Julie Unplugged

Don't Ever Tell Me Bakersfield Stinks (or whatever word you use)

Because after this morning,

Making this brief video snapshot,

I have to say I honestly

truthfully, heartfully....

Love this place.

So my videography isn't great.

Just please tune into the emotion,

the energy, the spirit....

Happy Birthday to Me!

Tee hee hee.....
Originally uploaded by juliejordanscott

Mom's beige gifts have become something of a fun tradition which make my kids and me smile.

Beige - yes. With a gift receipt... only I am NOT returning it... and a check, which made me cry. Happy, grateful tears. Bookstore, here I come.

:-)

Her beige gift from last year (a cape thing) made a great costume. I wore it onstage proudly.

There is a line from Eleemosynary that speaks to this... oh, I pray she can see this show.... I pray she can see this show... and that prayer are my words, not lines from a script.

I pray she can come see this show, Eleemosynary.

We had our first rehearsal last night

for Ellemosynary and the other women are phenomenally talented, trained a lot more than I am trained… so much experience… and here I am….

You would think after all the time and effort and “in the trenches” learning I have done in the past four years that I would have more confidence than I do but… I don’t… have.. much… at … all…. and find myself very easily intimidated.

I don’t think the average person has a clue how much my confidence has plummetted… I would say my confidence right now is maybe 50% of where it was two years ago, if that.

Wow. Putting it in black and white like that is actually very helpful. Even more helpful than it is subtly disturbing…

See more progress on: be more confident

Watching......

SP 116/365 - Watching Sam
Originally uploaded by juliejordanscott

I snapped this while Sam and I were playing by the river, which you can see behind me.... the sky was so clear and the temperature just slightly chilly.... it was a perfect day climate wise... and in that precious spot by the river... I was in heaven.

I sat and watched and snapped photos and just "was"... I didn't have my notebook with me - shock of the millenium - so it made me experience the moments without scribing them simultaneously and the interesting thing is that when I got home, I wrote some of the most heart-open word snapshots I have ever written.

There is something about being next to this river - next to any river - that provides so much..... flow for me.

I am growing so much.

I am so grateful.

Write from the Heart: A Writing Sanctuary for Passionate Souls

SP 45/365
Originally uploaded by juliejordanscott

It has been proven again and again.

The best writing is done from the heart as much if not more than the intellect.

No matter what writing you need to do, it is best done from the heart. A writer can be technically adept and yet lack the subtle flavor which makes the reader want to dig in and read more – that subtle flavor is found in writers who write from the most powerful source a human can use to create – the heart.

I have been teaching writing for several years now and have loved nearly each session I have taught. My students notice something different about the writing we create together.

They notice a change in their writing and they also notice a change in how they live.

In this very first session of Write from the Heart: A Writing Sanctuary for Passionate Souls” we will explore these topics:

1. Learn specialized techniques in writing authentically
2. Tune into your wisdom and find great clarity through the written word
3. Share the wisdom you find in your unique way using your writing voice.
4. Discover how to connect with yourself and others in ways that will surprise (and delight) you
5. Find out new ways to manifest dreams consciously using from writing
6. Move your pencil (pen or fingers on the keyboard through) from what you hear in “Whispers from the Spirit - Intuitive inklings into word musings…or… into soul fire… or into whatever the heck you want.
7. Learn how to take your Heart Writing and turn it into some form of “product” which you can use in your service related business.

Here is a brief outline for our five sessions – though please remember that because this is a program offered via Teleseminar, the exact content may change according to what you and the others in the program ask to know – maybe you need something in the content tweaked a bit and we won’t even discover that until we go along – unlike a static course which gives a set, scripted, unchangeable information, in Teleseminars, the information and content you receive is living and breathing and follows YOUR heart and the heart of the others in the session…

Session #1 – The Foundation: How to Create a Sensually Engaging Environment

1: The Senses:
a. The “Big Five”
b. The Soulful Sixth
2: Discover Your Dominant Sense
3. How engaging your DIFFERENT senses will bring sublime satisfaction
4. Practice engaging your non-dominant senses

Session #2 – Heart Writing - The Circulatory and Respiratory Systems

7 Ways to Get to the Heart of You

1. The 5 senses as a means of contemplation
2. Spiritual practices – a Menu
3. Divinely assigned “chores”
4. Mother Nature, playmate, confidante and teacher
5. End the stagnation of Endless “to-doing” yourself.
6. Choosing friends mindfully
7. Sobhet – Intentional, Soulful Community Building

Session #3 – The Muscle and the Bones

a. The Process
b. Creativity vs. Editing
c. Learning to slash mindfully AND playfully
d. Selective Early Sharing

Session #4 – The Mind

a. The Product
b. Vulnerability
c. Conscious, Relaxed, Detachment
d. Staying Heart Present

Session #5 – The Future

a. Strategy
b. Creativity
c. Connections
d. Soul
e. Divinity

And then, if you choose to continue…we will…

Create a book together in Stage 2 of the Program……

Bonus: Each student will receive a copy of a “textbook” via old fashioned snail mail.

You will also receive, as a bonus, absolutely unlimited entry into our Audio Library as well as a Weekly Video to help stimulate and nurture the principles we are learning and help you apply them in your writing outside of our sessions.

What are the nuts and bolts of Write from the Heart: A Sanctuary for Passionate Souls?

5 One Hour Sessions, Once a Week via Teleseminar which will take place on Thursdays beginning March 6 at 1 PM Eastern Time.

If you can not attend the Teleseminar you may still participate via the AudioRecordings.

There will be a Yahoogroup to share writing, exercises and life experiences as well as strengthen the Sanctuary itself.

There will be additional audios available AND a weekly video to encourage, enlighten, inspire and most of all, assist you in writing from the heart.

What you can expect from my style: I am a very open, caring and compassionate teacher. I am authentically human as I trust you will be also. This is my first program in a long time – so I am bound to be even more passionate and excited than usual.

This is not a program that will teach you how to publish a book in thirty days or how to write a polished sales letter, though if you are doing those things, a program like this one certainly won’t hurt! I just want to be sure that when you register you will be satisfied with the program you receive.

Writing from the heart has changed my life – and kept me going when otherwise it would have been really tough – so my aim and my hope is that wherever you are right now, at the end of this program your life will be exponentially better.

Imagine, writing amongst others who “get” the idea of writing in a sanctuary – together, in community, even across thousands of miles.

That’s what we will do, here.

That may be exactly why you are still reading.

5 One hour sessions on Thursdays at 1 PM Eastern Time begining March 6
M-W-F supplemental audio lessons in short "gold nugget" form
Weekly videos covering these topics and more:

a. Let the Flow in Using Breath
b. Celebrate Sounds
c. Keep your cool when things aren’t
d. Permission to feel everything there is to feel
e. Finally being clear. Finally. Being. Clear.

Finally – I created this program for a select group of writers. There is limited space because I want to be sure my heart is deeply connected with each person who participates, so don’t hesitate in your registration.

I want to create alongside writers like this:

Writers who intuitively know – something is “still missing” but can’t seem to track it down alone.

Writers who can’t seem to get their projects finished.

Writers seeking a community of like minded souls

Writers “in hiding”

Writers who want to overcome fears associated with writing

Writers who can’t seem to “find the time” to write

Writers who feel as if they have fallen into a rut

Writers who have forgotten why they started writing in the first place

Writers who are “blocked”

Writers who have fallen out of love with writing

Writers who want to attract more business with writing

Writers who want to perfect query writing

Writers who love “hanging out” with other like hearted and minded soul-writers

Writers on the verge of giving up writing

Writers who write “technically” and are bored

Writers who want their writing to have significance

Writers like you….

For only $49 you receive all of this - and in return, you receive the joy of writing with more heart than you ever imagined.

Allow yourself to create this significant breakthrough in your writing and register now.

Nature on display for Me and You!

Maxfield Parrish Clouds right above my house
Originally uploaded by juliejordanscott

Lately I would swear nature has been conspiring to delight me. The cloud show alone would be enough to make me swoon. Yesterday these Maxfield Parrish clouds hovered right over my house begging me to get my camera.

Last night, the full moon was draped in a wide swath of clouds so over and over again she played Peek-a-boo with me. I thought it was my timing along with her playfulness that did it, and then I found my friend Stephanie had photographed her from her yard also so apparently the show was for more than just me, afterall.

Makes me laugh thinking of it.

Divinity is like that, stretching love wide and deep and plentiful.

Less than a week until my birthday. I am finally getting excited.

I had a weekend of silence, study and service and Teresa of Avila and I are SOOO tight now. So very tight. It is fantastic. I pray we continue in this sacred communion for a while now.

And with that, I need to go. Tasks to complete before the children go to school and after that, I need to hit the ground running with appointments back-to-back at 9 and 10.

It is a grand life.

#500 -

Katherine and I sat in chairs on the front lawn, allowing the surprisingly warm And deliciously unfoggy

Bakersfield

sunshine to do some magic on our runny noses on the Sunday afternoon in January.

Side by side we held hardback books, speaking occasionally, me laughing occasionally, both of us completely content in the sacred-silence-shared-between-lovers-of-the-written-word.

I had made a difficult decision to not go to an audition I had prepared for all weekend and looked forward to for months.  I woke up to a tearful and hurt Sam, insisting I not leave him in the evening.

I felt the need to listen and to choose him rather than rushing haphazardly when I would want to pace myself and do my best.

I was reclining in the world of “open” and “conscious” and choosing to trust that everything would fall in place as it was destined and that for now, I was not the steerer of the boat so much as the passenger sitting on the hammock deciding which outfit to wear.

Sam was off, taking Emma to a birthday party with her Dad and I looked up from my book to see two women and an adorable brown fluff ball of a dog walk by our house.

The dog came to an expectant halt right in front of the house. “Where is Sam?” one of the women asked in accented English.

“Oh, he isn’t home right now…”

She nodded and smiled, but the dog would have nothing of it. The dog wanted to see Sam.  “Chocolate, come on…” said the woman with the leash, pronouncing “chocolate” in Spanish.

I couldn’t help but smile. Katherine looked at me. “The dog wanted Sam! That is so adorable!”

Sam has made an imprint into the hearts of many folks who pass by our house. Some people know him as the little boy who loves munching on popcorn. Others know him as the little boy who assigns Peanuts characters to everyone. There are others who may notice his relentless interest in water and all things water related.

I remember when Sam was six weeks old and our love affair began in earnest. I never suspected we would end up here, sitting on the front lawn in January, laughing because a dog I never met missed the presence of my unique little boy.

In the past few months we have made it through countless batches of pancakes, one pair of Disney Pixar Cars shoes (please don’t call them Lightning McQueen shoes), many different recipes of chocolate chip cookies, several Peanuts coloring books, fascinations such as “Monster House” (which he never even saw) and Busses, which somehow have lost their grandeur in his eyes.

We have gone through the start of the IEP process and Sam is back in school, albeit the program is not exactly the right fit for now, I am letting it “do” while looking to create a better situation as we move along.

Among the biggest surprises of this time is the sheer volume of tears. I have cried more than I knew I could cry.

I keep thinking the slate has to get more blank as I experience splintering losses of loss upon loss upon loss. I have lived through the evaporation of “my” plans and hurting finances from not being able to work during all of this and the ongoing quiet and subtle concern about Sam’s life in the future.

As I type, I hear him outside my window, talking to our next door neighbor, seventeen-year-old Robert, assigning him a letter grade for the day. Sam has been getting daily A+ grades at his school and unfortunately, those who surround him don’t quite measure up to his difficult standards. I don’t know what Robert did, but apparently something to drop his grade to a B.

I keep remembering one of my Video Self Portraits, another of my creative projects put into place when my usual projects weren’t available to me.  I am thinking of the one where I talk about being in a funk and then I talk about trusting and intention and from out of “nowhere” you can see the wind start stroking my hair, whispering in my ears and the sun comes from behind a cloud at that exact moment, a gift to me – and to you – it is such a metaphor that it helps me move deeply into this moment and then my next and my next and my next.

Last night Emma and I went to see Taylor Swift in concert. The tickets were a Christmas gift, a very bright spot on an otherwise very Spartan celebration. Emma was ecstatic as this young country singer was one of her very favorite artists.

It was her song, “Teardrops on My Guitar” that helped secure her role as Dorothy in “the Wizard of Oz” in her school production. What amazed me the most was Taylor Swift’s authenticity and unspoiledness, her seemingly amazed response that this sold out audience was cheering so excitedly with her. With her!

I loved when she came out and said, “Hi, I’m Taylor Swift.” Yes, we know. That’s why we were there.

Emma and I were on our feet the entire time and I will admit I sang along, too.

I had wanted to write something exceptionally profound for this 500^th Julie Unplugged Blog Post, but as I type these words today, I realize – they are profound in their sweet simplicity.  These words are my life, my life are my words.

For that I am exceptionally grateful.

That is profound enough for me.

= = = = = =

If these words of mine appeal to you, you may also enjoy my ezine, Daily Passion Activator - a short, energetic passionate nugget into your email box almost every weekday. We are celebrating our sixth birthday and right now, you will receive a special gift - a guided meditation MP3 focusing on HOPE when you subscribe.

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Is it only for the season?

The Amazing Kissing Tree, close up
Originally uploaded by juliejordanscott

Coryn and I gazed at this incredible tree hugging the bank of the Kern River. Coated with lichen, it looked almost alien.

I noticed at its center there was a whole huge growth of mistletoe.

Wow! Mistletoe! We can take some and it isn't even hard to reach!

Coryn almost balked because we didn't have clippers but I just dived in with my fingers and got us each a spray to hang someplace.

"But wait," I said. "Is mistletoe only for the Christmas Season?"

"No way," said Coryn, "Mistletoe isn't about the season, its about the making out!"

I smiled, thought about kissing, and we continued on with our walk.

= = = = = =

If these words of mine appeal to you, you may also enjoy my ezine, Daily Passion Activator - a short, energetic passionate nugget into your email box almost every weekday. We are celebrating our sixth birthday and right now, you will receive a special gift - a guided meditation MP3 focusing on HOPE when you subscribe.

Subscribe to DailyPassionActivator
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Seeds of tomorrow are everywhere

Seeds of tomorrow are everywhere
Originally uploaded by juliejordanscott

I read words from a poem of Teresa of Avila, translated by Daniel Ladinsky. The
words so echo my own feelings, my own experience, it is uncanny.

Here is a snippet from “Enjoy Me”

"Love once said to me, "I know a song,
would you like to hear it?"

And laughter came from every brick in the street
and from every pore
in the sky."

Love knows laughter, intimately. Love sings laughter. Divinity
is love and laughter. It is holy and wholly ours, laughter.

I hear sweet, radiant, tinkling, clanging cacophonous laughter.

Is that what I heard in the Divine Fire of the other night?

It might be.

I only recognize it as that because
I Open my eyes and see what is in front of me.
I Open my ears to hear what sounds surround me.
Whatever I am touching, I really feel it.
I experience it completely.

I Kiss “halfway there” goodbye.

I Welcome “wholly and holy” into my life now.

= = = = = =

If these words of mine appeal to you, you may also enjoy my ezine, Daily Passion Activator - a short, energetic passionate nugget into your email box almost every weekday. We are celebrating our sixth birthday and right now, you will receive a special gift - a guided meditation MP3 focusing on HOPE when you subscribe.

Subscribe to DailyPassionActivator
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I am here.....

Yesterday's walk was purely divine... and this video was born then... so I felt compelled to share it here, too.

= = = = = =

If this video appeals to you, you may also enjoy my ezine, Daily Passion Activator - a short, energetic passionate nugget into your email box almost every weekday. We are celebrating our sixth birthday and right now, you will receive a special gift - a guided meditation MP3 focusing on HOPE when you subscribe.

Subscribe to DailyPassionActivator
Powered by groups.yahoo.com