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June 22, 2012

5 Best Reasons to Join the Biannual #Blogathon2 Bash... Even if Your Weekend is Ridiculously Busy Like Mine

I signed up for the Biannual Blogathon Bash during a ridiculously busy weekend. So what else is new?

I am committed though to tickle and tease a lot of good blogging work out of all the hours I am available to see just how far I can squeeze productively. Like my friend Thoreau said, “Such the marrow from the bone.”

I’ll be doing that….

What is my plan?

Write.

I am going to focus on lists. I got my start what seems like centuries ago writing top 7 lists which would then show up on Christopher Knight’s Top 7 ezine. He went on to own ezinearticles.com. Well known in many parts of the internet world.

I could kick out Top 7 articles in nobodies business and I discovered… people like them.

I’ve just started writing them again so my twenty four hours of blogathon weekend (did I mention I am doing this brief stint and will come back after the play I am in opens tonight at 8 pm?) will be filled with tips and wisdom in very brief chunks.

I’m excited.

Are you in the Weekend Blogathon?

Hell, if I can do it with my ridiculous schedule, anyone can.

Best 5 Reasons to Participate in the Blogathon even when your schedule is ridiculously insane.

You will prove to yourself you ARE up to ANY challenge.
You will stretch more creatively than you ever knew you could.
You will meet other cool bloggers who love stretching who you can work with later when the swarming energy slows down a bit.
You will learn what its like to write in your sleep.
You may reward yourself later no matter how much you actually do blogwork this weekend. I don’t know about the rest of you, but next week I am not only going to the Sequoia National Park, I’m going to Disneyland!

Happy Weekend, Everyone! Enjoy it!

Follow me on Twitter: @juliejordanscot

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Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.

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Posted at 05:36 PM in Blog Hop, Blogathon Bash, Busy Women's Tips | Permalink | Comments (2)

#SummerBlogChallenge Day 22: "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

Like many children when the “What do you want to be when you grow up,” brought a multitude of answers from Astronaut (long before Sally Ride!) to Actress to Mother to the one I wanted to be the longest was teacher of the blind and deaf.

I read a biography of Annie Sullivan, teacher to Helen Keller, and it sparked something deep within me. I wanted to be like her. I wanted to reach out and into the lives of people who were separated from the world because of the lack of visual and sound light.

While I gave up that specific vocational goal, I think as a life coach, I do reach out and into the lives of people who are separated from light: and oftentimes that leaks into not being able to see or hear life at its finest due to blocks in belief or hope or love or joy. I help people to re-discover those sensual experiences we relish in childhood.

I am also an actress and a mother, so I didn’t do so bad, did I?

I love this prompt and question. Makes me smile.

So – when you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

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Posted at 02:10 PM in 19th Century New England, Activism and the Arts, Blog Hop, Books, Summer Blog Challenge, Women's Movement, Writing | Permalink | Comments (3)

June 21, 2012

Behind the Scenes: Donut Sandwiches, Birthing Doctors, Bottled Water & Plentiful Creativity

Preface: You might remember my dear friend and castmate, Michelle Moreno. I wrote about her passion for succulents a while back. (Read that post here.) She sent me this photo this morning. She said she had a vision for it and for me. She wanted me to use it as a prompt so naturally, I did. What you see here is the result of Michelle's art creating more art. Love it! Love her! Love being backstage again!

There is a certain mythology to the dressing room, one which people inquire about or my readers enjoy reading about, so they tell me. To this community theater actor, dressing rooms can be quite a haven, quite a sanctuary, quite a place of creativity as we prepare and then wait to take the stage.

In this photo I may be seen, forever in time, catching up on facebook on June 20, 2012, as I wait.

I am not socializing on facebook mind you, I am doing business networking. I am feeling a renewed love for the business side of what I do, so I am capitalizing on my business romancing while also nurturing my more conventional creative side.

You can see I am dressed to go on, Michelle has prettified my hair. My scene is still about forty minutes away.

Keeping me company while I wait I have a book of Laurence Ferlinghetti poetry, some throat lozenges for my nagging cough, a huge tome of a book underneath the poems titled Mad Woman in the Attic and under that – in red – is my script. Michelle and I did our usual line running shortly after she took this shot.

She didn’t happen to capture me as I wrote snippets for future poems made up of the verbal action in the dressing room. That may have been my single most fun activity of all last night while waiting.

This is primarily a transcript of what my castmates were saying as I sat, invisibly, in my little corner.

I like taking pictures
I had their donut sandwich
It was pretty good
They put American cheese on it
Anybody else?
Scene change random straight wait a minute
You should play my birthing doctor
Different accents anyway
Scotts scotts scotts the lower I go
The worse it gets
They say the don't have to match
Why did you think that?
Its comfy and ready for bed
Bottled water opens on one, two, three
Then another one, two, three and another
Think about what you did
And its five, again,
Character development as long
As its sexy vampires they don't care
Can I call you after I die?
It should be twenty minutes or so
Is that the shirt you're wearing?
Do you want to....
Yeah! Outside? Now or do you need
To wait ~

With that, Michelle and I left the dressing room. Time to run lines and be sure we are ready to be out there, on stage, performing in a way that is pleasing to the future audiences, our director, ourselves and I always have the playwright in the center of my heart and intention when I take the stage.

Then we get to do it all again tomorrow. That makes me smile.

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Posted at 10:46 AM in Bakersfield, Behind the Scenes, California Writer, Cell Phone Poetry, Creative Every Day, Facebook, Loving Life, Networking, Passion, Poetry, Theater, Writing | Permalink | Comments (0)

“It is not the lips of a prince that will save us, it is our own lips, speaking.” Terry Tempest Williams & More Wisdom #SummerBlogChallenge

June 21from the Summer Blog Challenge -- Most recent words of wisdom you heard that stuck with you.

Have you ever had one of those books recommended to you that you resisted reading?

I have authors like that: people say “Have you read thus and so?” and I say “No…..” and over and over again “Thus and So” shows up in your consciousness.

This is what happened to me with Terry Tempest Williams. The other night her book When Women Were Birds insisted I buy it. I gave in. I took the insistent book off the shelf and bought it. I started reading and was hooked. It was like a reunion with one of my oldest and dearest friends!

In fact, there is wisdom on nearly every page!

I have gleaned a couple quotes here. No, the only “aloud hearing” of this wisdom was me reading the words aloud to me and myself alone, but nonetheless, these are the most recent words of wisdom, especially sticky, that I have come across:

“Beware of the charismatic wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

“I take a breath and sidestep my fear and begin speaking from the place where beauty and bravery meet – within the chambers of a quivering heart.”

“It is not the lips of a prince that will save us, it is our own lips, speaking.”

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Posted at 10:02 AM in Art and Spirituality, Blog Hop, Books, Naturalist, Summer Blog Challenge, Woman Naturalist, Women's Movement | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 20, 2012

Busy Woman's Tips: 5 Keys to Success in Documenting Your Moments & Memories (Even if you have never "succeeded" before!)

This post was inspired by another post I wrote during the Summer Blog Challenge: 15 Life Tips to Your Better Life Journey.

I got such favorable responses, I decided to write short articles and sometimes, more tips, to go with the original article.

I'll repeat what I said there:

Hold lightly & apply with love.

I am going to preface this list of life tips with the last tip. Please read this as a beginning, an end and an in-between: Hold all of these tips lightly with love rather than duty. Duty is a fun-sucker, love is a fun-creator.

I can’t remember all the times I was told to keep scrapbooks filled with all sorts of stuff from my children’s lives. I tried. I did! When I was pregnant with Samuel my goal was to at least get started on Emma’s baby book.

I prepped photos, I collected stuff – and all of it sits in an 8 X 11 envelope, still waiting for me to get it together enough to get that scrapbook – baby book made.

So – you may be asking how can I be suggesting this very tip: Write things down, witness your moments & document with photos when you can’t do it yourself?

Well, truth is I have done it, I have simply done it in my own way. Which is

Key to Success #1: Find a way to document that suits your personality which you will continue to return to rather than abandon before you even get started. You might take photos for a month and then have a day to organize, categorize and choose which ones to print, hang and share. You might take photos every day and organize daily. Neither is wrong or right: either one is a success.

Key to Success #2: Carry a small notebook somewhere. I know, you can take notes on your phone (see #3) but a small notebook will help you to sketch something you see or ask your child to contribute or collect a quote from a surprising stranger and allow them to sign it. I know, notebooks seem old school – but you can even get tiny composition books from the dollar store. At least try this for a week or two and if it doesn’t fit, give your teeny tiny notebook to someone else to use.

Key to Success #3: Use your phone’s note taking feature to witness the world around you. I do this especially when I am standing in line. I found myself in a convenience store in a crummy part of town recently and to distract myself from freaking out wrote these lines:

Smell of a convenience store: inhabited by a crack head smelling like smoke, beer, and a t shirt worn for eight days in a row. Tattoos decorate the calves of a man in cut off shorts whose glassy eyes tell a story all their own I write lines for future poetry, perhaps, into my cell phone to stay safely distracted. Pink paint sparkles on my left thumb as I type type type into my android colornote “Armando, I looked the door,” she said, “We just had a beer run” Too long t shirt man puts a gallon and 81 cents into his dodge. I see glassy eyed man move in the opposite direction I will be driving in his car and I am frozen, unbelieving: I pray for his inebriated abilities and wish I had thought to write his license plate into my poem. Please, God, forgive me. Keep this neighborhood - this place – safe.

Key to Success #4 – Write using either the simplest form (strings of sentences) or a form that will inspire you to write (like haiku). Be sure to capture, anyway, so you will be able to hold this moment in the future.

Key to Success #5 – Don’t worry about having the biggest, best or most bad ass camera or tablet computer to collect your moments. Just use what you have. Test what works. Let go of what doesn’t and continue trying until you have your own brand of “keepers.”

You will soon have a potpourri of memorable stories, photos, poems and momentos to not only keep your family legacy alive, you may find yourself writing to earn money or teaching workshops or simply being a more engaging storyteller as you tuck your children into bed.

Whatever the result of this is, know it will make your life even better than it is today.

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Posted at 10:55 AM in Blog Hop, Busy Women's Tips, Cell Phone Poetry, Creative Every Day, Creative Home, Creativity, Family, For the Seriously Time Challenged, Parenting, Passion for Creativity, Self Care, Self Love, Spiritual Practices, Writing, Writing Camp | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 19, 2012

#SummerBlogChallenge Day 20 ~ Favorite Little -Julie Photo. (I Cheated and Posted Two!)

Today's prompt from my friends at the Summer Blog Challenge is a great one. We are all asked to post a favorite photo of us as a young child….

I can’t only post one. I’m sorry.

Today, I am going to post two – my favorite of me with another person and my current favorite of me all by myself.

The me with someone else is my brother John and Me when we were somewhere around nine months and not-quite-two years old. We were thirteen months apart and always very close in every way.

I loved my brother with a ferocity I sometimes see in my own children.

I wrote about him last Sunday when I spoke about planning and facilitating his Celebration of Life after he died.

The one of me alone is one I only recently found.

I love it because of my posture – so upright and so proud – and the way the hat actually fits my head. I have a ginormous head so finding a cute hat that fits is sometimes quite a challenge.

Now, dear Summer Blog Challenge friends, I can’t wait to see your photos!

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Posted at 06:36 PM in Bakersfield, Blog Hop, Family, Julie Jordan Scott, Photography, Summer Blog Challenge | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Birth of Writing Camp + The Birth of the Next Writing Camp in Your Neighborhood ~

I laugh when I think about the birth of writing camp.

I started hosting camps when I looked at my long term goal of creating an Artist Colony/Writers Retreat/Camp sort of place for all generations. I had been looking at writers residencies and found nothing where I could have a residency AND have my children with me.

I am just not up to leaving my children for four weeks at a time.

I thought, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was a place where people could elect the option of bringing family with them on their artistic rest times, where the children are cared for and also doing creative activities simultaneously and learning the joy of silence, quiet and the creative process.” I also thought a certain Mother (of mine!) would benefit from the same thing!

Grandparents, Children, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Moms and Dads, all enjoying a sacred and protected time of creating together separately.

This was my dream AND it didn’t show any signs of manifesting right on my horizon so the creative me said, “How can I bring this sort of experience into fruition before I have an actual property?”

This is how Writing Camp was born.

Since then there have been many (I have lost count!) virtual writing camps. There have been Writing Camps in high school classrooms, in City Parks, in National Parks, in Hospitals, in College classrooms. People have attended camp from all over the world.

My next logical step is to take Writing Camp on the Road: in other words, bring Writing Camp with me when I travel and/or intentionally taking Camp to certain places. A natural combination to me is taking Camp to writerly AND natural places.

Since I love visiting writers’ homes and benefit from the creative vibe within places, this seems like not only a logical next step, but a “filled with passion” next step.

This Summer, I will be in these cities and locations:

Flagstaff, Four Corners, Canyon de Chelly, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Colorado Springs, Denver, St. George, Bryce and Zion National Parks, Las Vegas and also since I am so close to Los Angeles, would love to do some Camps there: preferably at Art Museums and places like the variety filled Griffith Park.

In the Fall, I am thinking Portland for a weekend trip and South Dakota or Kansas or both for another weekend trip.

Where would you love to see Writing Camp appear? Perhaps you’ve been wanting to manifest an intentional writing community – here is your chance, delivered to a neighborhood, a museum, a home near you.

All you need to do is speak it to me here, email me at juliejordanscott at gmail dot come or call or text me at 661.444.2735 and we’ll begin the delightful task of putting it into motion.

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Posted at 11:13 AM in Art and Spirituality, Creative Every Day, Creativity, Family, Family Travel, Friendship, Julie Jordan Scott, Mini-Retreat, Self Care, Self Love, Summer Camps, Travel, Writing, Writing Camp | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 18, 2012

#SummerBlogChallenge Day 19: Woot Woot. Tell me: What are 3 Things You Are Proud of from the Last Few Days?

I love prompts that ask us to look right in the near past rather than from a long, long time ago. I enjoy walks down my memory, but oftentimes I don’t give myself credit for the right now… so with that…join me and consider what three things YOU are proud about from the past few days?

Three things I am proud of from the last few days:

I ran two successful Writing Camps at Bakersfield College’s Delano Campus. The students wrote haiku, freewrote, learned about Rainer Rilke, Alice Walker, Laura Esquivel. We practiced writing in Objective and Meaningful language. There was a lot of interaction and fun was had by (almost!) everyone. Yes, guy in the second row, I saw you dozing off. I forgive you! I have to admit, sleeping students DO make me kick my game up a notch. I am proud I did.
I attended (and enjoyed!) a SoulCollage workshop. I had been resisting for months because I had tried the process on my own. I didn’t get what all the fuss was about. Naturally I loved it. I created a whole bunch of cards and plan to go for Open Studio to make more. I got over my resistance and created some great art. Yay!
I didn’t lose my temper once, even when there were a couple ripe situations for me to do so. This is definitely something to be proud about, especially when a tired Samuel did typical tired Samuel behaviors. :~)

So – Beloveds! Tell me three things you are proud of from the last few days.

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Posted at 10:59 PM in Art and Spirituality, Bakersfield, Blog Hop, Celebration, Collage, Creative Every Day, Creative Home, Daily Passion Activator, Family, Forgiveness, Friendship, Julie Jordan Scott, Parenting, Self Care, Soul Collage, Spirituality, Summer Blog Challenge, Writing, Writing Camp | Permalink | Comments (6)

This Current Affair Must Be Noticed: #VaginaGate - the #VaginaBlogs are Speaking

I have been part of a counterculture for a long time now. I didn’t necessarily realize I was a part of a counterculture, but gauging from the uproar over the word “Vagina” in political – or any sort of public – arena, the movement is not only necessary it is over the top essential now.

It is also essential for us, those of us who carry a vagina and the vagina-less, to come together and tell the world we love vaginas. We wouldn’t be ourselves without our vaginas and to ban the name of one of our defining body parts would be like not being able to utter “leg” or “index finger” or “elbow”.

I am sure there are people out there who find those three body parts quite exciting sexually. In this society, so much is sexualized but besides that, some people might just get tickled by the idea of an elbow or “oh my the index finger” and forget how much your leg might through that person over there miles across the moon.

I have performed in The Vagina Monologues many times as a part of the V-Day Movement started by Eve Ensler to combat violence against girls and women. It was through these performances I met many other vagina carriers who helped me see my vagina differently.

Not only did we perform together, we grew together, we cried together, we painted masks on our faces and did yoga together. We reclaimed both our vaginas and our femininity. We weren’t a bunch of “militants” who walked around with fatigue clothes, black boots and the requisite crew cut.

We were all sizes, all shapes, all belief systems.

Our one common part was our vaginas.

We had mothers and daughters. We had long time friends. We had friends who were angry at each other. We naturally had drama and hurt feelings AND we have, year after year, resolution and coming back together for a common cause: raising money to protect women who have been sexually or physically abused in their homes or workplaces – and our secondary cause which isn’t named but always happens: vagina loving.

Now, if your mind went to something sexual that wasn’t what I meant at all.

We loved our own vaginas and came to love the other women, too. Let’s remember not to sexualize everything. Imagine what would happen in our society overall if we just stopped being so hypersexualized. Think of how productivity would increase!

Back to what happened thanks to performing in the Vagina Monologues:

We came to admire vaginas.

We came to learn from other vaginas.

We came to appreciate the intricacies of vaginas.

We came to know women who were older or younger than us. We networked with other vagina-friendly activists. Note in these photos, we don't exclude men. We love men and appreciate their contribution to our cause. After all, each and every person alive has been conceived, birthed, or held safe during pregnancy near a Vagina.

We created from a fresh perspective of loving our own vaginas and not bad-mouthing other vaginas.

We practiced our right to free speech, which includes using words like Vagina, shoulder, penis, eyes, breast, nose, buttocks and brains.

See what I mean about Counter-Cultural?

Join us in loving our Vaginas: there is a new movement afoot because of an uproar in the government leadership here in the United States, primarily from Non-Vagina-Carrying participants.

We each have a voice, Vagina-carriers. It is time for you to use yours.

What you can do

Write a VaginaBlog post on your blog then email your post to the Michigan House Speaker: [email protected]
You can also email it to your representatives telling them you are't going to stand for such nonsense anymore. Tell them to stay out of your Vagina and deal with the more important issues at hand
Post your #VaginaBlog to Twitter and Facebook
Reclaim the word Vagina and stand tall

You can find out more about how you can help by going to these sites

The Vagina Blogs: NYC #Vaginagate #Solidarity Event

TAKE ACTION: Word 'Vagina' banned in...MICHIGAN?

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Posted at 01:22 PM in #VaginaGate, Activism and the Arts, Bakersfield, Current Affairs, Family, Julie Jordan Scott, Loving Life, Spiritual Practices, Theater, VaginaGate, VDay, Women's Movement | Permalink | Comments (1)

Creating..... Anyway: When You Think You Know Yes or No, Try Try Again.

Have you ever resisted trying something new because you thought you knew all about it and wasn’t too thrilled knowing everything about it?

Saturday, once again, I was proven wrong. I am GRATEFUL I was proven wrong!

I love hanging out at the Art and Spirituality Center here in Bakersfield at Mercy Hospital. I have loved taking classes, teaching classes, and attending open studio as much as I can. I have made quite a few friends there and many of them are totally into SoulCollage.

I had read the book and tried making cards but never really enjoyed it all that much. I didn’t enjoy it enough to continue.

One day I sat with my friend, Kimberly, and used some of her SoulCollage cards as Writing Prompts. Wow. They were so vivid and awakened some deep stuff within me and I knew I needed to try it again. Perhaps with a group, I would be better.

I went to the workshop Saturday with no expectations. I hoped it would be fruitful because I was giving up much of my day to attend. Once I made my first card I knew I was at the right place with the right people doing the right thing.

We were told we could make three cards. If we needed more, though, we would be given more.

I ended up making seven cards. I felt like my chronic-overachieving-now-nobody-is-going-to-like-me self.

I was surprised, though, because there wasn’t a soul in the room who “didn’t like me” because I made the most cards. Next up for me is making cards with my own photos. I’m looking forward to making cards to honor family members and personal heroines.

Next time you get an intuitive nudge to (re) try something, do it, without attachment or worry.

I bet you will find you love it much more than you thought you would!

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Posted at 06:47 AM in Art and Spirituality, Bakersfield, Blog Hop, Collage, Creative Every Day, Forgiveness, Julie Jordan Scott, Self Care, Soul Collage, Spirituality, Writing | Permalink | Comments (0)

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June 22, 2012

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