“Open.” —Christie Aschwanden “Open.” —Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Preview: Episode 56 on Creative Goals and the New Year
Hey friends, we’re back! After pressing reset in December, Emerging Form has some exciting changes in 2022. We recently said goodbye to our longtime audio producer Rob Dozier, who started a new job. We wish him all the best. And we say hello to an amazing new audio engineer, Leah Shaw Dameron–who not only works with podcasts and other audio projects, she has a degree in the bassoon! We’ll feature her and her most recent musical project in Episode 58—a conversation about collaborations.
In this first episode of 2022, we revisit the goals we made last year and see how we did. We talk about annual reports for creatives and how a magic wand might be your best tool for helping you shape your creative goals for the next year. (In fact, we’re handing out free single-use invisible magic wands to anyone who listens to this podcast.) We also talk about goals for the coming year and the phrases we hope will guide us. What are you hoping to practice in 2022 with your creative endeavors? Find out what some of our listeners say in next week’s bonus episode, available to paid subscribers.
What We’re Reading and Listening to:
Rosemerry:
Several people have recommended I read The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief. I listened to it as an audiobook, and it was so beautifully written, so practical, so helpful for me. Psychotherapist and author Francis Weller helps readers feel safer leaning in toward sorrow instead of turning away. A powerful book.
I’ve long had and loved The Illuminated Rumi, but for Christmas a friend sent me The Illuminated Hafiz with translations by Coleman Barks, Robert Bly, and others, plus incredible illustrations (illuminations) by Michael and Saliha Green. Full of whimsy and wisdom, spiritual teachings and powerful poetry.
Christie:
I read 34 books for pleasure last year. In this twitter thread, I talk about a few favorites. I also posted about some of them here.
This essay by Jennifer Weiner about how bicycling helped her cope with her mother’s death hit me in the gut. “The wheels go around, loss chasing joy, happiness following sorrow. Pedal, pedal, pedal, glide.”
It’s not my imagination! (or maybe it is…) A new study has found that the semi-lucid state we experience just as we’re falling asleep is a period of creativity and insight.
I don’t agree with all of these, but I enjoyed this list of 100 ways to improve your life without really trying. A few of these (#33, #46, #91) are rules I already live by.
December 31 by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
I know it’s just another square
on the calendar, another tick on a clock
in the Royal Observatory in London,
but tonight feels like a good time
to forgive myself—for thinking
I know anything. For wishing for life
to be any different than it is. For
blaming anyone or anything.
For every time I have turned away
from helping someone else. Tonight
is the right time to touch the darkness
and feel how small I am, to expose
my fear for the future, my pain
of the past, and let all be flooded
by the shimmer of present mystery.
Tonight is the time to nourish
the pericardium of the world,
to take care of the one great heart
that beats in us all and trust
that our kindness matters always—
not in a conceptual way, but
in the very specific way we say hello,
the way we hold out our hand,
how we shape our words,
where we give of our time, and
how we open or wall off our thoughts.
I light a candle tonight, as every night,
and invoke my beloveds here and not here.
And though it’s a small act,
it unfastens some lock in me
and says yes, this is more
than a date, more than a timetable.
This is an essential point
on the continuum of love.
This is a chance to bring light.
A Note About Paid Subscriptions:
First, we want to thank ALL our subscribers! We are so grateful you join us in this conversation about what it is to engage with yourself, the world and others in a creative way. And a BIG thank you to our paid subscribers. You make this podcast possible. Starting this month, only our paid subscribers will receive our bonus episodes as a thank you for their financial support. If you are not yet a paid subscriber, you can go now to our website, EmergingForm.substack.com or by clicking the button below. Thank you!
Two Questions:
(share your answers with us here on Substack or in our FB group)
What aspect of creative practice do you wish we would explore on Emerging Form in 2022?
If you had a magic wand you could use to help with any creative project, what would you wish for?