Episoder
-
Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe -
An invitation to tea.
You are the universe embodied.
A cooling sack of stars
How will you orient yourself within these times?
* Is this an enforced crisis? My opinion is in here.
* with all that is happening, where are we? Well where are you choosing to be
* how taking time for yourself can REALLY serve you in your orientation
* our art matriarch’s essential question - who lives in here
* what about that identity if yours - what do they have to say
* with climate change and war and insecurity, chosen consciousness is key
* life saving tea time
Let’s breathe together.
Shiloh Sophia
Sue and I prepping for my first art show…1994
So here we are. But where exactly are we? Here we are right in the middle of an evolutionary change that's at such a magnificent scale that it's hard for us to grasp where we are. Whether we're looking at economics, food, war unemployment, politics.
No matter where we're looking, we can see that we're in a different place than we've been before. And we find ourselves wondering, what in the world are we going to do? Like 10 years ago, our activism looked different. The things that matter to us, diversity inclusion literally just equal rights for all let alone a freedom to pursue happiness. It's different now because we are at a level of enforced crisis. I say enforced because it's manipulated and created. Because the climate is speeded up to the degree that we can't evolve at the same degree that the needs of the planet are changing. Prophecies have indicated we are in different versions of end times, even though they name it something different.
Meanwhile, many of us have friends and family who also appear to think that there's a lot of really good things happening. And there are a lot of really good things happening.
So there's a question of where are we now as a species, as a people? But then there's just:
Where are you now? Where are you orienting yourself inside of your own experience? Are you choosing your relationship to “What Is” or just responding and reacting to the things around you?
Will you pause with me right now and just take a breath?
You know, let's change that. Let's not say take a breath.
Just receive a breath. Because the breath is happening naturally.
The most beautiful things in life. The birds building the nest on the porch right now. The rising of the sun over the trees. The most beautiful things in life right now. have always been the most beautiful things.
Of course, to be loved. Of course, to have a nest, to build a little family. To have beauty. And sometimes even quiet. To have enough.
I think the sad and sometimes sorrowing and harrowing reality is that we know it could be different. We know it didn't have to be this way. And we don't know what to do.
We're not sure where to turn. Yet somewhere deep inside of ourselves we know that we've been a part of creating, this at whatever level, you or your ancestors, or any way we look at it, we're all one, we're all interconnected. So we're all creating this and it doesn't appear right now as if we're going to be able to uncreate it in any amount of time that's going to make the biggest difference in terms of species going extinct or climate change, natural disasters.
So the thing we have is our consciousness, our relationship to ourselves, the observer looking out from these eyes. Are you still breathing?
Sue Hoya Sellers, our art matriarch, used to ask this question: Who lives in here? And she would tap her body. Who is it? What identity has colonized this particular matter called my body? Which she called my sacred address. A sacred address. A space or place where identity inhabits inside of a bubble called soul that appears to have traveled with us. Since the beginning of creation. If you are a cooling sack of stars. That iron which makes your blood red. Is the iron from exploding stars. Everything that's in your body. is also the universe, not everything that's in the universe is in your body but everything that's in your body is in essence the universe so you are an identity embodying the universe in the shape of you who is that what do they want what do they see what do they know what medicine are they holding. Are you breathing with me? Just ask the question, who lives in here?
Just for an hour, get a journal and a cup of tea or coffee and sit outside bundled up in the morning light and just ask, who lives in here? And begin to write. Because when you are really in relationship with this being who lives in here, this soul that's inhabiting this incarnate form at this time, you gain access to greater wisdom, some hope beyond hope, some sacred technologies that were different than ones this lifetime. An inner knower, an intuitive being. They are here.
You are here. So where are we now? We are right here.
And when we're here, then we have the power to navigate because we come from a place of choice.
But if you just rush into your day without stopping and breathing, without a little cafe, a little tea with the muse, it's harder once the day starts rolling. It's a hustle, baby. I'm asking you to stop hustling. And just breathe with me and be in a place of cafe. Tea with the Muse is life-saving because it helps you orient yourself to the day. Let's orient ourselves to our day right now. Not let the news or even sick family members, not letting the media or a disturbance at work or someone who's mad at you, not letting that define your orientation. It's there. You're not bypassing it.
But if your orientation comes from a sense ofSself within, a cultivation of that self. And I am lending the Self that I am to sit beside the Self that you are in the Quantum Café. This is Curate Shiloh Sophia for Tea with the Muse.
Thank you for listening. I'm grateful for you.
Shiloh Sophia
We have all kinds of ways you can play with us here at Musea. If you go to musea.org, Musea means many muses, many museums. We have a complimentary two-hour class called Uncommon Grounds. We have an in-person and virtual class called The Muse of Magics. We have Mother Nature, a 13-moon sisterhood. These are different levels of engagement, and you are welcome to join us here. I'm also sitting here in the presence that my 15-year project, Color of Woman, We have an in-person gathering, and the team has arrived yesterday and today, and then there will be close to 20 women in this space at Museum Center for Intentional Creativity and Consciousness. I'm settling into this role of teacher. I don't know what I'll do next. It hasn't come yet, but for now I prepare for Red Thread Circle. And tea with the muse.
Blessed be your day.
Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe -
Manglende episoder?
-
A beautiful photo of a community member holding another community members baby at MUSEA. Seeing the mother over her shoulder, seeing her face.
Follow Chaos is the New Black Substack
Purchase Your Copy of Chaos is the New Black
My moms - Jonathan’s new book is dedicated to our moms
Thank you mamas *Correction to the audio - I said public instead of private, only discovered that in the transcription - sorry.
Pride, Gate-Keeping and Keeping the Heart Open During AI Infiltration
I have two moms and I'm proud of it. I have pride that I was raised in a family of matriarchs. I have a father too. Just because I'm raised by matriarchs doesn't mean it's anything against the fathers or the men.
It's Pride Weekend. San Francisco is hustling and bustling with the freedom that we have fought to maintain.
It wasn't so very long ago that women didn't wear pants on TV. It wasn't so very long ago that if someone came out being gay, their readership and viewership dropped. Can you remember how long ago it was that you had to be married to own property if you were a woman? This entire nation has been built on injustice and inequity.
We know that already. But today, we celebrate with pride the idea that people get to love who they want, how they want, when they want, in the way that they want. We celebrate that people get to choose who they are and how they are and yes, that includes the gender that they are.
Everything is changing. It's curious that this event, this idea is called Pride, which is still a reaction to that we were shamed about who we were. When I look at the rainbow flag and the changes, the addition of the black stripe and the circle, and looked it up to see what all the changes meant to that rainbow, which represents so much, not just for people who identify within it, but for the community members and the family members and the people that love people who love, however they want. I was raised to believe I could love whoever I wanted. And I can.
And you can too. But just in this exact moment of feeling the pride for loving who we love, how we want to, when we do, and whoever we do, in whatever way we want, I just want to pause and notice that it's still a reaction to shame.
Moving out of reaction-based behavior is one of my life practices at this time. It's one of the things I teach all the time in Intentional Creativity. It's asking the question: What would I spend my life force on if I wasn't reacting and forming organizations and statements and images that are in reaction to injustice and the right way to do things. Because we have to protect, we have to guard, we have to be a gatekeeper of our rights. As Bob Marley says: Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds.
Yes, they're going for our minds. But they're not just going for our minds, they're also going for our hearts. But they're not just going for our hearts, they're going for our gut. They're not just going for our gut, they're going for our private parts. Right now, We live in a world where we have to defend what is precious, what is vulnerable, and what is fragile. Right now we are in a situation, y'all, that requires us to be hypervigilant, that requires us to be gatekeepers in a way that we haven't had to be before. And I can't help but think about how so many of us, our brains are not wired, not even wired, to digest the level of information that we're dealing with.
Predatorial energy is here at an all new level. And in our community, it's been increasing for the past two weeks. I'm pretty sure most of you know this, but I'm just saying it anyway. This is part of my Pride day, which is just to say, we must all learn to be gatekeepers, to protect ourselves. And how sad that we need to do that. But we do. The AI infiltration is happening in a huge way across the majority of social and tech platforms where people gather. It's all a setup. The gig is rigged and we know it. Otherwise, we wouldn't have to be so proud and defend against the shaming.
Why does it have to be such a big deal to love how we love and identify how we identify? Why?
~ in other news…
Our private group on Facebook, which is called the Red Thread Cafe, now has a bot asking people creative questions. We got it out one time and it just came back and I just blocked the effort.
I know that Facebook was a free service and I can't expect privacy. Why is an AI bot asking creative questions such a problem? It's harmless, right? It wants to know about our creative practices. Wrong. It's not harmless at all. We have an app. It's called iMusea. We have private groups for our students, but the main thread remains open and has since 2020. Again, we've barely had an incident with unwanted app peeps, but this week we had a whole bunch of, “men” “artists” come in and start messaging people and posting ridiculously fake art. Yeah, you drew that little puppy, did you? Yeah.
I pay over $600 a month for this app so our students can get off of the social platforms and interact and build community. I tell everybody the main thread's not private, but it's hard for people to know that for sure. If I made it private, our students would have to pay to come in. Hmm, more gatekeeping.
My substack, Tea with the Muse and the Cura Council, has an infiltration of new followers. But when I click on their names to follow back to see if I might want to, nobody's there. No one. Even though they have a follow back button. What is the agenda for new followers that might not be people?
What are they gaining? My information. It is challenging to talk authentically to one's, quote “audience”, when one has built it over 30 years, when so many new listening ears are nefarious and playing on vulnerability.
Right now, if I share my truth, if I speak my voice, it will be used against me. Pride says do it anyway.
Pride says share and deal with the backlash. Be proud of who you are, who you love, and where you came from.
People that I know are getting scammed left and right. They don't know it. They can't believe it. Haven't spent the time developing that level of protection. Our brains have a hard time grasping this level of nefarious activity, all designed around greed. It's toxic, y'all. When is that new paradigm we are seeking coming into being? I know. I know. It's already here. It's just my perception. But is it? What about for those of us who are community builders, who now have to be protectors at a whole new level?
How sad that we must be gatekeepers to this degree.
What would I be doing with all my life force if I wasn't trying to protect myself and my community? They're all gathering data and preying on us. Look, I don't really have anything to hide, but as a community gatekeeper, I cannot keep my peoples safe. Not that I ever could. I've never promised safety. I've only said let's create sacred space and that we're all responsible for creating it. But if people are in there who are predatorial, I can't even create sacred space. All I'm saying is, it's different now.
And I know I can't be a good gatekeeper right now because I can't protect against the influx. So we need to wise up together. We need to report weird stuff and double check and click but not too much and realize what we thought was safe enough never was at all.
Then they're going to charge us a premium to protect us from the intruder when in many cases the intruder and the protector are the same in the capitalist world.
You might want to check out Jonathan McCloud’s new book, Chaos is the New Black. He points to the reality of where we are, how we can engage with the narrative in a new and powerful way. I recommend Chaos is the New Black book and Substack.
~
You know... Getting emails from confused women and elders asking me, is this person safe? This person who flatters me, who wants to do my portrait, who wants to buy my art for their wife. Blah, blah, blah. Take me on a date. Pay for my private jet. I'll come pick you up and whisk you away to another world. Our brains are not wired to protect at this level. We're just not used to it. Maybe the younger generations are.
There are so many things to be pissed about right now. And this is one of them. It isn't just privacy keeping. It is protecting against invasion and full infiltration. What a waste of time for good humans to have to spend so much time and money and brain and power protecting our already fragile space. Listen. There's dissonance being created.
Because what our eyes see and what our ears hear and our brain perceives, our heart will not want to accept that it's dangerous. Because our heart wants to be open in love. So to keep our eyes open and our heart open is a challenge. It's a discipline. Dissonance is here. And then let's just talk about the gut for a minute. As soon as I talk about the gut, I get all kinds of ads for gut support being sold to me for only $29.99 a month. Please just put your subscription in here. We'll send it to you every month for the rest of your life. And you can unsubscribe at any time if you can only figure out that precious password. It's a paradigm of b******t passwords. What a waste of time for good humans to have to spend so much time protecting an already vulnerable and fragile space.
And the gut, which is supposed to help the heart and the brain discern and be wise. How many people do you know with gut issues right now? So I ask you this question.
What would you be doing if you weren't spending your time gatekeeping?
What would you be doing if you didn't have to protect yourself all the time? What would you be doing if you didn't have to turn the shame for who you love and what you love into being proud of it?
I'm proud of every person in pride who has had to defend against the world that doesn't want them to be who they are.
When is that new world coming? Is it here?
Let's learn to keep our eyes and our ears and our heart open. Like the country song says…sleeping with one eye open.
So today, as I honor pride and my roots, I also honor and alert us all to what we already know. Danger is at the door. Do not let it in. Do not be taken in by false narratives. The impacts of false narratives in our lives is very real. We will grow. We will change.
We are creating the new world right alongside the one that no longer serves good humans. I don't mean good like moral or pure. I just mean we want to live our lives. I can't help but wonder if it was easier to just live one's life 50 or 100 years ago. But it doesn't matter. We're here now.
And this brave new world requires even more bravery. It requires us to be discerning. Shall we? Shall we become more discerning together? I think we're going to have to. Maybe becoming more wise and more proud could be a good time. I'm in. What about you?
Shiloh Sophia
I removed this line: “Although I wish that we would wait until we were older to make finalizing decisions”. because it was offensive to Trans. Thank you for telling me, that was not my intention at all, I want to refine how I speak about this because I honor the Trans community - and I also work with concerned moms. Looking for the balance.
Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe -
Sunrise in Santa Fe on my recent journey
Good Morning Dear Ones,There certainly is a lot to pray about right now. Today’s offering shares:A bit of my spiritual ancestral rootsAn invitation to pray standing, pray and sway with me, in community My Grandmother’s hands knitting the world as it unravelsThe history of Mother Mary being moved out to th gardenExploring your name for MaThe Cult of DeathA story of when Sue, our lineage ancestor went to see Amma and more…
With love,
Shiloh Sophia
Lots of upcoming events are happening - come see at www.musea.org
“This bio-power was without question an indispensable element in the development of capitalism; the latter would not have been possible without the controlled insertion of bodies into the machinery of production and the adjustment of the phenomena of population to economic processes. But this was not all it required; it also needed the growth of both these factors, their reinforcement as well as their availability and docility; it had to have methods of power capable of optimizing forces, aptitudes, and life in general without at the same time making them more difficult to govern.” Michel FoucaultUnedited Transcript
We Pray StandingIn the sanctuary of my Ancestors, we pray standing. It's a beautiful thing to see. To look around and see people in their colorful clothing, many of them barefoot. Scarves, babies, little ones, families, nuns. Standing and moving. Moving about the sanctuary.
I'm the only one rocking back and forth as I stand. But still, I pray standing.
My Ancestors on my father's(Gregory Davis) side are from the Ukraine, so my great grandfather was Ukrainian Orthodox. In the center of the sanctuary is not a cross of death. That came much later when Catholicism split off from Orthodoxy. They moved the cross from the left, which was one of the stations of the story, and put it in the middle and moved the mother and her child on their throne to the left, if you're facing the altar. And then eventually... Many of the churches of the West took Mary outside into the garden and most of them took the baby out of her arms. (A change from life in the center to death in the center)
So she went from the center, ruling, to the side watching death of her child and then all the way out to the garden, and then no baby in her arms. Making her pure and virgin, and almost untouchable to women. This evolution of image happens over thousands of years. The French philosopher Michel Foucault talks about this idea of how the image of the feminine and of women changes intentionally. We don't even notice that she's moved from her place in the center. Life in the center. Not death in the center. We've made a cult of death. Not of resurrection. Not of birth. Not of rebirth. But of death itself.
Now, I'm not saying that death doesn't come and is a part of our natural cycle of life. But the way that we've been doing it over the past 8,000 years is a colonization, not just of lands and cultures, but of the minds and hearts of the people who have centered ourselves in death.
So I pray standing. Because it keeps me awake. It keeps me aware. It keeps me listening as if the soles of my feet have ears. I pray with eyes open, looking around me. Now that I am not in the sanctuary of my ancestors in the way that I once was.
I am now facing a stand of trees that have become my cathedral and the birds my choir.
While I have chosen not to speak out against the church of my ancestors because they are my blood and I am their blood. Still, I must speak to you from the place where I am, where life, a mother and child, sits at the center of my awareness. In our community, we just call her Ma, ancient root mother tongue.
Ma. So today, as I pray standing, swaying, I call on the name of Ma. Ma. Ma, ever-emergent Ma. Let us stand with you in prayer right now. Beings gathered throughout the world right in this moment. praying, standing.
And if you are listening, would you pray standing with me? Would you stop your multitasking and all the things that seem more important and just come with me now? Will you imagine with me hundreds, thousands, millions of people praying, standing, swaying and chanting the name Ma. Ma. ma. mama.
Long, long ago in a different lineage, our beautiful neighbor Alice Walker brought Sue Hoya Sellers, our art matriarch, to see Amma, the hugging saint, who herself had to break ranks with her tradition in order to do what she does. And certainly that has turned out well. ( Speaking to being a female guru in a culture that has tried hard to only have men, and other allegations)
I'm thinking of her, Amma, now because very recently a Native American composer who has lit up my heart, wanted so badly to give me something one day, and she gave me roses from Amma and I sang to her this chant… which I will sing to you now as we pray standing. Just through coming into presence, prayer coming into presence, even if you don't know the names to call or the songs to sing or what to pray about or how to do it just pray with me standing and sway. Sue Hoya Sellers, when she got her hug from Amma, Amma asked her, Who do you call on? What is the name of your goddess, your mother?
What a beautiful thing to say, to not insist on a “way”, but say, to whom do you pray? And Sue Hoya Sellers surprised herself by saying the name of Mary. Mary. Mary. Sue was devoted to the goddess and in our time together in the gallery, which was many years and teaching. From 2000 to 2014, so around, 14 years, she came into the place called Sophia, but we held a common ground of Mary, mother of many goddesses along the timeline of goddesses that have been appearing for 40,000 years. So she surprised herself by saying, Mary, indeed, surprised us all. And so Amma gave her this chant, which as we stand praying, I offer to you.
Om Shri Mary Ma Om Shri Mary Ma Om Shri Mary Ma Om Shri Mary Ma Om Shri Mary Ma Om Shri Mary Ma. Om. Join me if you choose. Om Shri Mary Ma. Om Shri Mary Ma. Om Shri Mary Ma. Om.("Om Shri" is a combination of two powerful words in Hinduism. "Om" (ॐ) is a sacred syllable representing the universe and ultimate reality, while "Shri" (श्री) is a term of respect, often used as a prefix to deities, revered individuals, or to invoke auspiciousness and prosperity. Together, "Om Shri" can be interpreted as a salutation or invocation to the divine, often used to invite blessings and positive energy) Google Ai Answer
Standing in the place of peace. Standing in the place of our Mother. Singing with you and to you. Tears come to my eyes. My heart slows down from its worried rhythm. My swaying becomes natural to my body. And I enter the sanctuary of community. Because that is what you are. We stand in the quantum commons together.
In the space between spaces. Calling on the names we call on. In whatever way that we do. Looking at the trees that you look at. Standing on the good ground where you are. Looking out to the future from the now. Mother of Life, we, your children, are in need of your love.
We, your children, do not know the way forward. We feel concerned for the great unfolding. As quickly as we knit it together, our loops are untied. But knit and loop we must. I see my Grandmother's hands crocheting (Eden). I see my grandmother's hands knitting, crocheting a holder for a plant, a ceramic pot that my Aunt (Janet)made.
I see my grandmother knitting my pink blanket. She said she hated pink, so she must love me a lot, as she made my pink blanket. I see my Grandmother's hands now in the ancestral world, weaving as it were, trying to tie things back together with beauty as quickly as they become undone.
So weave and knit and sew and bake and write and paint and sing. We must. We must.
Call upon the names of your sacred knowing. And if you do not know, just stand in the presence of wonder. The poet Rumi says, If you can't pray a real prayer, pray a dry-mouthed prayer, because God accepts counterfeit money as though it were real. Which makes me think of my sister Shannon. who is in need of my prayer at this time. And she never wanted to pray until I told her that. And she said: that, that I can do. And so we prayed. This is a time for prayer shawls.
This is a time for eyes open. But this is also a time for gathering yourself into yourself, into the spaces that you consider sanctuary. Sanctuary. Sanctuary. Chosen places to gather. For those of you of many different traditions where you honor Ma, or perhaps you don't, I do not propose the idea of Mary or my tradition. I simply share with you where I'm standing and I'd love to hear where you're standing too. Because in order for us to stand together, it isn't that we isolate what we believe. So that the other people are not offended. No. Our mother Caron said that's not really a community.
Mama Cloud said that real community is where I can call upon the names that I call upon. And you can call upon the names that you call upon. And that we can stand in it together without needing to defend or compete. And our many voices raise up in prayer.
Because whoever Creator really is when all this comes to completion…any true heart, that calls the name, the energy, the space, the place…Will be heard as something true. It's our hearts that matter right now. So stand with me now. Centering yourself. Swaying and praying, looking out at the rising sun. Breathing, becoming, belonging.
I'm encouraging you to pray with me standing for 15 minutes a day. Will you? Just try it. See what happens. It can only be something good. Thank you for this time with me, Circle, Council of Wise Ones. You are loved.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. given an anyhow praise. In the Black church where I grew up, interwoven with the rest of my practices, we would raise up our hands and we would say, Hallelujah anyhow. It's an anyhow praise. Let's do it now. Hallelujah anyhow. Yes, yes. Hallelujah anyhow. Here we are. Hallelujah anyhow.
Let us pray and sway this day.
Curate Shiloh Sophia
Me one year ago yesterday at the Pyramid of the sun in Mexico.
Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe -
Today I turn 55 and the storm is brewing outside. The wild flowers sway in the afternoon wind. Today I'm 55. Today I'm open to life and life is open to me.
My body temple serves me well. I experience pleasure by choice in hundreds of tiny and miraculous ways all throughout my days.
I grieve the suffering also by choice in solidarity with the world. I weave my colorful threads in the great basket unfolding and reweaving itself. I have lived my purpose. I am self-expressed and I love it. I love it. While there is always more to do and be and learn, I am complete today.
The story being told is my own legend. Self lives here in me and we are good. My cooling sack of stars is lit up by a love that feels ancient and intact.
A woman stands outside drumming, singing in an ancient tongue as I begin this message to you. I have no children of my own living.
I have few elders of my own living. Family as I knew it feels like something in the past, we do not gather the way that we used to. I love my family and yet find myself wondering about the next version of chosen family in the day-to-day life. I am sovereign and at times feel very alone in what I am carrying as a soul. I know you know what I'm talking about.
Perhaps my biggest surprise is my intentional community. The pure joy of this lifetime is this big, big love. Intentional community. Intentional creativity. Many muses in many lands with many hands.
Today, all of my marriage bonds are complete this lifetime. I am complete in and of myself. As I lay down the burden of my lineage, of my grandmother's grandmother's grandmother's called: compromise to survive. The home, the elusive home I've always sought, must now become my own living heart.
This is the practice, and the rest is the great adventure. At least that's what Mama said. So we shall see what mother life reveals in me now. I offer my services into the great weave of creation. The mountains have become my sisters, and the rivers have become my brothers.
And the plants and the animals, my cousins and the genderless trees, they are my parents now. I feel a kind of orphaning. It's not the same kind as many orphans, but there's something stirring. So I lean into the trees.
Yes, I am she. She. But beyond the need for definition lies this strange freedom.
May the poetry of life's longing make of me a pen of reverence. May the painting of the world's beauty make of me a brush of radiance. May the ceremony of the ancestors sing through me now and now and now. I used to say to the divine, use me. Now I say to the divine, show me.
Make the path clear and may there be really good coffee with honey and cinnamon and cream and morning sun always in my cup. There's a feeling I have of almost having transcended sovereignty and entered into a unity with the natural world. Not so much a dissolving, but an integrating.
Because becoming one with wildflowers in the desert after the rain is such a good idea. Many of the names I have called myself were given to me by others and fathers and also men who did not provide the nourishment this wildflower needed. Thank you, Grandmother Eden, for the name McCloud.
She chose it for herself as an elder, And me and my loved ones, we share it like breaking bread. I have swallowed a new secret name. I have swallowed a new secret name. A true name which can only be given by one's self after a long and dangerous journey in the inner landscape of human being.
You know, this all sounds really dramatic. And it is. But it's also very quiet. I would whisper it if I could. This message is signed in the white cosmos of the Santa Fe desert that appear overnight after the rain.
I am here. I'm with a group of over 25 women, but I'm not telling anyone here it's my birthday. But I've told you. Glory be in this fragile strength of becoming. An elder in training is reborn.
Shiloh Sophia
Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe -
Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe -
Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe -
Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe -
I can’t follow directions. I only have a high school education. I am challenged to know my left from my right, but I can build a website.
I have just returned from my father’s memorial and I haven’t found words to talk about it yet, but this is what came out.
This episode is an exploration into my limitations and my gifts.
Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe -
What is consciousness? Does it have anything to do with time? Space and place? what do you think it is? Do you know how to operate it? Do you know how to get a little bit more of it when you want to?
Today’s riff invites us into conscious chosen awareness.
* Become just a little bit more conscious than you were a few minutes ago
* Explore juicy inquiries regarding time and it’s relationship to consciousness
* Be in the lived practice of becoming conscious of becoming conscious
* Explore how awareness of life force may be one of the missing gems in the jewel of consciousness
I just finished teaching a seven day long retreat with my dear friends, Amber and Mary called Legend. This is one of the layers of my painting.
Mother’s Day blessings to each one of you. Whenever I speak of consciousness, I always think of my mothers.
🩷Shiloh Sophia
Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe -
Listen in for an invitation to become who you are. You don’t have to invent a new self and a new story. It’s already all within you. If you’ve been looking for your tribe, listen to this.
Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe -
Good morning, beautiful beings, today’s spontaneous spoken word is here for those of us who want a new beginning yet need to honor the past. There’s an invitation here to slow down instead of rushing forward, to pay attention to the chemistry of transition and the sacred tension between where you were and where you’re headed. So many teachers talk about the significance of being in presence and in the now - because there is something here not to be missed.
You get to curate the future. If you do not choose to do that, it will just become without your consent. Be a designer. Chart your course. Change your story.
Shiloh Sophia
Come gather with the MUSEA community in this complimentary 4 hour class called INSIGHT. Over 3000 women have taken this class and you are sure to love it. Come see what happens when you hand over the keys and go just off the map - don’t stop at the fairy cottages even if they offer you cake.
May 1, consider joining us for the LEGEND Course here
April 15-28 Color of Woman Applications are open
Monthly Gathering for our MUSEUM Society - Riding a Beam of Light
Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe -
You won’t want to miss today’s episode on a fundamental shift in consciousness regarding scarcity and abundance and our relationship to creation. There really is enough to go around, we just aren’t living that potential out, because scarcity is enforced.
* You are enough and there is enough, here’s why
* Making a big change in our view of what abundance is without bypassing
* How I overcame scarcity yesterday on a drive up the mountain
* Activating chemistry which supports seeing things in your life in new ways.
View from Sonoma Mountain of Moon Mountain
Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe -
Hello Beings of the World,
I know I know, lots to do and see and be. Lots of chaos and breakdown. But also this: Making time for you - making time for art. Making time to have tea with the MUSE.
Come gather with the MUSEA community in this complimentary 4 hour class called INSIGHT. Over 3000 women have taken this class and you are sure to love it. Come see what happens when you hand over the keys and go just off the map - don’t stop at the fairy cottages even if they offer you cake.
May 1, consider joining us for the LEGEND Course here
April 15-28 Color of Woman Applications are open
Monthly Gathering for our MUSEUM Society - Riding a Beam of Light I will see you in circle,
Shiloh Sophia
TRANSCRIPT
Hello beloved ones. Welcome to this episode of Tea with the Muse. This is Shiloh Sophia with an invitation and a poem. The poem I'm going to be reading is from 2019. And it is a poem that came out of a painting process. And the painting process is called Insight.
Join us for this complimentary four-hour class with the Muse to open your heart and your mind to hidden insight. Experience a deeper level of intuition and guidance. And ignite your imagination through right and left brain. You can go to musea.org backslash insight and sign up. complimentary four-hour class just for you.
And here's the poem that came from it. It's called
Meet Me Off the Map
The keys you have been looking for
are in the hands of your hidden self.
The riddle is you have to know
where to find that self and how to request the keys.
If it was that easy,
you would have already found your way in.
The locked doors and boarded up windows
and cages without hinges that can hold you tight
may litter the landscape of your everyday experience,
may clutter up the clarity of your truest voice and vision.
That's why seeking the keys of the hidden self
is essential soul work.
That is why you keep looking.
You just know there's something more, to you.
After all, you are mostly stardust, you know.
Surely that means you are meant to shine.
The adventure to discovering your hidden self
can be quite dangerous to your default settings,
and your comfort levels,
because the critic may stand and say:
Hey you, there's no way in,
and there are no keys to find,
and you, my dear, are wasting your time and your mind.
The voice of your muse may seem oddly silent
in the cacophony of mixed messages.
You may find yourself saying,
Now where did that dream run off to,
and how did I end up here again?
Is this what I came here for? What's missing?
Ah, that is a good question.
Most of us trudge on, seeking but not finding,
asking but not really knowing the way,
lost in a seemingly endless to-do list.
Making the time to have tea with the great mystery
is likely the last thing on your calendar,
unless you, like me and us,
have tea with the muse.
Will you dare to join us?
Oh, good. All right. Go right at the old oak tree.
Just pass the sparkly fairy cottages.
And don't stop there, though,
even if they promise you yummy cake.
Make a left at the corner where it says:
there be dragons.
That's right, just off the map.
At first, you might feel like you're following.
And then you might feel like you're falling.
Following and failing and falling
are all part of the journey off the map.
I will meet you there, just off the map,
and catch you up here in this space between worlds.
Many adventures to be found.
Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe -
Hear the story of Café from when I was 24 years old, as well as some suggestions for how to dress for café!
Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe -
"I was born with an open wound, and colors pouring from it. Don't call me brave or a martyr; I'm just a woman who learned to love even in the midst of pain. I am a brush, I am a scream, I am broken flesh and a burning spirit. I paint myself because I am the only thing I know with fury, with tenderness. And if anyone doesn't like it, don't look at me, because I didn't come to fit in, I came to be."
Frida Kahlo
Today I want to share my story with you about my struggle to become a painter. I was so blessed to have two moms who were painters. But I wasn’t able to do what they did. It was hard. Eventually, something miraculous happened. We call it Legend. These are the origins of how the 13 steps that we teach came to be!
I have had the honor of visiting Frida’s house on two different occasions. Each experience was transcendental.
Shiloh Sophia
Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe -
Dear Community,Today I am sharing my very personal story of change you with you. It is about changes in the structure of our business, and our future, and and…. by sharing it with you I am making a declaration of change. I know so many of us are in deep change. I honor where you are even though I don’t know where that is. Now you know where I am. I am Living My Legend and this is how I create it, through image, language and connection with all of you.
Love
Shiloh Sophia
All upcoming events can be found at http:www.musea.org Legend will be open for registration soon.
Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe -
This is a new poem that arose over five hours of the painting process with my community ♥️
Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe -
Dear One,
Surviving times of absolute power requires a focus on absolute beauty.
In 1887 Lord Acton writes a letter to Bishop Creighton regarding how to write historically and morally about the Inquisition.
“I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.”
Since the time I can remember having self-awareness, around 5, I have been present to the danger that we are in.  It just all seemed so obvious to me that this whole thing was a set up. Of course, as I colored in my wonder woman coloring book, I was listening to the women at the kitchen table, drinking wine, and smoking cigarettes late into the night, talking about revolution. Danger and power over paradigms.
Yet this awareness goes further back than that, because as I breast fed, my mother was engaged in conversations of safety, of food, of welfare, of shelter, of care. Not just for herself, but for the other women in the community who had even less than we had. And it seemed we had so little, because we were on welfare, but then, because my mother and my grandmother were artists, we were surrounded by the beauty of their creations. They built a lot of all our furniture by hand with wood and sewed some of our clothing, and our bedspreads and embroidered our pillowcases.  Beauty goes a long way.
I think my somatic memory goes even further back, because my mother was attacked when she was pregnant with me. Research from the womb shows that the fetus has awarenessess of the things that are happening around them, that they react to the energies and language, and physical environment, how the mother treats herself and is treated by others. How could that not be the case, yet it is only recently that prenatal studies have proven the impacts on the fetus.  I think I was born hypervigilant. I feel like I was born watching.
Born watching bad men do bad things. To themselves and to others.
There is a part of me that finds myself surprised about what’s happening in the United States right now. Not because I ever trusted the government, but because the blatant arrogance and ugliness is being televised and tolerated. Yet that part of me that remembers, has been anticipating actions like this, that continue to erase anyone who is not the white male authority of the day, who declares himself in charge, regardless of the structures set up to protect us from such behavior.
Of course the system was already broken. Of course, there was already corruption. Yet, in my view, what we are we are witnessing, and experiencing in our bodies, our hearts, our brains, our communities, our stories, is absolute power corrupting absolutely.
Many of us may not have seen something like this in our lifetime. But it’s happened before. Over and over and over and we never learn because the history of what happened is written by the conquerers. Of course since there are over our over 100 armed conflicts right now, we are certainly not the only place that is experiencing something like this. I think the irony is that the world and we, have viewed ourselves as somehow an elevated nation. Then there is this: "We do not have to invade the United States, we will destroy you from within." This is a quote attributed to the late Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.
This kind of dominance has been happening for over 10,000 years. Since the first people conquested, since the first oppressors oppressed others, since the first colonizers colonized land. It is worth noting that these were Tribes that were indigenous to their land, conquering other indigenous tribes, because if you go back far enough, we’re all indigenous to earth.  Those with light skin only evolved into light skin about 8000 years ago. And yet it seems that those who became “whiter” developed theories of supremacy that have absolutely zero basis in anything whatsoever other than inventing systems of power.
The loss of matrilineal cultures, the evolution to light skin, the fabrication of wars and borders, isn’t actually very old. Yet the harm that was created and has never been healed and has shaped our lives and altered the fabric of creation - to such a degree that many of us barely recognize ourselves in this tragically unfolding story.  We are in shock again. 
The metal age invader blood in my bloodline, remembers things like this and how they begin. I am humming with the remembrance of violence.  This remembrance is why I do what I do in my work with women, art, story, and healing. We turn that humming into songs of resistance.  We make beauty out of what we have to work with. My grandmother assured me that we could definitely make a silk purse out of sow’s ear.
My family left Africa over 80,000 years ago and settled in the area of Ukraine, Ireland, and Scandinavia.  All of these places have been a part of being conquested and conquestIng just like most of the places on earth. We’re not really talking about other people, these are our ancestors and there’s no getting out of it, our global family is in pain. we are living out intergenerational trauma. There does not appear to be any logic or reason or therapy that can solve the minds of the men who declare themselves in charge.  Instead of a spear, it’s a pen.
A pen that creates orders that destroy lives and rewrite history.
The reason for sharing this today is because I want you to take care of yourself. We have a long journey ahead at this time. I know that you can feel it in your bones. I know that so many of you are so worried. For good reason, and I’m asking you to turn toward beauty every single day anyway. The empaths Experience is registering such a high level of despair. The healers are inundated with the needs of other healers.
Find your village. chop wood and carry water and bring your gifts, and do not turn away from the labor of the day. Listen to your elders right now if they are wise ones. Ensure that your little ones have plenty of art supplies, and lots of unstructured time with you. By unstructured time, I mean time that is not enforced by an agenda. Time where you let the elders and the children choose how the time is spent. 
For you, the women in my life, in my village, and on the edges of my village. I call you to gather and to really talk. Talk deep into the night at the kitchen table. Tell stories on walks in nature, come together in each other’s art studios and paint and pray and gather your beautiful powers around you. As Alice Walker says, hard times require various dancing!  I had the pleasure of illustrating the cover and the images inside of that book of poems.
I remember times like this vibrating in my bones. I think you probably do too, even if you have a different language for it.  you must do what you must do to care for yourself. Only you know what that is. Yet, it would be very helpful if you had a village, where you encouraged one another to care for yourselves. Today, walk outside and connect with the Earth beneath your feet. Connect with your head in the stars. And put your hands into the garden soil, or into the creative mediums, or into the making of soup. Create!  creating will offer you tools for reflection, and resilience and offer you the kind of joy that guides us through the hard times.  join the council of wise ones and become more wise  together.
Surviving times of absolute power requires a focus on absolute beauty.
beauty will be found every time you look for it, but you need to decide to look. I am.
Thinking of you with love. This love, the most powerful frequency on earth, is real. Let’s share our love.
Shiloh Sophia ♥️
Curate at www.MUSEA.org
Sonoma, California
This painting above was painted in Teotihuacan Mexico, it is called The Cosmic love affair between the sun and the moon
Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe -
Dear Ones,
It is with great joy, and also a deep feeling of change, that I tell the story that lead to our first Certification Teacher Training, Color of Woman. I would be honored for you to hear my story and why it matters, and how it may intersect with your story. Get a cuppa tea, and a journal and come listen. Applications open on the Full Moon Lunar Eclipse. Get on the list and watch your inbox, I am offering 20 live interview sessions with me.
Warmly
Shiloh Sophia
Transcipt:The Rise of the Sacred Feminine through the Intentional Creativity Lineage
In 2010, my family and I did something outrageous. We developed an intuitive painting process dedicated to revealing the Sacred Feminine within each woman. Any woman could learn it for themselves, and teach others how to do this step-by-step process. This was a journey to direct knowing and awakening to soul. You might wonder why this matters. Well, let me tell you! In the past 10,000 years of patriarchal oppression, the image and story and ceremony of women has been under attack. This is evidenced and measured in the statistics beyond counting. But there's something more. Being silenced, burned, and scorned, and altered into an image of ourselves we barely recognize is caught up in our bones and has greatly impacted our capacity to truly see and be ourselves. The colonization plan was not just about land and culture, but about women's bodies and brains and the children that they give birth to. Yet, we are remembering now because we have to and we want to.
This has been a long journey to arrive here for many of us. It is certainly in the best interest of dominant systems for women's voices to be twisted and unable to be heard, but we know better. Let's continue to become a danger to the establishments!
The reclamation of women and our access to our power is directly connected with chosen Self-Initiation. We literally take ourselves on a Journey of Remembering. We have to. There are many ways to say yes to that experience, and one of them is through the healing arts and defined lengths of time within which we commit to ourselves and our self-expression. Most women... with dedication, can arrive at their awakening on their own, but it is best in the company of other women on the path. That's where we come in. I was shown by my two mothers and that I have spent my life sharing with women and their families, a journey toward awakening to our fullness. Gifts being passed from hand to hand and heart to heart. In the first certification training we ever offered in 2010, Color of Woman, we taught women how to recreate themselves in their own image, their own story, and their own way of creating ceremony and how to design their own workshops, courses, and circles. This nine-month journey of reclamation created a Sheroe’s journey so that women could curate their own identity and design their legend for their lives. It was an astonishment to all who have taken the training. Really. We continue to be amazed.
Every year I consider not continuing, and then every year I continue, because of the impacts. But this truly is the last year. Other things will rise up, but this is ready to complete. But it will be passed to all of you, and you will pass it to those you choose. The part that's completing is not the teaching of Intentional Creativity, but the Certification Trainings. For those of us called to be guides, helpers, and healers, in the process of discovering ourselves, we develop a hunger to share this gift of revelation with other women. How many breakthroughs have you had where you almost immediately wanted other women to know, but for them to have to not work so hard to know it? You share what you learned. That's how I felt when I awakened to my Soul Calling. I was 23. I was a total failure at art college. I thought I was doomed to work in an office until my moms, the Poet Mother, Caron and the Painter Mother, Sue called me to the mountain. For one year, they taught me to access image and language for myself. I call this Mother Tongue. My own style, narrative, and true essence began to emerge. A fire in my heart was lit in relationship to the sacred women and the Sacred Feminine.
I realized that She, the Sacred Feminine, hadn't really gone anywhere. It was us who had lost sight of Her, but it was enforced, and She was removed from our lives with intention. Her groves burned, churches built over Her ruins, Her temples destroyed, Her images buried, burned, and marred. Her story is turned into myths where She is subjugated to him. Lies. No more. She was always in every single culture in the entire world since the beginning of humans. The removal of the feminine as equal from spiritual traditions and governmental positions and leadership frameworks has truly had one of the most devastating impacts we could conceive of.
We are seeing it and feeling it now in new ways. FYI, if you think the narratives like this are somehow radical or feminist, please check your own narrative. Because women give birth to the children, and the children become the ones who guide the future. Respecting women is not a political position. It is rational humanity.
After that year of initiation, I had a fine art career for 15 years with galleries and had incredible success. I sold hundreds of paintings and reached hundreds of thousands of people with my books. Then I gave it all up for a time to teach other women what I knew and felt. I thought I could keep both going, but I couldn't. I had to turn towards teaching instead of selling my paintings. I realized that what women really wanted was to do it for themselves, not just buy my paintings. The gifts of feminine power were were within reach.
And, quiet as it's kept, you didn't need to have talent in art and writing to do this work. You just needed to be brave as you wield the brush and the pen, shaking in your boots about what's about to emerge. What is true within you will emerge in a specific sacred container as a quest to the heart of your Soul Work. That which is yours to cause and to create. It is women who make this sacred container for other women, women who have been on their path and have tested and proven the journey they offer as a pathway for other women.
We aren't some kind of pop-up certification program developed by AI to entice women to empowerment. We have been doing this work for generations. We have a lineage. My two mothers were taught by their two mothers.
You don't have to be an artist or a writer to create paintings and stories. We show any woman how to access this deep wellspring of remembering and claiming within herself to reveal her greatest work. Of course, it isn't really about painting and writing. That is simply the matter-based ritual we use to awaken ourselves to the energies living within us that are seeking expression.
One of our graduates, Kerry Lee, calls this art with purpose. It's intentional creativity. I'm inviting you to join us for Color of Woman 2025. It will be our last training of its kind. Each woman will travel around the Alchemical Compass to meet five creative Sacred Feminine archetypes and create five major paintings. And she will make a book, her own book, hard copy and digital, of her story and images and teachings, a portfolio. Each woman will also design her own content with teachings and her own course for the workshops and circles she wants to lead. Have you heard of Jung's red book, where it all began? Each woman will create her own red book.
We are deeply in need of visionary leadership from women who have done their work to Become. This approach, which we call Intentional Creativity, works within any field and any medium. It doesn't actually have to be painting. It's a philosophy. It's a lifestyle. Educators and healers from all fields, therapists, doctors, shamankas, plant medicine women, coaches, corporate C-suite career women, mamas, grandmas, and school teachers, can all use this approach to bring their work to life in living color so that she may live the colors of woman. Her own sacred feminine presence and soul rememberings. I remember when I made my very first book by the same name, Color of Woman. I was 25. I was trying to figure out what the title would be as I stood at Kinko's at midnight creating my first 25 copies, which were already sold to therapists who wanted me to put my images into a book. It was my mother, Caron who said, you should call it Color of Woman. (it had a blank cover of hand-made paper with rose petals and I hand-painted very title). Thank you Aletheia Mystea, the County Health Therapist who saw the value in my art and asked me to make a book for the women you were working with).
Consider joining us for the 2025 COLOR of WOMAN cohort and graduating in 2026. You can take Color of Woman to certify to teach the Intentional Creativity Method, or you can take it as a journey for personal transformation and self-initiation. We've never offered this before, but since this is our last year, that's what we're doing.
You will create a body of work, which is the work of a lifetime, the work of more than one lifetime. This training brings all the pieces together from all the areas of your life, weaving them with red threads into the fabric of creation that we as women co-create. You begin to see the through line of all of your life experience, all the jobs, all the workshops, all the lovers, all the moves, all the books you read, and all the revelations you had all along the way. It can all come together when you answer your Soul Calling.
If you've been dreaming of designing your own courses and want to include self-expression, if you've been leading circles and clients in self-discovery and you want to take your work to the next place on the journey, if you are a woman ready to articulate her body of work in the world in an outrageously powerful way, then join us.
At the beginning of a journey, there's excitement and fear and the feeling of possibility. A portal begins to open. But I want to take you to the completion so that you'll know what you will have in your hands.
* You will have a real book with all of your paintings and the story you choose to tell.
* You will have the articulation of your content in the form of teachings that can be passed on.
* You will have the capacity to lead Red Thread and Sacred Circles in any demographic. We have a over 200 page manual on ways to lead and monetize circle in any setting.
* You will have enough paintings for a solo show.
* You will work with the Color of Woman Intentional Creativity Guide, our manual, which will show you everything that we've learned to this point and be able to use it to lead your own experiences. You will have $100,000 Visionary Business plan for your workshops and private clients so you can create life work from your gifts at a new level.
* You will have experienced a community of women who have your back and are doing their own work.
* You will become initiated in a cultural lineage designed to last for the next 500 years.
We are imagining a world where women are equal, of course. Yet the truth is that women being in collaborative power with their own destiny will influence the lives of every single human who is a part of Earth. All life comes from a woman's body, heart, and mind. When women are vital to every decision and central to every culture, we will have the world we seek. Until then, we begin with summoning the guides.
Let's let our imagination soar to show us the path ahead. This legacy and lineage of art matriarchs has been the gift of a lifetime. I invite you to become one of the Art Matriarchs in the lineage of Intentional Creativity. While we center the education on women, graduates can choose to share the gifts with anyone they choose.
Lots of our graduates work with women, children, elders, gender fluid, and all of the above, as long as they can hold a paintbrush and a pen. I close with this quote from Carl Jung regarding the Red Book. This is at the beginning of the Red Book and also at the beginning of the Intentional Creativity Guide.
“My entire life consisted in elaborating what had burst forth from the unconscious and flooded me like an enigmatic stream and threatened to break me. That was the stuff and material for more than only one life. Everything later was merely the outer classification, the scientific elaboration, and the integration into life.” Carl Jung, The Red Book
Color of Woman and the ceation of your own Red Book is the stuff and material for more than only one life. Join us for the breakthrough of a lifetim!
With all blessings to the art ancestors who walked before us. We're doing the work. I hope I make you proud. With love, Curate Shiloh Sophia
Our team for 2025
Thank you Mary MacDonald for the continual support and vision.
Thank you Jenafer Owen for the impeccable delivery of this work.
Thank you Amber Bonnici for continuuing the legacy of unleashing the power of women.
Thank you NaaKwarley Amissa for standing by me and us and all women.
Thank you Liz Chamberlain for being the younger generation to carry this work forward in full color.
Thank you trish O'malley for seeing and being the work working in all the ways it does.
Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe - Vis mere
