify playlist.
00:28:04
Speaker
and you scan the barcode and you listen to the song while you look at the painting. So it's sort of like an interactive art show. And I have pictures of that on my website as well. But I want people to realize that emotions come through us, but they aren't us. You know what I mean? They just flow through us. And that we we should, we have to feel them. Like you said, you have to feel it. You have to feel it, but don't become too attached to it. Just let it keep going.
00:28:32
Speaker
There's something about when you do art, it's kind of like meditating, isn't it? Because you go to a higher realm, like your higher self, I think. And in a way that's how magic works as well when I do, because I make sigils, which are kind of like um individual runes, you know, like personal rune stones.
00:28:52
Speaker
And what you would describe it at the beginning is a similar to how I am, you know, when it becomes its own thing and it grows, it's got a life of its own. It comes alive and i and I'm not doing it anymore. It's doing it. Someone else is doing it. So I do understand to me what you're talking about. It does sound a little bit like magic, like higher realm magic. I think it is. i think it's I think it's coming from the spiritual world, the spiritual realm, and you're co-creating with it because It is act, you you're you're having an impression on it. what What you're creating is part you and part this higher realm. And it's totally unique, right? If all of us did this, if we tried to do what you're doing, I cannot do what you're doing. Even if I tried, I couldn't do it. Yeah. it's And so that's kind of what the whole book is about. And when i my people come on to retreat, I'm teaching them to let go.
00:29:45
Speaker
It's not easy, right? Sometimes you sit there and you go, no, I wanted it to be this color, or I wanted it to look this way. And you're like, but it wants to look the way it wants to look. Right? And so you just let it go. Oh, I was going to share a story. I just interviewed a guy on my podcast from Los Angeles and he does, he he does art where he'll talk to you and he'll feel it, what he's hearing from you. And he'll do a drawing and he calls it color coding.
00:30:15
Speaker
and each drawing is related to you. And then he does ah he does, he doesn't call it psychic, but he does an intuitive reading. of who you are based on your art. And we had this great conversation about this, about how, you know, there's this experience and you're just, you kind of have to stand back and you just feel it and you let it happen. And he told me that one of the things that that he saw with me when he did my reading is that I have a good ability to just kind of let go and and let it happen.
The Creative Process and Spiritual Beliefs
00:30:43
Speaker
And that I have to keep going that way. Not always easy.
00:30:47
Speaker
It is about the journey. It's not the destination. It's the journey. It's that old cliche. How did you did you get into it then? did Is it something you've done for a long time then? Because you mentioned you were brought up in a religious family. I mean, are you still religious? I'm i'm spiritual, but I believe it's a personal relationship.
00:31:09
Speaker
I'm not religious, but i would like once again, we would get down to words, right? yeah And for me, religion is someone that follows a lot of rules and dogma, and you know there's like certain procedures to be Baptist or Catholic or Protestant, and that's not me. i'm I totally believe that there's many, many paths.
00:31:31
Speaker
to God or to a relationship with God. So I'm spiritual and it's a personal relationship. It is something that started very young. So I'll give you a little background. I was born to a very conservative Catholic family and and i was and I'm gay. And so when I started hitting puberty and realizing that I didn't fit in,
00:31:51
Speaker
you know I was going to church. I was very active. I taught CCD to kids. I did did drawings and stuff of Noah's Ark and all this. and i have But when I started hearing the priests say stuff against me to be gay, I kind of walked away from that. And so it's only through making art.
00:32:09
Speaker
that I came back to recognizing that there is a place for for me, there's a place for some spiritualness. It's just not in those traditional terms of Catholicism. And that's kind of, it keeps evolving. So who you are, as you know, keeps changing.
00:32:26
Speaker
And I'm really focusing on nature, which is funny, um and which is probably why we were drawn together, because that's how spirit works, right? ye And so I feel like I see that connection to all that is to a greater power through nature. And that's where I want to go with the next book. So I do paint, but I feel like I want to go and take it into the nature world.
00:32:49
Speaker
I'm very much into nature. When I was a kid, I had plants in my window ledge. I grew things from seed. I was a gardener. I have a big, I have a koi pond in my yard. I have a garden. I have tons of plants everywhere. I have three dogs. I love animals.
00:33:07
Speaker
ah So it's it's totally natural for me to keep going in that direction. Was there a moment when You used to be in painting and then being like, hang on a minute. There's something different going on here. It's more than just a painting. It's a connection. Yeah. Um, I think most people can relate to this, even if they're not painters, you know, it can be someone that's making a dinner or there's this, there's every once in a while you have this experience where you're doing creating something and, and you just feel this energy flowing through you.
00:33:39
Speaker
And what you create, you're just like yeah're almost like, did I do that? you know like Actually, when I wrote my book, I go back and I read it and I'm like, who wrote this? um I'm like, who wrote it this? This sounds pretty good, right? And so when I paint, it's the same thing. I'll step back from painting and and I've learned to just go with it.
00:34:00
Speaker
But it's that incredible feeling. You have this incredible feeling you know of lightness and connection. I'm sure you have that when you work when you're making... Sigils. Sigils. Yes. it You just feel it, right? It's really hard to describe. and If you've got to experience it really, it's bizarre. I think we try to put things in words that sometimes can't be put into words.
00:34:25
Speaker
So I just hope if you're if you're listening to this and you don't know what I'm talking about, we'll work on that because I think everybody can relate to some point in their life where that magic happens. If you sit down and I tell people, sit down and close your eyes and remember some time or place in your life. And it could be sit. I remember when I was a kid, I used to go up, there was some woods behind my house. I grew up in Pennsylvania.
00:34:48
Speaker
And it's sort of like it's rainy and and ferns. it's It's similar climate to the UK, I would imagine. and And I would sit in the middle of these woods and there were violets, you know, the little violets that were out of the ground. And I just sat there and it was like this place of magic and look at the trees above me. And so now.
00:35:09
Speaker
if I'm in a situation where I'm feeling stressed or uncomfortable, I visualize myself back in that little, in those woods with the fern and the the little purple violets and the trees, and that's nature once again, right? When's this book gonna be out? is it Is it in the making at the moment? Because I'm open. I legit wanna read it, is all day. You know what's funny? i just I just discovered, I don't know if, have you discovered chat, gb GBT? Have you? Yes, AI.
00:35:39
Speaker
It's amazing, isn't it? I use it right in your book for you. No, but, well, I could let it. I could let it, but i but what it does do, it's so amazing. I wrote something this morning and then I uploaded it and said, I asked it, does this flow? Can you understand what I'm saying?
00:35:58
Speaker
And it came back and said, point by point, this is good. You need a better transition here. It didn't fix it because I don't want it to sound chapped GBT. I want it to be me. But it did tell me, oh, the transition here is rough. Or you might want to explain science a little better. You're kind of it says you're you're really justifying spirituality, but you need to talk about science a little bit more. So anyway, I just find it fascinating how it can do that.
00:36:22
Speaker
And what's really neat about it is you can ask for references. Like you could just get on there and say, remind me of that parable. So one of the things I asked it was, there's an old parable about, I think so like five, it's a Buddhist thing, five blind men examining an elephant. And they all come from a different part of the elephant. And one says, it's like a rope. And the other one says, no, it's like a tree. And the other one person says, no, it's curly and moves around. and And so I wanted to use that parable to describe how we all have a different viewpoint on life, but it's the same life. And if we could just step back and be more open-minded and say, okay, you're using the word which, and someone else might be using the word whatever, you know, Jesus Christ, or but it's okay, right? I don't have to control that. Then I can see the whole elephant, that it's the same elephant.
00:37:17
Speaker
that I hope that made sense. Yeah, no, it's good. Yeah, it's perspective, isn't it? different Different perspectives. We're all seeing the same thing as well that we all have a different background, a different stance on it. And and it's wonderful. If we were all the same, it'd be so boring, right? It would. It would. There'd probably be less fights though.
00:37:38
Speaker
Yeah, you tell me about it. Let's have back flinging. But i've tried to get I try to get people, that's why when I say I'm a spiritual artist, I'm trying to get people to look at the spiritual side and not get so wrapped up on the physical side.
00:37:55
Speaker
Don't take the word so seriously. Don't take the procedure, the ritual, the boundaries. Look at the true meaning behind it. That's where we relate. We all are the same on the spiritual in the spiritual realm. We all want to be loved. you know We all want to feel love. We all want to be safe. Now, how we see that out pictured here on the physical realm, we argue over. But you know that's kind of what when I try to say with my parable of the elephant.
Podcasting and Embracing Diversity
00:38:23
Speaker
No, I got you. Yeah. yeah ah okay The in the room. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the elephant in the room is like, and you know, um I'm in the US right now and oh my gosh, politics are really nasty. It seems to me that we could come together a little bit better on what we what we can agree on, right? Like it in that case, we all everybody wants to feel free.
00:38:50
Speaker
They're arguing over how and who can. But everybody should be allowed to be free. that's that To me, that's a basic principle. And actually, it's a principle of nature. Everything in nature is free. There is there's nothing you see in the natural world where something imprisons. Now, sometimes they feel like they they work together, you know, like a moss will grow on a tree.
00:39:12
Speaker
or there's there's a, what do they call it? Copacetic relationship or a- Co-dependent. Yeah, but there's not one just enslaving another. It's not natural. Now, there are certain things we have to agree to is that we we don't enslave other people. there There are agreements. There are things that we have to say that it's not right to to enslave someone or to take from someone. Merky waters. Merky waters.
00:39:40
Speaker
You do just mimic me. I love the accent. No, I love it. So yeah you've got your own podcast and what's what's that all about? tell Tell the listeners. I interview people. I interview people that are artists or what I would call spiritual leaders or new thought leaders. Like I i would interview a therapist or someone um next week. I'm interviewing some people that focus on how to deal with pain in your body, you know, how to process pain which is really cool so i'm reading their book and i'm gonna interview them i interviewed this guy just talked to you about that talks about you know feeling emotions and he does these drawings he does these these color code paintings so it's all about the creative process my podcast is about how we create whether we create how do we create our lives how do we create a painting how do we create
00:40:31
Speaker
you know, beautiful artwork or, so or I interviewed a woman that does these beautiful, she calls them, you'd love her. You should have her on your podcast. She is in New Mexico and she does these sacred altars in nature. She takes, she goes around and they, she collects items in nature and builds what's called sacred altars. Have you featured someone like that?
00:40:51
Speaker
No. Oh my God. That sounds amazing. Totally. I'll connect. Yeah. I will send you her name. She's wonderful. But it's very spiritual, you know, go out in nature and you commune with nature and then you, you design these beautiful sculptures and you leave them there. And it's, they're not, they're not pollution because they're all natural elements. And the temporary and like nature takes them back. So what's your podcast called? Oh, it's called The Spiritual Artist Podcast. In the name of the book,
00:41:21
Speaker
is The Spiritual Artist. It's on Amazon and you can search for it. And I think it's a great book. You know, I think it takes a little bit of the the artist's way and kind of takes it a little further. Have you got any tips on how to help people do this kind of art, like connect?
00:41:41
Speaker
You know, it the biggest tip I could tell someone in order to to create art in and is to turn off the judgment. I think that's the biggest thing that keeps us away from creating original art is criticizing it, you know, you do a stroke and then you start analyzing it. And if you just free, like you said, just feel it and let it happen. Don't worry, it will turn into, it will become something. It will become something. And if you just keep going and going with it, it does. And that's a life lesson. When we use judgment anywhere in life, it turns it off. It closes the door rather than, so have you ever heard that there's a, actors do this. it's They do a practice called yes and,
00:42:21
Speaker
and it's a role-playing. Have you heard of that? Yeah. Yeah. So that's what you do with your art. It's a yes and. Anything that happens, oh, a blob of paint landed in the my middle of my painting. Okay. And I don't resist it. I didn't get mad. I didn't walk away. I didn't throw the painting out. I go with it. Which I do that with just talking instead of saying but, saying yes and and like con continuing with what I'm saying. Yeah. because Positive spin on it, isn't it? Yes and.
00:42:50
Speaker
It works, right? It absolutely does, yeah. Where could we find you? Plug yourself. Plug yourself. Yeah, ah yeah. um you Check out my website. It's called spiritualartisttoday.com. So www.spiritualartisttoday.com. I do retreats and they're really great. You come and paint and it's for beginners as well as a very experienced artists because I show you how to do what you talked about, a semic writing and scribbling, but turn that into something.
00:43:19
Speaker
And so I attract people that are have been painting for 20 years and then people that haven't painted for about three months. But believe it or not, we all have a great time. and And we do stuff like we have cookouts by the fire and share stories and it's an experience. So check that out and check out my podcast if you want to hear about all these great people, sacred altars and those type of things. and color code painting, it's all on there. I imagine these retreats are quite emotional as well. Do people end up getting quite like emotional there? Yeah, they do. I think there's a lot of, I do an exercise, I do a lot of meditation and mindfulness and there's a lot of people that have pain with art. They've been shamed by what they do or, you know,
00:44:05
Speaker
So what we do a little exercise on the first night where we do a little clearing and try to remember that emotion. you know We all can remember like sometime where where mom and dad either they loved what we did or they made fun of it. you know And so we do a little ritual where we write something on a piece of paper and that night we have a bonfire and we we do a release where we throw it into the fire and burn it. It is emotional.
00:44:31
Speaker
But great. That right there is magic. That is like, that's a ritual, a magic ritual, letting go a ritual, putting stuff in the fire and letting it burn. You're such a witch. Yeah, I am. I think I am or that something like Warlock, right? it But yeah, like I said, I think we connect with people because there's always something that we're that that I do believe we're being guided. And so we're connected because you needed to hear something I was saying and I needed to hear something you're saying and go, ah,
00:45:00
Speaker
And that very well could be the nature aspect.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:45:02
Speaker
Well, do keep us posted with the book and then I'll let all my listeners know when it's out and you'll get a flurry of British orders. That sounds great. Thank you.
00:45:17
Speaker
You have been listening to the Bellwetch podcast. Created with Love and Magic by me, Swales, the friendly green witch. I love to hear from you and I absolutely love, love, love, love to celebrate you. If you have a podcast or a business, a witchy business, a pagan related topic you love to talk about, you can reach me on the Bell Witch podcast at Yahoo!
00:45:44
Speaker
dot com Send me a trailer and I will absolutely play it, because there is magic in sharing audiences amongst podcasts. Music by Jeff Harvey of Pixabay. The official Bell Witch photographer is the lovely Beverly Thornton. Thank you so much for choosing the Bell Witch podcast to fill your ears. Stay magical witches!