The Impact Of A Question
Our Mary Oliver Art, Journaling + Replays
I have been earnestly preparing for Mary Oliver Heaven for over decade.
What is Mary Oliver Heaven you ask?
It’s a threshold I imagine I will encounter, at the edge of my earthly existence, when all is said & done with my mortal life.
I imagine I will be faced with a question that by then, it will be too late to change anything about my answer.
Surely, you know the question.
I’m not exaggerating when I say this question has haunted me since first lodging itself in my psyche.
I don’t know if it’s because it taps into one of my great fears in life; which is to die with a very specific kind of regret.
Researchers call it BOLDNESS regret: missed opportunities and a failure to take chances - e.g., not starting a business or asking someone out.
I’m curious about why this specific regret is so potent for me but suffice it to say it has served as a very powerful motivator - slash - agitator in my life.
I most certainly credit it, partly, for the decision I made recently to exit my marriage to the man with whom I’ve spent the last 15 years of my life.
Do I regret a single day of those 15 years? Absolutely not.
But I had [sadly] arrived at a point where our relationship was now threatening to rob me of something I will only get one shot at in this after - life.
And that is the satisfaction of preparing to arrive in Mary Oliver heaven with a response that will make all the queer angels who hear tell of it, cry tears of happiness & joy.
That is what it means to have impact.
A New Era Starts Today.
When someone said to me that my decision seemed to have ‘appeared suddenly, out of nowhere’, my response was ‘so do daffodils but their getting here is an entire process we didn’t see’
The same is true for me.
I’ll share more in time but suffice it to say that I’m happier than I have ever been and I can honestly say, without a shadow of a doubt that my journaling practice, got me here.
It has been my literal lifeline these past few years as I navigated the sudden death of my father, a global pandemic that completely hijacked my nervous system, led me to confuse the nature of my work & resulted in a burnout so severe, that for the 3 years spanning 2021 - 2023 I had been reduced to a shell of a person.
In October 2023, a concerned and very generous friend, to whom I will forever be grateful, literally ‘sent’ me on a fully paid for sober retreat in Tuscany, hosted by my dear friend Tammi Salas.
I returned from that week away knowing exactly what I had to do. And despite my absolute fear, I began.
Community Journaling: June
Please enjoy the above screenshots showing some of the art made on our journaling calls throughout June.
If you’ve never joined a call, it might appear that the journaling we do is all art - it’s not - we write too. You can do whatever you want, your very presence on the call means you will get what you need, if you allow it.
The sacred listening process teaches you how to allow it.
One of my projects in June is to create a static landing page here to make what we’re doing here a little clearer & perhaps easier for you to participate in.
I’m also working on a survey to get some input from you, if you’d be willing to offer it.
Want A Free Art Journal Lesson?
Rooted in the question “What if the thing you think disqualifies you is actually your creative superpower?”
For years, I disqualified my art because I couldn’t draw.
I thought that limitation meant I’d never be a ‘real’ artist.
I was wrong.
LET’S JOURNAL TOGETHER
€10/month gets you:
Twice Weekly online sessions where naming what’s real is safe
A community learning to replace performance with realness
The space to share this life changing practice together
EXCLUSIVE content + field guide (in process)
All of June’s journal session replays + upcoming dates are “below the fold” for paying subscribers (thank you). Keep scrolling!
Amanda xx