Tea with the Muse

Hop on into my NeoShamanic Painting class NOW right here for 7 weeks starting today!

Why I get afraid deep in my stardust bones when I’m about to teach intentional creativity to new people…is because after over 33 years, I stand in absolute astonishing awe at what painting makes available. Having nothing to do with talent. Nothing to do with knowing what you’re going to create.

Nothing to do with any version of anything we’ve ever known before because painting in this way is like riding the edge of the unknown while you still Get to stay securely fastened into the seat at the mothership. Because I’ve guided thousands and thousands of people through these processes. But it always humbles me in awe.

I believe Creator gave all beings access to intentional creativity. And it is my good fortune this lifetime to have said yes when asked. I was given this sacred assignment to bring the transmission of intentional creativity through the Stardust lineage where teachings have been passed from hand to hand and heart to heart since the early thirties.

I said yes under one condition. That Creator would make it very, very clear what my next step was. I ask that it be so clear that it be put right in front of me on my path and that if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t act. I have stayed true to my vision and so has Creator. I understand myself.

As a collaborator with creator and creation and painting image and story, language, symbol, codex and code is the activation of the creator energy within me, my shared responsibility to serve in this great turning. I just said, To a group of women who have been here for five days, if anybody knew what this work actually does,

they would run to this door because once you get started, you can’t stop because it’s so sacred and so wild and so infinitely illuminating that it knocks your cowgirl boots off every time. But today, In less than an hour, I will be sharing neo-shamanic painting with a new audience through the Shift Network.

I am rightly terrified, but it’s not terrified that something bad will happen. It’s because there’s so much power in creating in this way. And honestly, here’s a not-so-secret secret. If I knew how to paint well or follow instructions or a new perspective or lights and darks and shadows, if I knew how to do anything realistic whatsoever,

we would never have gone this route. It’s because I don’t know. It’s because all these years later and hundreds of thousands of dollars of painting sales later, I still can’t control what I make. I can’t bring what’s in my mind as a vision to the canvas. I can only bring how it feels.

And however that is, blesses me and I hope it blesses you.

Shiloh Sophia

Unedited transcript

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Making a Case for the Muse

Well, it’s a silly thing to have to explain,

making a case for the Muse,

because anybody who’s

navigating an insurance claim

for a fallen tree or received a speeding ticket

because the Rolling Stones came on

and you just couldn’t help but dance

and you pressed so hard on the pedal.

I just can’t get no, no, no, no... satisfaction.

I mean anyone who forgot to renew

their driver’s license and got turned

away at the airport

understands the need for amusement!

Come on, just look at the text thread.

You are perusing through right now.

Almost every other text is

asking you for something.

How about the people

who got a hold of your phone number

and won’t stop inviting you to apply

for that job or apply for a loan

that you already qualified for or better yet

tell you that your mother lost her phone

and she’s trying to reach you.

And she died three years ago. Rest her soul.

Can you see how much the muse is needed?

Can you see?

If we don’t start laughing more...and soon

This whole thing

will try to convince us

that this is reality. Imagine that!

And still you wonder, what if it is Mother,

reaching from the other side?

You light a candle for her just in case

There is definitely a need for the Muse

when suddenly you have more

doctor’s appointments than

long lunch dates with girlfriends

who call you darlink’ and batt

their eyelashes at you, like Marlena Dietrich.

It’s just rough these days.

When you finally got

into a routine of happy hour and

found a beverage that tastes just right

and makes you chill out immediately

and then your doctor tells you

it’s going to turn to sugar

and you just can’t have sugar anymore.

WTF is going on here, people!

And then there’s all the paperwork

and the whispers of divorce

and diagnosis all around you

and the password hell? Don’t get me started.

Right now, there’s more than one friend

who’s having delusions

and the dementia articles

won’t stop showing themselves.

You can’t help but click

on that one tip that will keep you

from forgetting your dog’s name.

Do I need to convince you

there’s a need for the Muse,

for goodness sakes?

How about this? The reality that

a woman can grow a mustache in her 50s?

Uh huh. Overnight!

And suddenly

there’s more hair

on your inner thighs. Ew.

And you’re just so grateful

if you happen to have a lover

who appreciates you getting

more furry because

there’s more fur coming, you know?

The hair in your eyebrows

migrated to your chin, and

that is just no good!

Then there’s that innocuous mole

that you like to call a beauty mark

that has one black hair and

one white hair growing out of it and

they seem to appear overnight and

you don’t have white hair or black hair.

I mean, what the actual flying F!

If you keep them there for amusement,

they will eventually curl at your chin!

Sometimes I wish

I could talk to God and

ask Them about certain things.

Do you have a list like this?

God, do you have a moment? Please.

Couldn’t you have made it so that

we don’t have violence built into us

as a possibility and we could

still have free will?

Couldn’t you have made

the instructions for healing

a wound a little more

readable?

Why would you allow

bizarre things like

extractive capitalism to even

enter our minds?

I mean, the list goes on and on, y’all.

What’s on your list?

Yet more than a list of complaints,

I have a list of

gratitudes that runs all day long.

Dozens upon dozens of anemonies

in my garden, soft magenta, yellow centers.

The regal Valley Oak and the

large Band-Tailed pigeons from California,

and that the sun is shining

through my window, even though

one of the trees had to be taken down,

the neighbor asked me, and I did,

and it’s sad, but now I can see

the mountain and the sun.

The gift that when my heart is hurting,

my kitty will come and sit

right on top of my heart

and purr without being petted.

It’s far longer, the list of gratitudes

than the list of complaints.

There’s definitely a need for the Muse

because amusement is medicine

that everybody needs. The muse always

prefers leopard over beige.

She definitely has a preference for

rhinestones over buttons.

She really likes

fried chicken and mashed potatoes

instead of broccoli and fish without butter.

The Muse cannot conceive of a world

that does not have butter,

I mean, can you?

Or chocolate? That’s a whole food group

for the Muse, y’all.

But here’s the thing.

If you invite the muse in,

she can be extremely disruptive

to whatever invented balance you pretend

you’ve created in your household.

She wants to disrupt your life. She used some giant golden scissors to

cut you out of your box, the one you made!

And you’re standing there questioning

if you should step out or not because you

don’t know what you’re going to find out there

and you’re not sure you can make it back

from wherever you end up

by Monday morning at 9 o’clock.

Sometimes you just don’t care and

you walk out of that box anyway,

and you find the blue sky, you always knew

was right there.

Do you think about quitting

your job 10 times a day?

I mean, just admit it. I do.

I may not be employable, however.

Do you wonder why

that person you love so much

has a sticker on their bumper for the

opposite side of the party you decided

is the most right choice?

When you see someone smiling

in the grocery store for no apparent reason,

while they’re gazing at the crackers,

gluten-free or wheat?

Why don’t you just walk up to them and ask

them their secret

and tell them how glad you are

to see them?

What have you got to lose anyway?

Nuthin’ Make their day. What if each day you could

just smile as often as you think about it,

just break into a full scale, non-beautiful,

unapologetic, toothy grin.

That’s just one of the ways

to let the Muse in.

I’ve got lots of other tips and tricks,

for the seduction of the Muse

when you’ve been having a dry spell.

Lubrication definitely helps to get things going.

And let me tell you, you better get things going.

Don’t wait too long and let your body

go to sleep on you!

If you invite the Muse to come into your life,

she’s going to request more action

between the sheets

if you know what I mean.

Whether you are having

a lover now or not,

she still has demands for

getting the juices flowing.

Just for today.

I know exactly how

I will court my muse.

It helps to start

with the leopard underwear

and the push-up bra

and the rose oil on my nipples,

the sparkling lip gloss that

makes huge lip prints on my pink cup

in the pink cowgirl boots that stomp

with abandon, all that helps out!

Your Muse has a different kink than mine,

of course, what is it then,

that your Muse requests of you?

There is definitely a case for the Muse,

because the news is just bringing us

to one dumpster fire after another,

and I’m not saying we don’t have to

keep taking out the trash.

I’m saying we need

to adjust our schedule and our priorities

to create spaciousness

so the Muse can take up residence

in this house you call “my life”.

Give her chocolate and striped it socks,

red ones, and purple butterfly barrettes

and play her songs by the purple man, Prince.

Make her a cup of tea for you and me,

and let’s hang out in the imaginal land

where everybody’s already free.

And of course,

there are flying unicorns and fairy cake.

I’m headed to the giant canvas now,

where a circle of women is gathering

in colorful clothing, the Council.

They arrive with baskets and crock pots

full of the yummiest food to Stardust Ranch.

I made my famous lentil soup and hummus

from dried chickpeas in preparation for the party!

And the Phoenix woman, yeah,

the one who rose again

is appearing on my canvas.

She has lots to say to me

and the Muse is the gateway

for hearing her voice,

and I am listening.

The truth is, today I’m walking with a limp.

Like Jacob, I’ve been wrestling with an angel,

and I won’t let go until the angel blesses me.

But in the meantime, I’m walking softly and

carrying a big lipstick and a walking stick.

Honey, I just know deep down

in my stardust bones,

that we all need to invite the Muse to tea

and offer her a giant paintbrush.

I just know these things.

Like Dolly Parton says:

Decide who you’re going to be

and do it on purpose.”Join me on October 3

Get full access to Tea with the Muse at https://teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

Ancestor Ceremony - 24X48 if you are interested, it is available at 40% off. Please let me know!

All upcoming events including in person circles, and free classes and book launches are available at http://www.musea.org Join us for the Elements of Grace book launch - with Bethany Zare - I illustrated the cover and the inside art.

No Time to Turn Back

This is no time to give up on what matters to you. This is not a time to surrender into despair. The signs of the times are not a sign to stop. We are weary and it is good and normal to admit it. These times are also not a sign to use all of your energy in fight mode.

We need to reserve our strength. To choose ever so wisely how we will steward our life force and where we will put our resources and how we can live our lives not in constant reaction. The power over structures and constructs want us to be caught up in their power struggles. Women’s voices shouting into their deafening silences.

We are rightfully dismayed and disgusted but we will not be stopped for our sacred work.What you love and care for and desire can still be at the center of all of your choices. Each day we choose again and again to serve the highest good while not exhausting ourselves. We can choose to find the beauty everywhere while not turning from the suffering.

We can cultivate the depth of community that we long for and not wait for someone else to do it. You do it and I do it and we do it. Call the circles or come to those of us who are calling them ourselves. These are hard times indeed. Our grandmothers warned of them.My grandmother called this “the end times”. These are times where goodness is alive because we are co-creating it. Move forward according to the power you have in your heart and body. Each day, whatever it is, is enough. Trust that power in connection with the sacred and the natural world.

Choosing always what is right and good for you before any other choices. Many of us, oh so many, are here beside you. Sound women with sound voices and sound medicine are gathering now. On the mountaintops, in the forests, in the valleys. We are always gathering. We’re gathering each other. Now.

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BE HER NOW

The sun is setting over the soft magenta anemones

with golden centers where the bees drink.

And I can’t stop wondering

about where all of this began,

this narrative to be more,

do more,

become more,

achieve more,

more,

more than you are.

More.

More than you need to be.

More.

By someone else’s standards.

More.

To the degree that you lose

whoever you already were.

For a time, of course —

whoever you already were can never be lost,

because that’s all within you anyway.

But the narrative of strive and drive

and carry the burdens of the ancestors’ crimes

is too much to ask.

The band-tailed pigeons are fluttering in the valley oak,

both of them on the watch list right here.

I listen to the sound of their wings.

And when the ravens come and the squirrels run,

how they all communicate together.

I can’t help but wonder

where that whole narrative started.

Whose grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmother

first had to step out of the matriarchal framework

into the dominant framework in order to survive,

and how this errant thought

that there was something better over there to become.

Something better over there to have.

Something better than what she had.

Something better to achieve,

to receive,

to compete for.

To even ask for,

but worst of all,

to want for.

To want for something other than what there is

in one’s own self and life and being.

Something better

stirring us to look outside of ourselves.

And I just can’t help but wonder

about those moments in each of our lineages

when we are striving towards something better,

which really makes whatever we have seem somehow less,

and us seem somehow less as a result of it.

The hummingbird is pausing at the rose,

red-trimmed white petals blooming

beside the golden sun-kissed tomatoes

and the mint,

the basil.

Everything wants to be enjoyed.

It doesn’t want to be compared.

It wants to be appreciated for what it is.

The tomato and the rose and the mint

do not have a story of needing more

or being better.

They become the fullest versions of themselves

in this sun,

in this full moon energy.

And I’ve been writing for days,

decades,

to articulate the unarticulatable.

To share that which I cannot find the words to share.

There’s a sacred urgency

humming in my stardust bones.

And it’s about this:

how everything we really need is already here and innate.

It’s with us.

We don’t have to earn it.

We don’t need more.

It doesn’t need to be better.

But the riddle is

that isn’t how we experience it,

and it’s not what we’ve been taught,

and it’s not how it feels

in the daily struggles of our lives.

And yet there’s this sacred unhooking that happens

when we realize,

or just to come from,

for a cycle

or an afternoon

or an hour

or the length of a poem walking through your heart,

that everything that is needed is innate.

That there’s no place else to get to,

nothing more to add,

and nothing better to become.

And that doesn’t mean we don’t wish

for a small patch of grass

to lay on our back and look at the moon.

That doesn’t mean we don’t wish

for sturdy, solid boots

that will last for more than one wet winter.

That doesn’t mean we don’t wish

for everything to be organic and sustainable,

and the salmon to not be farmed,

and the strawberries to not be GMO’d.

We do wish for these things,

but it’s how we internalize them,

how we make it mean somehow

that we’re something less.

Everything I’ve been moving toward

is toward this idea

of revealing ourselves to ourselves

as the ultimate act of sacred sovereignty:

to not need more,

not be better,

not need to be seen and acknowledged.

Not need to have a title or a designation

or an affirmation by others,

but to simply acknowledge

the innate majesty of who we are.

And the journey, really,

of recovery,

of making new promises to ourselves.

Not promises about more and better,

but promises about being.

Not promises about needing to belong somewhere else.

Not promises about needing to heal some ancient wound

that happened before we were ever born

that we’re trying to heal this lifetime.

And not just to simply be here now either.

More like

be her now.

Like even for a couple of seconds.

Right now.

Right now.

As the butterfly bush dies

with the purple rain-colored flowers,

beckons for a kiss from the passing flutterby,

just looking for that connection

through the sun and the air.

A place to be met within one’s self.

A space and a place

where identity just rests in itself

through this expression of soul

that has always been here.

That is so easily forgotten,

not because we forget,

but because it is hidden from us.

Some gorgeous way to access the truest voice

which is held within us

and set it free from the constraints of silence.

Some way to curate this gorgeous consciousness that we are

so we can design our own minds

and liberate that self-expression

which is begging for form,

for matter,

for energy equals matter at the speed of light

to become matter at the speed of light.

Plus love.

Approximately equals the stardust bones that you already are

in this cooling sack of stars.

Where you can source your own presence enough

to embody your sensuality with more pleasure

than you could ever have imagined belong to you.

To manifest the prosperity

which is in alignment with the generosity of all of creation.

Because everything we need has been provided,

and it’s so hard to remember that

when scarcity is enforced.

When the morning light came on the pink lady apples

and there were enough apples to eat throughout the day.

What generosity,

what generosity.

Prosperity manifested,

to see it as such

and love it,

to be in love with the apple.

To be so in love with the apple

that you could spend an afternoon

or an hour

or five minutes

catalyzing your calling,

not to have or be more or better than,

but because it’s just innate and natural for you

to want to create beauty.

Not to save the world,

but just to create beauty

because your hands want to,

because your heart sees some potential.

Not to rescue,

but just because it’s f***ing beautiful to make beauty.

And it’s enough.

And you are enough,

and you know this.

You know this deep down in your cells.

That you are a sovereign initiate

of this cosmic unfolding.

That you, like me,

are part of an ancient futuristic Stardust Lineage.

That we don’t need to do anything to become it.

We just say yes to it.

And then the practice is the lifestyle.

A lifestyle of pleasure and beauty and self-expression

with intention

of continually arriving in the now.

Be her now.

No permission,

no apology,

no need to become.

Just being for the sake of being

is the beauty unfolding right now,

as this poem runs through my body

like a wild horse

looking for a view of the harvest moon.

Shiloh Sophia

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Good morning everyone! I dreamed all night about the ranch. Here are my rambling thoughts about what Rose and an invitation for you to relate to where you live in a new way! Have a beautiful day!

Get full access to Tea with the Muse at https://teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

Good morning! In today’s episode, I’m inviting you to design a point for yourself. To fall in love with the tedium. And to do five things today with With Me. Tune in to find out.

Get full access to Tea with the Muse at https://teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

How is your relationship with pain dominating your life?

Do you create the space for pleasure?

Today's podcast recorded from the convertible today on the way to the "spa" aka gym is a dare to do this practice three times today. The Muse is asking - will you listen?

Get full access to Tea with the Muse at https://teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

A poem about stepping outside of our comfort zones... and meeting the old woman of the forest.

Get full access to Tea with the Muse at https://teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to Tea with the Muse at https://teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

This is a reading from my book, Teahttps://shilohsophiashop.com/withhttps://shilohsophiashop.com/thehttps://shilohsophiashop.com/Midnighthttps://shilohsophiashop.com/Muse, Invocations and Inquiries for Awakening. This one’s called Medicine Woman, and it goes way, way, way, way back to when I was 30 years old. It was at one time published inside of the Mother Tongue Publishing We Moon Calendar.

And today I am painting with Havi Mandel, co-director of Red Madonna. And you are still invited to join us for a 13 moon journey in the sacred feminine where you activate your medicine woman. Okay, ready? Ready?

Medicine Woman

The wild one lives within all women.

She is known as Medicine Woman.

She holds the tools for healing in her magic basket.

She sings her prayers, you know.

Medicine Woman knows stars and sums.

She listens between worlds.

Medicine Woman cannot be domesticated at all, ever.

Even when we don’t recognize her, she is always here.

She has blue butterflies and red roses in her hair

and golden boots with wings.

She’s at the movies with teenage girls on Friday night.

She gets a tattoo of the Guadalupe

on her left bicep in San Francisco’s Mission District

and the Sacred Heart of Jesus on her right bicep.

You may catch a glimpse of her silver striped leggings

as she roller skates through New York’s Central Park.

She teaches workshops on right brain, left brain,

the critic and her lover, the muse,

or the geometry of numbers or raw food

or revolution for breakfast.

She pays for everything with cash.

She paints glitter on her toenails, fire engine red.

Just don’t think you have her figured out.

She will always surprise you.

She shows up in a crimson dress

sewn with a white dogwood bodice and a bay leaf hem.

She is the sound of bells.

She may let her armpit hair grow.

She is the place within all of us

that wants it all and wants to give it all up.

She swims naked in the ocean.

She rides motorcycles up the coast.

She paints and writes and dances and dreams

and she has multiple income streams.

She is medicine woman. She heals the unexpressed in us.

She asks the question, who are you not being?

Her life is her own.

She is on her own and she likes it that way.

Don’t be surprised if she asks you to miracle tea

and you find yourself drunk with aliveness and honeycomb cake.

Shiloh Sophia

Today I wish to dedicate this to three incredible members of our team

who have shown up in extraordinary ways this week. And many weeks, but in

particular, right now. The one and only Curate Kelly House.

Co-leader of Sacred Echoes, Isabelle Guzman Stark.

And live streamer, Vicchi “V” Oleski Thank you.

You are all medicine women to me and to our community. And I love you.

Get full access to Tea with the Muse at https://teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

Making ritual conscious.

First, there are three long spoons

laid upon a napkin from Hawaii,

handmade on top of a cutting board

made by a teenage daughter.

A cup from Monet’s garden

and the ingredients.

First, filtered water in a teapot from New York.

First, smelling roses from three beautiful godchildren.

Laying out the honey from where I grew up, Lover’s Lane.

Grinding coffee, mold free and you begin

the whole thing I learned from a Muse

by capitalizing the word Coffee

and organizing the ingredients in beauty.

Once the coffee has gone into the French press

and the water has boiled

The rest of the process begins.

The scoop of honey goes into the cup.

A scoop of coconut oil goes into the cup.

Cinnamon and nutmeg and vanilla go into the cup

and stir the little mash into a ball.

When you put the water into the French press,

don’t forget to set your alarm for 5.33 minutes,

and only then do you froth the half and half. When the time feels right

after you’ve looked out the window and pet the cats

and pondered your attitude for the day, o

nly then do you add the half and half,

the milky foamy substance Into the mix in the cup.

And then you stir vigorously, making a slurry of yumminess.

(Resist the temptation to drink this elixir.)

Make sure everything is emulsified.

Look out the window again. T

ext that one person that you know needs to hear from you,

that they are loved.

Then stand around in fuzzy socks

and breathe deeply

as if you have all the time in the world. S

mell everything. Love everything.

And when the alarm goes off,

smile as you gently press down the coffee.

But then wait.

From here, as you ponder the deliciousness of coffee.

Coffee, or what we call Tea with the Muse.

You set your tone for the day one more time

to an outlook, not just of gratitude, like, hey,

I’m grateful for that,

but active appreciation, a

nticipation of bringing beauty and amusement. Call your Muse right then,

right before the coffee is ready to pour.

She is usually sitting with her group of friends

cackling on the dark side of the moon.

She loves this dark new moon solar eclipse energy.

When you are ready, invite her!

Don’t take your eyes off of her

as she comes because she may

slip through the cracks in the floorboards

if she doesn’t quite feel your presence.

The quality of your presence in this sacred

in this less than 10 minute ritual that will determine

whether or not the Muse actually appears.

When you call her you know

she’s a bit of a fickle one and a bit of a wild one.

She demands a quality of presence.

She demands ceremonial time.

Kairos instead of industrial time and Chronos.

The Muse doesn’t have any clocks but the moon.

And believe me, she wants to be with you.

But she will only appear and only stay if you slow down.

Then, pouring it into the cup and stirring again.

Then finding the perfect place for you

and the Muse to sit in fuzzy socks and fuzzy blankets

and recognize you began the day with making ritual conscious

and every single other action in this day

will be shifted as a result of the quality of your presence.

Life is good. As our art matriarch used to say,

being an artist is so romantic

With love, Shiloh Sophia

We start this weekend -

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Join me to paint the MUSE

Dear One,

If you happen to have a chronic stress or chronic health condition, please listen because this matters. The hours of your day are not neutral. They’re counting on your body’s clock. Hypervigilance over time wears the body down. You know this, but what you might not know is how much pleasure builds the body back.

Pleasure is not a treat. Pleasure is a counterweight to pain. And here’s why I believe it. Chronos. Chronic. It means with time. So if you have chronic health and chronic stress, it means you’re living with it, inside of it. These words come from the Latin and the Greek. When it first began to enter the human language, it was not about a severity, it was about duration, the time it takes. Chronic, on its own, isn’t something bad. It’s what travels with you. But it’s not a singular event. It’s time itself. And if the condition that you are navigating is having an impact on your life. It’s impacting your time. Not just the quantity of your time, but the quality of your time.

So what if the remedy to Chronos and Chronic is connected with time itself? Think about this for a moment with me. Chronos connects with the brainwave of Beta, what I call busybody beta, and hypervigilance, and also the critic. The critic lives in Chronos. Chronos is sequential, the clock, the calendar, the appointment, the countdown, the quantity. Beta is the brainwave that runs it. Hypervigilance is what beta feels like from the inside when you live in a body that communicates to you about what it is experiencing in languages that are hard to understand and so unpredictable. When you’re always scanning for what’s next, what’s going to bring on the inflammation or the flare, whether or not you feel like showing up for something that you’ve already said yes to. Small example, yesterday I spent quite a few hours feeling creative and lit up and informed. And then suddenly my computer was out of battery and I was in a public place. And I didn’t feel like expending the energy to get up and plug it in. So I just closed it and just sat there instead. I was weighing whether or not it felt worthwhile to find the socket. Because when you’re navigating chronic conditions, sometimes the simple act like plugging in a cord can feel like you don’t want to do it. Are you, like I am sometimes, weighing every move? The weighing itself, the evaluation is not free. Researchers have measured what it does to a body over the years. And this buildup is called allostatic load. The wear accumulates. And so when we stay hypervigilant and stressed and in the stressful parts of the beta brainwaves over and over and over, it accumulates. It’s a toxic load.

Accumulation: Is a word that’s been changing everything for me. Hypervigilance is not waiting for a flare. It’s showing up in the good times too. When I’m doing things that I love, it’s just there in the background. And it fills up peaceful times with stress if I don’t pay attention. But there’s something else. This one has to be chosen. Chronos is Predictable. What is not predictable is Kairos.

Kairos is a choice. Kairos is divine time, God timing, supreme timing, synchronicity, everything in right time. Kairos, theta brainwaves, flow state, and the Muse. Kairos is about quality, not quantity. It’s about opportunity, never too early, never too late. It’s the opening. The space to breathe in between, or what I would call Tea with Muse. Chronos is spent. It’s finite. Kairos, you enter and it’s infinite, or at least the experience of it can be when you enter a flow state. Theta is the brainwave that’s operating in Kairos. You don’t just arrive there all at once. You have to pass through other brainwaves. You begin to leave the beta and you pass through the imagination of alpha and into the spacious mystical theta. And as you go. Hypervigilance and stress dissolves along the way. This also counts, especially if you declare that it does. Flow is what it feels like from the inside. Flow is the felt sense of the Kairos state. And this is where science is on my side and the side of Intentional Creativity. The researchers have a name for what happens to time in that state. They actually call it time distortion. It’s one of the defining markers where hours go by and you can’t account for them. You’re so in the flow. You’re in your jam. There’s a theory called transient hypofrontality that says that the self-monitoring part of the brain quiets down during times of deep absorption. The part of you that is over hypervigilant, that guards, that worries, goes quiet, measurably quiet during Kairos. So when you’re in self-expression, particularly things like drawing or painting or singing or weaving or digging in the dirt or cooking food, things that require intention you go into Kairos. When you’re sitting with the Muse and letting her have her way with you. Two hours go by and you don’t even know where they went. That happened just this morning. Coffee with two people I adore. We read poetry from my book, Tea with the Midnight Muse. We did the Mother Mary Oracle Deck and applied it to our health. We talked to the kitties. We talked about the roses and the tomatoes. I made a soup of everything from the garden. And the hours were gone and they couldn’t even believe it. And I said, that? That’s Tea with the Muse. That’s what I want to talk about today. We traveled out of beta and we stopped guarding the parameter of our consciousness. We stopped listening to the Chronos critic who told us we must be productive. We entered the place where there is no clock. Instead, there’s a cuppa.Here’s the interesting thing, is that this time wasn’t about healing something completely, not about overcoming something. When we come back out of it, the same conditions are waiting for us, but our perspective is shifted and we can bring magic out of Kairos into the Chronos. Let me tell you this, the pleasure time, the Muse time, that also is accumulative, just like the stress. The body, the heart, the mind, and the identity, they begin to fill up with a different kind of energy. This is why my entire day is filled with little bursts of chosen micro-pleasure. Chronos, Beta, Hypervigilance, Critic, Finite. That one writes by itself all day long, whether we consent or not, where Kairos, Theta, Flow, and the Muse, and the Infinite, that one only writes in us when we choose it, and also choose to be conscious of it. Kairos offsets days of bracing and worry for the worst. What if Tea with the Muse Is this life-saving as I’ve been saying it is all these years? You might ask yourself, why does Shiloh spend so much time on pleasure when the world is on fire? Because I know what’s possible, because I’ve seen it for myself. I’ve seen people move out of chronic pain and into practices of pleasure that change our world. You know what? Chronos gets the clock. It’s operating all day long. Kairos only gets what we choose and appoint. While you might think that 15 minutes of Tea with the Muse against the rest of the hours spent just fighting the onslaught of overwhelm and chaos: I challenge you to consider this is not just a lovely invitation. For many of us, it’s life-saving. Pleasure is our activism. Kairos, like the Muse, must be courted. Kairos doesn’t just arrive on its own, usually. The only times I’ve seen it come are through falling in love or worshipping at the altar of the Divine. Every other time, I need to choose it. Pain is inevitable, but pleasure is chosen. Kronos never has to be chosen. Kronos is chronic, just like the critic is chronic, keeping you scrolling and reminding you that time is running out. Kairos is a ritual. And while many of us in our community do prefer a giant canvas, in addition, take a walk and let the flowers speak poetry to you. Look out the window at the farthest point you can find and ask what color that is, if you were to paint it. Talk to the part of your body that hurts and ask what it wants. One of the people I was sitting with this morning is navigating a health condition and I asked her to ask that part of her body what the message was. Only one small thing came. But for me, as I sat with her and listened to the space in between the spaces, I heard a very clear instruction about a particular form of rest and I invited her to take that rest today - and she did and she’s doing it right now while I do this. Information comes when you’re having Tea with the Muse. So open the page and give the Muse of Kairos the pen. Ask What wants to reveal itself to you today? Do you believe me that a practice of pleasure could be the counterpoint of a lifetime of pain and could actually be, not just a coping mechanism but a practice to deal with states of chronic health and stress? I know it works. The only question is how much? Will you try? I will. I’ll see you with the Muse. This is Curate Shiloh Sophia for Tea with the Muse podcast and I’m grateful to be in your life. Let’s choose the Muse.

Amber and Shiloh Sophia

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Dear Ones, This Sunday - paint flowers with me and the Muses. A daylong paint and sip in Sonoma and virtually. No experience needed - really. Just come. You will have so much fun - there is still time to get cake and rose’ or sparkle water and brushes and a canvas a big as you choose. ~ Shiloh Sophia

The Muse May Speak in Flowers

My muse usually shows up

in leather, lace, and feathers

with rhinestone sunglasses,

glinting in cowgirl boots with gold wings.

This is how I've come to know her

since she made her company available to me.

The first time she spoke to me,

her language was red-winged blackbird,

and pomegranate seeds

the color of moon blood on white sheet red.

She didn't come with platitudes.

She came with instructions and keys.

Oh, so many keys to so many doors

I know nothing about.

And she only occasionally

allows me to try one to fit in the lock. S

he doesn't let me try if I am good.

She only offers them if I am willing to be bad.

Not bad as in bad versus good, but bad as in badass.

Because my Muse is a badass.

Yours is too, most likely.

She won't offer us her gifts if we stay safe.

She always wants a bigger canvas.

She always wants a bigger brush.

She always wants too much water.

Because she told me sometimes size does matter

and it would be much better if I painted naked and barefoot.

She walks me to my edge and then tips me over

Into that muse place where all the colors bend

and come alive in me.

The place where I remember

who I was before

all of this heart-breaking open stuff of life.

Today, she showed up differently.

I haven't seen her quite like this before.

She tempted me with an old lure, lightning for breakfast.

But then she added soft, full-hipped orgasms i

n the sunny afternoon,

the ones that start at the top of your head

and shimmy down to the tips of your red toes.

Today, she brought me pain à chocolat.

A chocolate croissant from Paris

where she dreams me alive.

You see, I was there for weeks a

nd now every dream I have

is taking place in the streets of Paris

where we're all having Tea with the Muse.

You see, I haven't been feeling so well.

You see, this life has been too busy for me.

But it's not her who abandons me.

It's me. Who abandons me.

Then I can't hear her voice so clearly.

The tones, they are muffled. T

he colors, they are muted.

And the riddle is that I cannot hear her

if I abandon myself.

I cannot hear her speaking in sunflowers speak.

For a minute, just a minute, I resisted. I protested.

Haven't you seen what is happening in the world?

Isn't having Tea with the Muse a frivolity?

She rolled her giant eyes, of course,

and as she did, I swear dragonflies flew all around her,

their wings glistening. Where had they been hiding?

Then I started to court her.

I courted her when the stars

still shone on the waters.

I sat in the deep well waiting and looking

until the sun shone on my freckled shoulders.

When I saw her, of course, I was dazzled.

She flirted with black-eyed Susans on her nipples,

a star jasmine crown of white, oh, the scent of her,

coral-colored roses blooming around her hips,

a peony at her vulva, pink with magenta strokes.

In her hand, she carried ripe peaches

from the tree just right there,

and the first pears of the season.

There was a long train of geraniums

trailing behind her of every color.

Hummingbirds hovered around her head

and the bees, I could hear them singing

as she approached and pulled me

from the water and that was when

the ravens began to sing and cluck.

She took my hand and in my hands

the seeds of foreign flowers flowed,

perhaps flowers from France.

She told me that flowers are the language of poetry

and that I better get used to

hydrangeas that speak in periwinkle

and gladiolas that hum in yellow

and rhododendrons that talk too much.

She warned me:

Get your ass to the canvas or else, biatch.

I know she threatens when I'm in danger

of losing some deeper sense of self.

It's just been slipping between the cracks. Or I have been slipping through them.

So here I sit, having this Tea with the Muse,

feeling the fog depart and the numbing soften.

Her hands are on my hands now,

clicking and clacking as I attempt to tell you

about a visitation from La Muse

and I invite you to call upon your own.

Hint: She may speak in flowers or ravens or dragonflies.

Do not take this visit lightly.

Take it from me that without her the well dries up,

the colors fade and the belly clenches

and the heart moans of longing.

The Muse She isn't always right on time.

You can't just expect her. She has her own timing.

I feel like today I got really lucky.

As she took her leave,

I could swear I saw Dogwood

from last season dancing around her wake.

She looked back, winking, her job well done,

and I began to laugh.

And now to the page.

And now to the dance floor.

And now to the canvas.

Today I shall wear the pink dress

and go barefoot, hot pink lip gloss,

and I too will be winking right at you.

Shiloh Sophia

Tea with the Muse is a reader-supported publication. It is free and contributions are lovely for the MUSE!

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Here's what's been on my heart: this is no time to stop creating what matters to you. When the world feels like it's coming apart — when the causes we've worked for our whole lives seem to be coming undone before our eyes — it's so easy to abandon ourselves. To decide that beauty, abundance, a voyage de rêve to Paris, is somehow selfish or beside the point.

I'm here to tell you it isn't. We are Co-creators with all of creation, and we must continue to o-create. That is the power we have.

In this episode I talk about the difference between the things we can't control — the traffic, the news, who puts their name on an airport — and the one thing we can: our approach to the day. I share why I treat my morning swim as a sacrament, not an indulgence. Why self-expression isn't just nervous-system regulation but a creative spiritual practice. And why, right now, we're going to need to practice pleasure and manifestation right alongside everything else.

You're going to have to book it, baby. You're going to have to book the pleasure in.

Come take the ride with me. Press play, and I'll see you in circle.

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Here’s the beautiful tree I’m looking at in France 💗

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It’s my birthday and I’m sharing three gratitudes and three of regrets

Get full access to Tea with the Muse at https://teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

When my father and I crashed on the motorcycle

when my family picked up hitchhiker’s

when my mother and I fled in the middle of the night

all of this shaped my nervous system to be more comfortable with discomfort.

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Can You Cultivate Genius?

The question is: can you cultivate genius? What do you think?

First, a quote from my mama, Caron McCloud. She says, “I decided early on that I mattered.”

Today’s episode shares how my mom Karen McCloud encouraged me to cultivate my genius, why I think it’s important for women to learn to cultivate their genius, and how brainwave shifts can show us what we do not usually see — including a meditation to access the theta brainwave for your insights, as well as an exciting invitation that includes Amy Ahlers. Hint: it includes the genius we share about money, sex, and influence. So here we go.

Let’s talk about genius, my friends, and why it matters. First, a question: What would it take to be able to say, I am genius, without qualifying or needing to prove? Most of us don’t think we are. This isn’t about other people thinking you are, but about cultivating a genius space where fresh thoughts can arise.

The term genius comes from the Latin verb gignere, meaning to beget, to produce, or to bring forth. This same root gives us the words generate and genetics. In Rome, your genius was the birth spirit that shaped your personality, guided your destiny, and protected you throughout life. And I can’t help but think about the word genie being the root of genius.

Very little space is given to the development of our innate genius, and this concerns me. We need more women living in the fullness of their power.

But there’s a problem. We might not know this is a choice — that we get to cultivate our genius. It may never occur to us that we have a genius to access at all, really. Most of us have never spent hours, let alone days, watching what truly wants to come through us: an insight, an innovation, a worldview built to actually design our lives and relationships.

The drafting table Mama gave me

I want to start with a personal story that even now kind of blows my mind. Let me take off my shoes now and step onto the ground as I remember this.

My mother Karen McLeod was a genius. She encouraged me to write and recite poetry. She bought me a drafting table for my 13th birthday and told me, this is where you work out your ideas. Draw here, paint here, write here. She said, I want you to think as if the thing you’re thinking about could be life-saving for yourself and for others. I want you to treat yourself as if you absolutely matter. And the world will be a different place unless you inhabit it with everything you’re carrying.

She’d send me to my room saying, go write a poem and don’t come out until you have a draft. She taught me to treat my thinking as if it completely mattered — and as if I did.

If she hadn’t given me that framework to explore myself, I doubt the thought would have ever crossed my mind. Because it’s audacious, isn’t it? It is audacious to devote an hour or a day to your own genius just to see what’s available to you.

That is what I’m doing right now with two of my genius friends. We are in a sister mind, each quietly working on our own material, then discussing, then back to the drawing table for a 24-hour cycle. This — the cultivation of your genius — is what I’ve invited women to do for over 30 years. It’s what I’ve built a long-term business and community on.

What if our brilliant ideas are in the future? And what if that future is just a few minutes in the future, and accessible — like, right now?

Why We Don’t Go There

There are reasons we don’t create the time to cultivate genius. Here are a few.

Ego. We’re taught not to have an ego. Not to get too big for our britches. Not to be too smart.

Fear. We’re warned that if people knew how much sacred medicine we’re carrying, we could be a danger to ourselves or others.

Worth. In the same breath, we’re told we aren’t worthy, and that there’s no real value in cultivating our consciousness. Don’t be too big — but be big enough.

Those of us in the business world get another script entirely: be more masculine, hustle, grasp, win at all costs, even at cost to yourself. Experiences like hustle and win are almost a deadening place for genius. Genius doesn’t grow in the hard ground of striving. It grows in a field of wildflowers, where you lay back and gaze at the sky and ask questions of your own consciousness.

And I think the most obvious reason we don’t go there, into the space of genius, is simpler. We don’t know how. We haven’t been shown. We’ve been prevented from it, and taught to devalue it.

Here’s how. Access flow state within. Focused, intentional inquiry. That is how. Focused, intentional creativity. That is how.

A Little Brain Science

Let me show you why. Here’s a little of the brain science, because it’s worth understanding. Our brains move through different electrical rhythms, and each one gives us access to a different kind of thinking.

Most of our waking day runs on beta — the busybody, alert, task-managing state. This is the ground of usual day-to-day being. Beta is where we answer emails and cross things off lists. It’s useful, but it’s narrow. It can only show us a certain number of things, and we can come to think beta is the only place there is — just like we think we are only so smart, and that’s how we’re born. The issue isn’t beta. It’s in not knowing how to get out of it into new territory.

When we soften and let the mind open, we can visit the bridge to alpha — the relaxed, imaginative, daydreaming state. This is the bridge. It’s the gentle threshold between doing and receiving, the en route that takes us into possibility. We can feel the change in our body as our brain loosens its tight grasp on what there is to do and moves into presence.

And just past that, theta — the slow, intuitive, dreamlike rhythm we touch as we fall into deep meditation and self-expression. Theta is where the subconscious becomes available to us by choice, where we can even dip a toe into the unconscious. This is where the eureka lives: the vision, the aha, the change we want to make in the world. It’s so often conceived here, in expanded possibility.

But can we get it back into beta? That’s one of our questions.

Here’s the curious catch. That brilliant idea is conceived in theta, and then we have to carry it all the way back to beta — back to the day-to-day world of action steps. Many people cultivate a vision for years and never find the steps to ground it. So in our community, we travel into theta on purpose, and then we consciously bring that realm of information back into beta, so we can take decisive action on behalf of the vision.

As Gertrude Stein puts it, being a genius takes a lot of time sitting around doing nothing. I just call that tea with the muse. It’s the pause that makes the cultivation possible.

A Ritual to Try Today

If you want to try it today, here’s a ritual.

Sit quietly and look out a window. Pick a point as far away as you can see, and fix your gaze there. Pretend you can travel to that spot while staying exactly where you are. Let your breathing deepen and lengthen. Feel your belly soften, and the space between your eyebrows soften too. Let loose the grip, smooth the worry lines, and begin to listen to your inner world.

Then state your intention three times: I am here to cultivate my genius. I am here to cultivate my genius. I am here to cultivate my genius.

And then you pause. You just be. You just listen. If nothing comes, say, show me one thing I need to know today. And wait. It may take time. You may need to return to this for a week or two.

Mama McLeod says this: keep looking at the stories that we tell, and the stories that we don’t tell, and take responsibility for them. Create a context that’s big enough to live a big life — and then live into that context. Context provides a theme, and it provides a perspective: a way of going about living our lives as a great adventure, and making choices about what we want that story to be. A context defines, and provides an identity to occur from.

So the answer is yes. You can cultivate genius by choice. I do. You can too. Let’s do it, and teach the others around us. I’m right here with you — in the heart, in the field, in the quantum now.

P.S. — Keep your eyes out…

I have exciting news. If you’re a woman looking for a breakthrough in midlife — in money, sex, and influence — watch this space for an emergent invitation from me and Amy Ahlers, my incredible coach and BFF for the past 16 years.

Amy and I have been working on a project behind the scenes to serve women entrepreneurs and those in corporate spaces, to claim their superpowers of prosperity, sexuality, identity, leadership, and intuition. It is a hybrid of virtual private one-on-one coaching and in-person gatherings — the ultimate mastermind, a council for powerful women. This is a dream of ours, and we’re bringing it to you. We’ve been teaching together since 2012.

Applications for Powerhouse are opening soon, and we begin in September.

Thank you so much for tuning in to Tea with the Midnight Muse.

Much love, Shiloh Sophia

This is a video from 10 years ago where you can hear Caron McCloud speaking about mattering.

Get full access to Tea with the Muse at https://teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe

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