Your Creative & Magical Life

THE STAR: Naked in the Water w/ Chantal de Felice

• Cecily Sailer / Chantal de Felice

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What happens when the tower that has confined you for decades finally falls? Artist Chantal de Felice spent twenty years as the primary caregiver for her mother who struggled with mental illness. When her mother passed in 2020, Chantal found herself suddenly free – and completely unprepared for that freedom.

This conversation explores what happens when we're given a second chance to discover who we are. After her mother's death, Chantal sold her car, gave up her studio, and became what she calls a "tumbleweed" – traveling, making art, and slowly learning who she was outside of her caregiving role. For four years, she's been wandering, creating field recordings in nature, making paintings, and most importantly, learning how to identify her own needs after decades of putting someone else first.

Water emerges as a powerful healing element throughout Chantal's journey. From daily ocean swims to finding lakes and rivers wherever she traveled, immersing herself in natural bodies of water became a ritual of reconnection with her body and senses. These experiences mirror the imagery of The Star card in tarot – a figure pouring water between vessels, representing the flow between conscious and unconscious realms, and the promise of renewal after devastation.

Now working on an illustrated memoir based on fifty journals filled during her wandering years, Chantal shares how she's transformed her relationship with money, creativity, and love. Her story is a testament to resilience, healing, and the courage to rebuild an authentic life after loss. For anyone who has felt trapped by circumstance or is seeking to reclaim their creative spirit, this conversation offers both practical wisdom and profound hope.

+ Follow Chantal's on Instagram, or via her website and Patreon.

+ Check out The Evanesced Tarot by Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle mentioned in this episode. 

+ Check out The Rebis issue on The Star (The Devil issue just became available for order, as of September 2025).

This podcast is a production of Typewriter Tarot. Learn more & join us:

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to your Creative and Magical Life, which is hopefully your actual life. But is also this podcast a show that explores how tarot, divination and spirituality can help us live a life that sparkles with magic and creativity? I'm your host, cecily Saylor. Let's make some magic. Hello, creative spirits, Welcome to another episode of your Creative and Magical Life. This is a special episode because it's a beautiful sounds that you hear in the episode.

Speaker 1:

When I give the episodes to be edited, you know sometimes I do those like straight, just me talking, and I don't put the beautiful music in because I'm a little bit lazy and overwhelmed by the technology. But this amazing human who made the music is also the amazing human who edits some of our episodes and really made it possible for me to launch this podcast in a way that felt like aligned with the vision the dreamy little vision I had for it. And since I started thinking about how the podcast would progress and how we might move through the archetypes of the major arcana and have these conversations, chantal de Felice was always on my mind for the star. I don't get to spend time with her in person much, but I get to watch from afar her travels and travails and the art she makes and the way that she interacts with the world. You know, I get some impressions from watching her social media feed and I think and I've gotten to know Chantal a little bit and some of her story over the last few years that also feel really resonant with the star. So I'm really excited for y'all to hear from Chantal and learn about her and her work. I will introduce her a little more formally and then we'll dive in.

Speaker 1:

Chantal de Felice is a wanderer, a flanus in the city, a barefoot child in the forest, a selkie in the sea. She gathers field recordings, still pictures and moving images as she wanders, transmuting these collections into studious ink drawings, colorful paintings on wood, sonic landscapes and ephemeral video collages. In her live performances, sound and video are layered, then manipulated in real time, amplified and beamed onto large surfaces. Over the last 20 years Chantal has shown her paintings in galleries, sold her handmade earrings at craft markets and in shops. They're really beautiful. I need to get a pair. She has performed her audiovisual pieces on stage, given artist talks in schools, curated group shows with other artists and much, much more. Chantal, I'm so glad to have this conversation with you. Welcome on to the show from behind the curtain.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much for having me. I've been looking forward to this conversation for about a year, since you first invited me, and it really is so fun to be on this side of the production, because I've gotten to listen to every interview in its raw form and it's just, yeah, so happy to be here.

Speaker 1:

Yay, long awaited for me as well. So we're going to talk about the Star and maybe we can just start there really quick or maybe not really quick. We're not in a rush and, as you know, these episodes can be long. But let's talk about the star a little bit and then we'll dive into other things. And you brought a version of the card from the Evanest deck by Kenyatta AC Hinkle, who is a friend of yours. I think I've seen this deck in some of your posts. Really beautiful.

Speaker 2:

A really gorgeous, really powerful deck. You can see here all the cards have gold-dipped edges and the artwork is all of Kenyatta's original drawings using brushes made from naturally foraged materials branches, leaves. I actually read a bit from the to remind myself from the guidebook today. She describes her process and sound is a big part of it. So the Evan Nest is a. It's an ongoing exhibition that Kenyatta has created, but it's basically channeling the energies, the attitudes of disappeared and murdered women, black women inclusive. Black women inclusive uh, use of the word women and these drawings really every single one of them you can just feel like a whole unique spirit coming through, uh. But so kenyatta utilizes um sound as she's creating them and that's also part of the tarot deck as well Sonic recommendations with each card, songs to listen to and lyrics as mantras. So it's a really powerful deck and the star card I thought the best.

Speaker 2:

Kenyatta has a description that she wrote of the image. Let's see I can see it here A profile of a woman, and again she describes at the beginning. She uses the spelling W-O-M-X-N throughout this book, so I'll just say when I say woman, it's inclusive. A profile of a woman from the waist up wearing a cobalt blue turban stretching her arm out, bent at the wrist. Floating up from her wrist are several wisps of smoke that appear to be allowing another being to materialize. She looks up with a slight smile at her channeling slash manifestation. There appears to be three stars that make up a constellation of the woman's body.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, beautiful Like looks like an ink drawing just line, mostly except for that blue turban and the actions mostly happening, like in the lower half of the card and the figures kind of like leaned back, um, almost like like I'm thinking of like rearing back in a way, as like that arm is out stretched, yeah, and the stars kind of create these from here. They look like little disturbances or something on the body. Yeah, because they almost seem to sort of like interact with the flesh a little bit, which is also making me think like we're all made of stardust kind of thing, which I think is probably a true message for the star card. And then this channeling of the smoke, and then this channeling of the smoke, this manifestation of another, being very cool.

Speaker 2:

What do you see or how do you personally connect with that image when you see it, and the idea of channeling and manifestation and I'm such a dream supporter for my own self and for others and you know this idea of envisioning as an artist, envisioning things that don't exist. But also, when you say stardust, you know calling into this ancestral, actual physicality, like in our bodies. And I always say you'll hear me as we get into the interview that when I talk about my mom dying, I actually usually say her return to Stardust. I would usually say her return to Stardust. And so, yeah, it's something about this smoke in the card suggests a lot of that ethereal nature of manifestation and calling in ancestors to support. And yeah, I actually be when when I'm preparing for this.

Speaker 2:

So just to tell you a little bit, when you first asked me if I would like to be interviewed for the Star Card and I looked at the Modern Witch deck, which I'd been using for a while, and like, oh, yeah, that's me Like the naked, the water out in nature, and I didn't even go too much further into it at that time. And then recently I was reading about the I like to look up the Biddy Tarot descriptions, and I saw so many more things that related to my journey in these last four years that we'll talk about uh having to do with, you know, discovering uh more of your true self and going through these exercises, through the chakras and and um, what they represent and the psychology, and so, anyways, this card just couldn't be more relevant to what? To what I've seen as my recent experience.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, so just to reference also that kind of traditional quote unquote image of the star, you'll you know, many people probably would recognize this, but you'll see usually a nude, usually femme, female figure kneeling in this natural space and there's a pool. They usually have one foot in the pool and they're pouring from two vessels, pouring water from two vessels. One of the vessels will pour into the pool of water and one is being poured onto the land, but then that water is like running back into the pool of water and that pool of water can represent the unconscious, the subconscious, the intuitive, knowing. You know dreams and, I think, some things that are interesting about this card. You'll also see eight large stars overhead. There's one like gigantic star in the sky and then this ring of stars, this ring of six stars, and one additional smaller star with those other six for the total of seven, and that's probably the reference to the seven chakras, and there's kind of like a mountain in the background and a tree that has an ibis in it, and the ibis is a sacred bird going back to Egyptian times, but also a living bird that has many different species. I actually wrote a whole essay about the star and the ibis and the magic of birds for the rebus, um, in their star issue, if anyone wants to check that out.

Speaker 1:

But yeah, a really beautiful card and one thing I think is remarkable about this one is like there's no man-made other than the vessels, the cups. There's nothing that's constructed by humans in the card. There's no throne, there's no, there's no, like it's all a natural space. And this card follows the tower, which is really about like a man-made, a human-made constructed edifice or a system or dynamic or whatever that comes down and leaving a lot of space for this like natural emergence, for this recalibration and this balancing and this reharmonizing. And it's like once that container, that tower, that fixture in our lives is dismantled for whatever reason which doesn't always mean that it was like a bad fixture, but just like you know, it's been there for a while.

Speaker 1:

But when that is gone or removed or changes or withers as the cycle of life will, you know, always inevitably bring change then there's this, yeah, room or this like opportunity to sort of rediscover who we are like. Who am I now, who can I be in the absence of this thing, this tower, let's say, coming down? So that's just a little bit more about the card and and maybe thinking about the tower and the star, chantal, how do you see, like, where was that moment for you? I think you've already mentioned it, but maybe would you talk a little bit more about that part of the story before we get into the kind of like star part, the finding oneself again part part, the finding oneself again part.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, definitely, as you were describing that, I was sort of overlaying my personal story onto it. So I always start out with this sentence, you know, when I'm telling people kind of where I'm at in life, that I was a caregiver for my mom for 20 years, and that word is so insufficient, I I find that you know people who get it, get it right, uh, uh. But I do wish that we had a more expansive word to describe what that actually means to be responsible for someone's life, but in in a totally different way than than a parent, uh, and a child. You know me being a child caregiver of a parent. I, uh, my mom, started to become paranoid and delusional when I was a teenager and it was a long crumbling in itself over these 20 years. Over these 20 years, but even before that, you know, I had been the daughter of a single mother and I think a lot of, especially an only child of a single parent, understand I was helping her with everything around the house. We were a team and also she was a childlike fairy herself, um, so I took on a lot of those responsibilities early on, even before um, her, her mental illness.

Speaker 2:

So, but this as this, like you said this, this, this 20 years of caregiving, I mean what? It went through different phases, uh, there was a long time with psychosis, uh, and I was the primary person that she interacted with, I was the only person that she trusted. For all of that time I was responsible for every piece of food that went into her mouth, every piece of clothing that she wore. She didn't live with me, which was an absolute blessing that I was able to receive enough help, but she lived a couple blocks from me for almost all of that time and showed up at my house and called 50 or 60 times a day and would show up and not leave. And there were these elements where, when I say caregiving, it sounds like so soft.

Speaker 2:

But I was, you know, in torment for a long time. When I was younger, I thought, when I was in my 20s, I thought, you know, the mom that I grew up with, who was a magical, creative fairy, is dead. In my mind, you know, I was like that person has been replaced by this scary, controlling, psychotic entity, psychotic entity, um, but then she, she at some point sort of transitioned into a more, uh, like a, like a more again to use the word childlike uh phase, and she was sweeter and funnier again and um, but at that time she was still very much living in her own reality. So I, over these years, developed all the survival strategies that uh that we do and I. I think that that length of time also makes it really hard to summarize what it was like, but basically, I couldn't have my own life. I couldn't go where I wanted to go. Traveling was very fraught. She didn't want me to leave the city, you know, and so I had to maneuver a lot around that Um, so when it came to she, um did decline and then uh returned to Stardust in uh, may of 2020, which was a whole other story in itself. She was in a care facility on lockdown, so I wasn't able to be there, which was very strange after 20 years of caring for her physical form so intensely, um.

Speaker 2:

But as you said, when that happened, I, the morning we, you know, I got the call from the care facility Um a I. My instant visual was of my mom's spirit tearing across the planes of infinity like a wild Mustang, like that freedom that we wish for. Uh, someone's spirit who has been ill, like that was my first visualization, like, just like she was so willful and such a just. She's a legend. You know, I do want to talk about her, her incredible, uh, artist spirit, you know. But, um, the next thought was that I thought I was stuck in this thing forever. So when you talk about the, the tower, as being this thing, that's there, I really thought she was never going to fucking die, you know, and um, and strangely enough, we were in quarantine so I couldn't jet out right when it happened, I had a year of processing, but then, you know, when I was able to start to seek my own life, it had all these aspects of this star renewal.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, wow, thank you for sharing all of that. And thank you for sharing that so honestly, like I think, as you're describing it, I really start to feel a little bit what you mean about caregiving being too limiting a word. Um, I'm also an only child and my dad now lives close to me and he's his abilities are becoming more limited. He's now basically homebound. So you know I do things for him but he's also like a pretty it's kind of a chill caregiving situation for the moment and I feel really blessed by that.

Speaker 1:

And, yeah, you know, part of it is their, like some of their illusions and fears and all of that on you and you being the only child who can like navigate that and who must seemingly navigate that Cause you're sort of in this position of like I guess you could run away, but when we have like values and integrity and love, like that feels totally impossible.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so it's not just like managing some money and like the material stuff or the medical stuff, but also like moving and navigating through your mother's psychological space like for so long. 20 years is a really long time. And, uh, it sounds like you really like you started really early. You know I started caring for my dad, like maybe five or six years, like in my forties, you know, and so like a lot of your youth and your like younger kind of development and sort of like comeuppance in the world was really defined by this. So, um, yeah, what like strength you had to develop and, um, I'm curious, like how you managed to care for yourself through that. That's maybe like a whole book length story, I don't know.

Speaker 2:

That really is. That really is, uh, so much there. I I think the timing. What you're talking about is the timing. Is everything right that I she was starting to to become unable to care for herself when I was a teenager. But I didn't. It wasn't complete, and so I was able to go to college for a year and then she basically collapsed and it was apparent that she could not care for herself in the most most basic ways, and so I was snapped back.

Speaker 2:

You know, it was like I started my my adolescent uh, you know what do you call it when you set out away from your parents and you're, you're okay, I'm going to go make my life. And I was an artist, I was craving, I wanted to be a city girl, I wanted to go to college in the far-flung lands, like you know, and but I was snapped back and I think that became it was so excruciating in my twenties and I drank through it. All my friends were drinking, obviously, you know, or not obviously, but we were in a small town and that definitely was a really unhealthy coping mechanism. But I'm surprised I didn't do worse. I mean, she was. What happened was I developed the things like freeze, fawn, acquiesce. Her willpower was so strong that I had to. You know, whenever I tried to stand up to it, it just it drove me, you know, up the wall, so. So I had to learn to uh little like shape-shifting or kind of like performing sometimes.

Speaker 2:

And and her, um, you know, she would do these like really long. Um, it was like a long loop that she had to complete to tell me this delusional thing and if I interrupted the loop it would just prolong it. So I would go into this state of just. I thought I was developing this beautiful like Zen, patience, resilience. I was like this is my superpower. And since I've been on this recovery, healing path, I'm like, oh no, that was freeze and I was denying my, I was completely denying my body messages like whether I needed to, you know, get up and walk away or go pee, or drink water, eat food that was a big thing. Instead, I just froze and let her finish the loop. Sometimes it would take hours and so so, yeah, I I when I go, when I think about what I would do differently, I mean I don't even know this was in the time this was happening, you know, starting to happen really dramatically in 1999.

Speaker 2:

Like, I was using a phone book to try to find resources, like I didn't know anyone else who was going through this. Actually, you know, outside of my family, I thought I was so alone, I was ashamed of her. When I took her in public, I was scared of the police. We had some interactions a few times. I was very scared of the intolerance for mental illness. We lived in, again, a small conservative town where there were three notable homeless characters that people knew Like my mom stood out, notable homeless characters that people knew like my mom stood out, and so, yeah, just the shame and all of that. I think it it was. That was also of its time. You know how I went through the experience and how, how, what difficulties there were in it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I, yeah, it is.

Speaker 1:

There's so many additional constraints, not only like the circumstances of like your family or you being the only child and your mom's specific situation and condition, but also, yeah, the setting and like what's available and public services and support and people's outlook.

Speaker 1:

And yeah, it just like you know it, just like it feels astonishing and overwhelming like the amount of like calculus you had to probably run constantly to to navigate this.

Speaker 1:

And, yeah, I think it makes sense that, like how would you know how to like really care for yourself, especially when there's, like you're the only person that you know facing something like this and, um, yeah, really having to face it alone or and not, I'm sure, wanting to like quote, unquote like drag other people into, um, into the situation, um, so I just want to send you a lot of like love and appreciation for your strength and resilience and, um, the love I'm sure you had to like conjure to continue and and keep caring for her over that period and so, but then that period did end and like breath of fresh air, I can imagine suddenly you're like, what the fuck do I do with like the fact that I don't have to do this anymore.

Speaker 1:

And yeah, and then you really like went out there, you're like bye At some point, not too far, not too much later. I remember meeting you not too long after she had passed and I think you know, as part of a reading, because we have a mutual friend and um, yeah, but, but you were preparing at that point to like set out, and so what came next for?

Speaker 2:

you, oh, yeah. So one beautiful thing I have to share is that. So when I do want to talk more about this later, but I have been a journaler since I was 12, and not consistently, uh, but at some point in my twenties I had my mom's things and there was this box I found of her journals from the seventies and from around the time I was born. And I found the box. I called my aunt. I said, oh my God, I found these journals and my mom's. I'm going to go home and get a bottle of whiskey and read them. And my aunt said, stop, your mom is still alive. Those are her private thoughts. You need to respect that. Think about this. So I said, you know, yeah, okay, yeah, you're right. And I put the journals away.

Speaker 2:

So when my mom died, years and years later, I said, oh, the journals, so I was in quarantine. I said, oh, the journals, so I was in quarantine. And that summer I very slowly got one spiral bound notebook at a time and started to read, read my mom's poetry about nature and her delight in the world, but also her investigations into consciousness and different religions and spiritualities and her interest in learning about people. And that was the first step of this layer of healing right. So I, in quarantine, read my mom's journals and I swam in the ocean I was living close enough where I could walk to the ocean and swim and started to build up momentum and bravery. And then it was literally, you sent a, a newsletter with an in-bulk spread. A newsletter with an in-bulk spread. This was in February of 2021, so almost a year after, uh, and I can't remember the specifics of the spread, but I remember the first card I drew was the eight of cups, and in the modern witch deck it's this little figure, you know, with its back towards the viewer, a little backpack on, and it's setting out towards the mountains. And I saw that image and I said it's time. And literally that was the moment, like the you know, the time had been coming for me to leave, but but that moment I looked at it okay, it's time's time. So I, within a few days, gave notice on my studio that I had had for six years this beautiful little bubble of art and science and books and shells and fossils and plants that I had created. That was my sanctuary.

Speaker 2:

And so I gave notice and I, you know, gave away my plants to friends and packed, packed all my things up into storage, I sold my car and I left my hometown, you know, which I'd been in again for over 20 years, and I had this really exuberant feeling like I'm going to go explore, I'm going to wander, I want to learn how to make a decision of what's next. Once I hit the fork in the road, like I wanted to be living in the present and trust that I could make the decisions as I go, the decisions as I go, and I set out and almost instantly I felt like the slap back of the universe. And the slap was that I was setting out as a maiden with a lot of fresh eyed kind of. You know I'd been through traumas but I still had this like sort of small town naivete, you know, and also no boundaries. I didn't know what a fucking boundary was. I literally did not know what it meant.

Speaker 2:

And you know, one of the first experiences I remember I was in New York City. That's where I had gone first and I remember this guy came and sat and talked to me in the park and I was interested in his story. I'm so interested in people's stories who are so different from me but he kept kind of scooting and like putting his grubby, crusty foot on my blanket and I remember I would say, oh hey, hey, sorry, can you, you know? And kind of like gently gesture, and he would kind of scoot it back and we'd talk and he'd end up on my blanket again and I just kept letting it happen. And when I look at that moment now I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe you know, I was a little red riding hood. I can't believe you know I was a little red riding hood. I can't believe I didn't get eaten by wolves.

Speaker 1:

It's interesting, the eight of cups came to you, this card of departure, and like going out in search of something more, something greater, with the real like belief and understanding that, like, what you're seeking isn't where you are. Like the current conditions and situation may be like fine, like your beautiful sanctuary, like you had all your like tools and bits of objects of inspiration, all your art, all of that, bits of objects of inspiration, all your art, all of that, but the sense that, like, my growth probably will be limited. Nevertheless, if I stay here and I don't know exactly where to go to like find, I may not even know exactly what I'm seeking. So I definitely don't know, like where it's located. But if it's not here and I feel pretty sure about that, like I have to go out there to look for it. And so, yeah, it makes sense that kind of stripped of the situation with your mother, which was such a codependent situation, with someone relying on you for like everything, and having to step into that dynamic or that position of caregiving like way before you really should be taking on that responsibility. And while you're still in this, like such a formative space as a young person, and so this, like such a formative space as a young person and so, yeah, like your main relationship was with your mother by necessity, and she had no boundaries. It sounds like with you, um, or no sense of like what your boundaries might be, as evidenced by that story. Oh, poor Chantal just having to like go to the bathroom and listen to these like ravings. So, yeah, then you get out in the world and, like, you still have these patterns and now they're kind of being like brought into relief through these interactions with like the other, with other people, with the rest of the world. But with the rest of the world and there's so much healing from you know that experience, not only the grief but like all the kind of like, baggage, that and challenge that came with it.

Speaker 1:

And I know you know your art, the art that you make feels so healing to look at, whether it's like a pair of earrings or a painting you're doing or, um, you know a lot of I've like, once you set out, I would see you on Instagram like with a little microphone, like out in the waves or like holding a little microphone up to like a tree or moss or something. And I'm like that in the waves, or like holding a little microphone up to like a tree or some moss or something and I'm like that is so fucking cool, but just these really like kind of unconventional. You know, I guess like painting isn't that unconventional, but within the like conventionality of some of your artistic practices, like also this, like not just keeping it in the studio and having an interaction with living things as part of your creative process, I'm kind of like jumping, I guess what I'm. What I'm getting at is like it also see, since your art feels so healing to witness or experience, I hope that it feels healing to create.

Speaker 1:

And, yeah, like what happened, you know, as you said in some of your notes before we had this conversation like being a tumbleweed for four years, and so I'm curious about that like constantly having to sort of like find a new location, choose where you want to go next, stay spontaneous but feel a sense of security, make your art, have these like encounters, be in unfamiliar spaces and be healing from this big thing. So it's such a huge question. What is to be said about that? What comes up for you as you think about that? Now?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, the first thought is the word challenge. It was such a challenge when I set out, first of all, not having my studio as an artist, not having my things, my precious treasures, around me, not having my books, you know, I it really sent me into, I would say, like an identity crisis. Or later, when I learned about the heroine's journey, I was like, oh the the dissent, because I started to doubt, you know, am I even an artist? And I started to really question like why did I purposely make myself houseless, you know, and post-quarantine, let's say, inflation, jacked up and rental costs, you know, short term or otherwise and cars and everything was so expensive and I was, I didn't have money to do this. I set out um with, you know, I had, I had done a couple of big paintings and I had a few thousand dollars um which I spent in New York and then that was that. But so it was really challenging.

Speaker 2:

At first I was doubting myself. I was very unmoored, ungrounded, and I was staying a lot with friends and family who I hadn't seen, you know, sort of like almost like a funeral tour in a way, or like a post quarantine tour. But that immediately brought to light how much my codependent habits and behaviors were not limited to my relationship with my mom, that I had ingrained them and and really been enacting them for years with all of my friends and loved ones, where I just I, gave, gave, gave. I stayed at people's houses and was, you know, the ideal house guest, while not taking care of my own needs and depleting myself so that first, you know, year or two, definitely a year or two of being a tumbleweed, I was really, um, I, you know, was still dreaming and and optimistic, but I was really depleting myself a lot. I was traveling too much for my body, too many short term, um, you know, jaunts around, and that was a big thing. I started to notice, like on a cellular level, my body felt like it was vibrating from, you know, too much airplane travel, like going through the air at that high speed and even driving road trips, like driving in a car for eight hours a day. I think the reason we feel so jittery afterwards is really like all this, like molecular this is just my own theory, but like on this molecular level, moving through space that fast, it's, it's, um, you know, a stressor.

Speaker 2:

I think not having a studio meant for a while I wasn't working as much but I was, you know, trying to gather as much as I could. So, like you said, the gathering sounds, gathering videos as I moved, and definitely you know, is a respite for me. This beauty in nature I could fall into a little pile of moss for hours, tide pools, forget about it. I love the small world's future, uh and. But I have to say too, I questioned a lot if beauty was enough, right, and if my artwork was enough because it was calming and beautiful, like, is it doing enough? Is it saying enough? Am I actually making art? That's important. Um, I feel differently now, but we can get to that.

Speaker 1:

I feel like the eight of cups sort of like. Like. On the one hand, it sounds like someone could read this like an overcorrection, like, oh, I've been kind of like closed in for so long, so I'm going to like bust out and do like the 180 degree opposite and then being like, whoa, what am I doing? That slap back that you talked about. But it also, with the Eight of Cups, feels like exactly what you needed to do, like I don't know the whole. It doesn't seem like there was going to be a soft exit to that situation.

Speaker 1:

Um yeah, and like the world sort of becomes this testing ground for the resilience you had practiced, even if kind of like in a dysfunctional nervous system state for a lot of it. But the world becoming this place where your resilience takes on a new form and a place where you start to really feel like, oh, these are some of the lasting impacts of this experience that I've had and like I am responsible for shifting them, even if I'm not responsible necessarily for creating them in the first place. And also I can imagine the nature part like being able to see so many different, especially someone who loves and appreciates nature like you do, like being able to really make contact with the earth in its many different like expressions of its beauty, which is something we see happening in the star. There's like this ritual being enacted by the figure who's making an offering to the water and to the land and becoming part of, kind of like, the water cycle, basically this like interlocutor for the water cycle, and how all of these things are connected. Like what you experienced with your mother is going to be connected with what you experience in the world.

Speaker 1:

Having her journals feels like that also presented this connection, naturally, that both of you have to like yeah, like you know, being attracted to sparkly fairy things and also exploring spirituality and consciousness and just being like, really like being seekers and mystics and artists, and so that connection, you know, is also there. And so, yeah, anything you want to say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I was jotting notes while you were saying. First of all, you were so perceptive. I love hearing you build on what I've just said and that you really are understanding a lot of things that I'm not actually saying. So, first of all, the overcompensation that you mentioned, where I set out and was just like gobbling the world, I really do think that a big part of that which I really understand now was I don't want to be bitter and I can see at my age I'm in my mid forties and I read this, I think in the um women who ran with the wolves she mentions um, there's kind of a deciding point where you are you like, am I going to heal my shit or am I going to be bitter the rest of my life? And like I knew that but I don't know that I would have been able to put it in those words, but I needed to to fill up this, this pit of despair that I had walked around with for years Um, this envy, this you know, anytime somebody was like talking about travel, I would ask them questions and you know I was. I was interested in curious but also low level like fuck, like I wish, I wish. So low level, like fuck, like I wish I wish you know, and so so I do think I did have to go kind of hard, um, at first to to fill up that space. But uh, what you're saying about the nature and water is definitely from the get-go of leaving.

Speaker 2:

So I had been swimming in the ocean daily back in my hometown and that's where I built up all this courage, throwing myself into the waves and shouting into the waves. When I first set out bathtubs if there was a bathtub somewhere, that became a thing. I felt like Daryl Hannah in Splash. I would be starting to desiccate and then I'm like, oh, there became a thing. I felt like Daryl Hannah in Splash would be like starting to desiccate and then like, oh, there's a bathtub. You know whoever's house I'd be staying at, I'd be like, oh, is there a bathtub? Okay, and that's actually side note.

Speaker 2:

Some of the sounds for the podcast are me playing kalimba in the bathtub. You can hear a little splashing and kalimba, because I had this. I was carrying around a kalimba and playing it in the bathtub as part of my like soothing and grounding as I was going from place to place. So getting into water became a thing. I was definitely searching. So everywhere I was traveling to which the first year was a lot of the US, and I actually did go pretty early on to the place I was born, which is right on the California-Oregon border. I was conceived there's a state line highway, that's the border. I was conceived in a house on the California side and, across the road, born in a house on the Oregon side, and I didn't know that until I went there. The house has been refurbished but it's still there and it was vacant, and so I was able to wander the property and see this, the creek that my mom you know, I know her and I were baby.

Speaker 2:

this the Creek that my mom you know, I know her and I were baby, I think I was baptized in that little Creek, um, and and then went to the Lake. There's a picture of me as a tiny, tiny baby. So the first Lake I ever went in, I went to it Lily Lake, um, so it did become this. Like you know, water floating my body and water, um, became a really big part of my journey and like part of the healing and and um and part of the my experience of place, and for a long time I was studying the theme of place in my art because I was kind of like tethered to one place. So I did a whole series on microscopes, microscopic imagery, because I was stuck in this, I couldn't, I couldn't go explore, but so, okay, my exploration became microscopic and so, as I set out and I was going to different new places, um, yeah, part of that experience became where's the water?

Speaker 2:

And this is a project I would love to do going forward is how? Who has access to swimming in clean water? How can water be rehabilitated? I really want to know, because rivers can become healthy again. Right, we're becoming more aware of that. But you know, I want to know how that works and talk to scientists and make art about it. That helps convey the message, because I think this is one of these human essential rights that we should have is to be able to put our bodies into a natural body of water, and that's obviously not currently accessible to everyone.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that and I don't know you say it so well. It's like I think you're right Like that feeling of taking, like alleviating the weight of being earthbound, is like a gift that the water gives us and, you know, not only like an appreciation for what, like water beings, like experience and live in and water being just such this like mysterious element. There are parts of the ocean, many, many parts of the ocean, that we just like have no fucking idea what's down there, like it's as unfathomable as space, but at the same time, you know, like we're water beings, most of our bodies are comprised of water and water seeks water. Like I think there's this biological imperative to connect with water, to hear it, to look at it, to be submerged in it from time to time. And, yeah, we live in a world now that's so overdeveloped that and privatized that like waterways are, um, very difficult to access, especially where the ones that are public are not super well cared for in a lot of places.

Speaker 1:

Um, yeah, and I think that gives a lot of us, like without even recognizing it, this sense of alienation from, like the fucking planet. Um, and I, you know, one thing I would see you do is get in the water naked, as you mentioned, like you would show us everything in your Instagram post, but uh, week, you know, you would confess or mention that. It's like you know this unmediated experience with the body and the water and like archetypally, in the tarot and in many other places, the water is intuition, is the subconscious, and so I wonder if, like those encounters with water, and also it's a two-parter, like, what does it mean for you to be naked in the water, and especially as a woman, and what does it mean? Did these experiences, you think, like, enhance your connection with your intuition?

Speaker 2:

um, yeah, so, yeah, I think before I wouldn't, I didn't understand, like, the connection between water and intuition. Um, I wouldn't. Before this tumbleweed time I don't think I would have really understood that. But what it makes me think of is that a fundamental thing that has come about as part of this healing adventure is connection to my senses, right and and really starting to learn to listen, and it's been a slow process to listen to the messages that my senses are telling me.

Speaker 2:

And swimming in water, floating in water, is a big part of that, but it's also a big part of the like this rest, right. So I'm spending a lot of time on land trying to learn how to, you know, pick up cues and listen to things and eat properly and just take care of my needs, right. Identifying needs that was a big thing, right. I was like, oh, I need to learn how to do that. I don't know, I really don't know. And identifying needs starts at listening to your body, right, and then enacting on the needs. So that's hard work when you haven't done it for a long time. It's building up these muscles and now that I'm saying it out loud, you know, I guess the floating in the water I love I jotted it down, alleviating the weight of being earthbound. And part of that is if I'm in a safe place, which a lot of times it's like if I can sneak into some nature place alone.

Speaker 2:

Especially in the US, toplessness is not, you know, as free as it is in some other places, but if I'm alone and I can safely take off my top or be naked in the water, that is a floating respite from all this other body work. And I'm talking about calm bodies of water because I've learned now, over these last couple of years, the ocean was my. That's one thing, and ocean with waves is one thing. You know, that's a whole dance with this greatest force on earth. And floating in a lake is totally different.

Speaker 2:

I've also swam in rivers with snakes. That I never thought I would do, or you know things like that. That is like every body of water has different characteristics, different characteristics. But to generalize this, when these times when I've been able to be naked especially, um, as like a woman body that's I experienced a lot of shame, um, internalized shame. I did not show my body when I was younger. I did not go to saunas naked with other people until I was in my late 30s I guess. So I was completely you know and again this is something I'm still undoing but like this hatred of my body and I think, swimming and floating naked and free and I'm a ample, bosomed woman on top of it. So there's always been this like shame and just like a tension I've gotten and being able to like let my titties free in the water and float and just enjoy the elements and is healing of like the highest order.

Speaker 1:

I can't, I can't overstate how much that's given to me in terms of healing how I feel in my body yeah, I'm glad, it's almost like I'm feeling obviously obviously it's your experience, but I am feeling, obviously obviously it's your experience. But I'm feeling this like, if nothing else, the like tumbleweed thing, like you needed to go get in all the bodies of water and, yeah, experience that sense of like freedom, of like not being looked at or not, like your body being entirely your own and being like a natural, occurring thing that wants to commune with nature and like, yeah, it's. I mean I feel like we could go down like a whole rabbit hole with like tits and the male gaze and objectification and, um, yeah, like big tits are great but like also terrible. Or like you know, or every kind of tit is great but also horrible. Like you, it's so hard to like your body in this world, and I was.

Speaker 1:

I saw something this morning on Instagram. It was Sophie Strand talking about speaking of consciousness, like that. I can't remember exactly how she said it, but basically the idea was that, like our consciousness we think of as this like individual thing that's contained in our body, but that consciousness is actually like, interconnected with our environment, and so the point she was making was, like you know, to sit in a room with a therapist. Like a sterile room, more or less sterile room with a therapist and have like a one-on-one conversation about healing or your problems, like doesn't allow for this broader, more multifaceted, intricate, subtle, complex. Like consciousness and awareness and like beingness that we have as our nature in nature, like that the trees are also part of the consciousness and awareness around where we are, or the birds or the animals or the plants. And yeah, I'm just like hearing that this morning and thinking about what you're sharing. Like you getting to take your consciousness out of this study when your life was like really shrunk down to then being able to like have a whole sensory experience out in the world that was like vast and sort of unlimited and also very authentic in terms of it just being like this is what nature is. And like you getting to be that and not getting not having to like be defined by the role you were needing to fill or, um, some other aspect of your identity. It's just really, really beautiful and I wonder I want to hear more about. Well, let's, let's move into the art is where where I want to go.

Speaker 1:

But, um, yeah, I had noticed that you were making these soundscapes and like collecting, gathering, as you were saying, um, from all these different places and travels, and I was thinking about this podcast and I was like, yeah, I need, I do want, I do want some music. I want a little theme song, but I don't want like a ditty, I don't want and I don't know like who to pay to like sing something or write lyrics or whatever. And also, like you, I feel very I'm just thinking about nature all the time. I'm thinking about climate change all the time. I'm like feel this yearning to be more immersed in nature, um, as a city person and, yeah, this like grief of the diminishing contact we have with nature. And so, um, I really wanted to like express that through the music by just having more natural sound and creating like beautiful sounds through this acknowledgement of nature.

Speaker 1:

And so I was like Chantal Chantal can make this and you did, um such a beautiful job and I sent you like some sound from the crows in my mother's backyard and I was um horse sitting on a ranch as this was coming up. And I was horse sitting on a ranch as this was coming up and I was like gathering sounds of like my feet hitting the dirt road and I don't know if I got, like some of the horses walking, but also like fox birds chirping, there was a big stand of oaks with a bunch of wind chimes in it that I tried to collect sound for. So I just want to, like I don't know, set that context for listeners. This is where these things come from and Chantal made them, and also the kalimba in your bathtub. But yeah, talk to us a little bit about what your art practice is looking like now, what you're working on, what you're excited about, what's fueling you creatively.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, first of all, I was so delighted when you invited me to participate and collaborate in this way for the podcast, in this way for the podcast, and you know I had this library of so many collected sounds and it was just really fun to be able to put them, put them to use. And I do want to say that some of the sounds that so I actually pulled up you know the list of sounds that I used for the podcast music and in addition to what you mentioned, there's, you know, ocean waves, tide, pool cracklings, rain, frogs, thunder but some of the sounds there's a process you can do where you take the sound like, for example, pl, plink, plink of the rain, and you can turn those, um, sort of like those notes into an instrument, um, so I did that with even some of the sounds you hear in the podcast, where it might sound like a musical instrument, but it's actually a pattern generated from nature, so that was a fun way to play with it as well. But, yeah, I think the process is about field recording and, in how it really is, a way of encouraging deep listening, and so I loved that you were collecting sounds, because I knew that that meant that your ears were turned on in a new way, and I think that's something that I've noticed through recording in the environment is that, even if I never do anything with the sample that I gather, just the act of the way that I listen while I'm recording is like this, you know, hyper-focused listening. So, yeah, so lately I've made some sonic portraits of place using sort of like a sound collage, but the biggest thing I'm doing now is that I, in September, I came to New Orleans and it's actually this is like a dream seed I planted in 2019.

Speaker 2:

I came here when, before before the tower fell, I had this magical two weeks alone here in the city, having all of these just synchronous experiences and explorations of place. And I went back to my small town and I was like, wow, ok, you know, new Orleans is a place of place, like it has all the aspects that make a place a place like you know music, culture, food, you know the weather and the landscape and the history fuck the history and the art, and so, um, you know, at the time I had said, like, what would it take for me to move to New Orleans? And it, you know I didn't put that answer on my list. But really what it? What it meant was, um, not caregiving for my mom, and so, anyways, my my traveling tumbled around and an opportunity came up a few months ago for me to come here. And as I was heading towards here and thinking, oh, I might stay a couple months now it's turned into six months but I realized that I've been journaling along the way and that my journaling really became something different when I started to tumbleweed about.

Speaker 2:

I have about 50 journals here from the last four years. I write a little bit big, but still I'm averaging like a book average-sized journal, about one a month, some with sketches and drawings, about one a month, some with sketches and drawings. But it became a way for me to explore my shadow, you know, connect with private parts of myself that I wanted to face, think about my values and integrity. I write to my Nana, who passed. She returned to Stardust, you know, 14 years ago and I've written to her since then, dear Nana. So I really connect with my ancestry. I invoke my other, gramsci, and my great-granny and my mom now, which was a little bit complicated at first, but she's become an absolute like benevolent ancestor and has actually, through magical spirit, things I know she's helping me on this journey.

Speaker 2:

But so basically I came here with my journals and I am working on a book. So I did one pass where I read through all the journals, cried, took a bunch of hot baths. It was really hard to see. You know, I went through some friend breakups, breakup breakups, romantic lover breakups, and I guess just you know, reading back when you read back your old journals and you see like how it's, you know, embarrassing, sometimes Like oh my God, what I didn't know, saying sometimes like oh my god, what I didn't know. But so I did one pass of reading through them and now I'm in a process of transcribing excerpts and from the journals I'm halfway through and then my next phase will be illustrating them. So I want it to be a illustrated memoir, graphic memoir. But it's really important for me to this act of telling my story as part of the sort of coalescing of this healing recovery journey. I think the act I've been reading about, I've been studying a lot of, I've been listening to this podcast called this Jungie in life.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, oh, it is so great, um I specifically listened to episodes like about self-betrayal, self-loathing, the ego, self-access, and I'm really interested in what I have done in these last four years, you know, through my journals and through my experiences, to develop a more secure relationship with self, and so this book project really centers on that, and I've actually given a couple of workshops, a couple online and one in person here in New Orleans so far, um about my journaling practice and sharing the exercises that I do and the way that I've used it to um to, uh, you know, nurture this relationship. So beautiful.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I've seen you've shared some of the images that you're working on and again, they're really like beautiful and wonderful to take in and you're such a skilled artist. But this feels sounds like a incredible synthesis of like the journey and this reclaiming, and one thing that's feeling important, as we honor your story, is the time it takes and like the star. You know and I'm not saying like I don't want to reduce your whole experience to like tower star, like there's a lot more nuance to it than that. But that transition, that act of reclaiming, you know, when we look at the cards side by side, it's like, oh, this one looks terrifying and this one looks so nice and lovely and it's almost like we could take away. I think you know, with the parts of us that really love like big shifts, like immediate gratification, like results ASAP, that it's like, oh, this and then that, like it just bam bam, but like, depending on your tower and what that means for you and what it looked like and what it felt like and how long it lasted, and that kind of thing. It's going to also inform the process of reclaiming, which I think is just sort of like in this world at this time, is an ongoing undertaking, because the world we live in is not conducive to us learning how to honor ourselves or giving us space to do that. Just the fact that we have, to like, have enough money to live and that things are becoming less and less affordable means discovering like, different parts of ourselves, making space for that, um, accessing things that help us heal, like. All of that becomes more and more difficult, and so it makes sense to, of course, like I mean just as a natural process.

Speaker 1:

It takes time, uh, when we have challenges and barriers in our way, the time maybe extends, but I think there's something beautiful in the fact that your journey has taken this winding, kind of like watery, fluid path, and maybe now there's like a pool gathering for you in New Orleans, which indeed is a magical, interesting character of a city, um, and so, yeah, those sketches also like, or the, the work that you're doing, the project that you're working on, it feels like this I love that word coalescing but this kind of like synthesis of the skills you have, the practices you've always been using, the fact that you are willing to sit with all of your journals and go through them is so courageous.

Speaker 1:

Like anyone, anyone who does this is going to have like cringe wash over them. Anyone who does this is going to have like cringe wash over them. But you really get to like acknowledge and see what you've gone through and like how you've grown and how you've opened up and now you believes a lot in like the power of creative practice, the creative process, that taking all of this and like channeling it into some artistic object or artifact really crystallizes something or it becomes this huge marker in time for you. So sorry that was like a long essay but so spot on.

Speaker 2:

It made me think a couple of things. One is that I had I had this moment the last time I was in California or in this past summer, where I basically inadvertently went out just a little too far in the waves and I couldn't touch, and then two big thumpers came in back to back and I was pulled underneath and tumbled for a long time and when the second wave came I didn't have much time to catch my breath. And when I popped up the second time and I think it was maybe more anxiety, but there was another wave coming and I had it was the most frightened I've ever been in the water. And when I came out of the water and first of all I was like, oh, that would be so fucking ironic if I did this whole traveling journey and then drowned on the beach that I had tried to leave journey and then drowned on the beach that I had tried to leave.

Speaker 2:

But anyway, I came out the water and I had a fresh journal there and I was like you know, I described the whole scenario and then you know, like what's what we, we, we all have this like unknown clock right and what's most important to me and I want to leave a book. Like I haven't wanted to have children, but like if I can birth a book in the time I have. You know, I have other stories I would like to do more, but if I can at least just get this one out, um, that will feel like I have contributed to this beautiful artistic language and legacy that books, uh, and think it's just what I'm doing right now is like feel so, so important that any doubts I had at the beginning, where I was like, oh, I shouldn't take up space telling my dumb story, and now I'm just like I can't even Nope, no room for that. Like I just I know this is what I need to do before I can do other work and I hope this book is an offering. I hope this, this story of of self and learning, to.

Speaker 2:

I do think one thing I've really been wanting to learn how to love without obligation, and I didn't think that was actually a true thing when I started out. I was like, eh, I don't know, I don't think that's true, but now I think it. Love obviously in our English language is not a big enough word for all the different types of love that we practice and engage in and verb Um. But I think I have learned through interdependence and adaptability and engaging, you know, in reciprocal relationships where I can fairly say, or, you know, honestly, speak my needs and hear someone else's needs and then we see what we can share with each other and that that type of interdependence, that's a type of love without obligation, and that's been like one of the most beautiful things I've learned through staying in strangers' houses along the way or I don't know the customs and finding ways to interact in this honest and kind way with people.

Speaker 1:

I think again, that's love feminine slash, like a mirror to the way you had to live for a long time where like love kind of was an obligation, like the love you felt was inherent and like you didn't have to like necessarily manufacture that perhaps. But with that came this sense of like, obligation, like because I love, like I must provide in this way. And so venturing out into the world becomes this teacher for like what does it mean to love without obligation? Um, and maybe like without expectation and without the sense of like responsibility, and like love is kind of like a force or a vibration or an energy in addition to an action. Yeah, that seems really beautiful and I think in a transactional world, a lot of us are trying to figure out. I mean, many of us are not trying to figure out, but some of us are trying to feel into that, even if we don't know that we're trying. So I understand and honor how isolating your experience must have felt, caregiving for your mother. But also, you know, imagine there are many other people who go through similar kinds of scenarios in their own unique way, and your book forthcoming will like provide witness for that, you know, like maybe even provide a map, maybe for someone else.

Speaker 1:

It's like I'm stuck in this thing and I feel like it's never going to end. But I found this book that's like oh, there is another side. Like I just kind of have to like hold on. And then, yeah, being this example of like what healing can look like, what reclaiming can look like, what love can look like feels, there's the question of like how do you make this work Like financially, like it seems like you're, you know, really committed to your art, that that really takes like a lot of the room of your life and the traveling and you mentioned it a little bit at the beginning like having some money and kind of running out, and it really, I imagine I think that's something that would stop so many people from even trying. Any of this is like, oh, I'll run out. Ends meet both as like a creative person on the move, um, and not necessarily having like a steady income. You don't have to answer that.

Speaker 2:

But no, no, no no, it's part of it's, one of the it's. One of the main themes is that um.

Speaker 2:

I actually my, my financial situation was so intertwined with my mom's for a long time where I would use my money to buy things for her and then I didn't have money to pay my bills and I had to ask for help and I felt like a piece of shit for years because it felt like I didn't know how to manage money and also, not to mention and this happens with a lot of caregivers I was on call. I was spending hours a week cleaning my mom's house, taking care of her, doing all of these things that I was, you know, not being paid for. I did have some family help help. My mom did not get any government help because she always resisted putting a label of sick on herself, which I understand now. It was highly frustrating, but I understand autonomy and I understand now you know what a scary proposition that is to label yourself as disabled in this culture and systems. But anyway, so for a long time my money situation was was really unhealthy. I was, I was very anti-money, I was anti-rich. I was like, if I make money with my art, then that means I'm colluding with you know, then that means I'm colluding with you know, and at the beginning of this journey, the I actually I had connected a little bit previously, but I started a um, uh, it was a money circle, uh, with someone who's become a dear friend, um, and she, uh goes under the name financials for creatives. And um, jenny Carlson reframes this idea of money as energy, and for me, what it did is that I started to realize that I was not eating properly. I was living secretly in my studio without a shower.

Speaker 2:

For many years, I was, you know, not able to take care of my basic needs because I was putting my art first or my mom first, or whatever it was, and that in these last few years, my journals are full of drawings from this money deck and journaling about how to reframe this relationship with money. Thank you, money. Thank you money for a safe place to sleep tonight. You've helped me buy this food that I need and ideally, yes, I would fucking love to live in a barter system, you know, but that's not where we're at yet. Um, so I had to reframe my idea around like appreciating money and thanking it and inviting it on this adventure with me and really not just being like now I have no money, please. Like begging money to show up, you know. And now it's like I have more of this maintenance with my relationship with money. So that includes asking for help in a way that I don't talk myself into a shit, self-hating uh, you know depression before I ask for help.

Speaker 2:

Um, that was a big thing I was doing in the past, uh, but now I can. I look ahead better, I budget better because of the traveling. It taught me a lot about, realistically, what things are going to cost and the details of what I'm going to need to get from A to B. Um, so anticipating that's been a big thing, but I do a lot of. I am working the free angles. I'm working the opportunities. You know I've gotten to do a couple artist residencies and some things that on Instagram look so luxurious, but really, you know, either it didn't cost much or I was gifted something, or I do work along the way, making paintings and doing video art. I've been paid for creating music videos, doing editing for this podcast. There's ways that I have been able to work along the way. But, uh, I have also found, like you know, some opportunities through, like doing a big commission painting and staying at their gorgeous house while I do the painting. You know that type of thing.

Speaker 2:

So it's very patchwork put together and I still have money anxieties, but now I can really regulate them and call things in in a way that's like so much more positive and and healthy and proactive too, because a lot of my anxiety monies in the past were like put my head in the sand, hope it works out.

Speaker 2:

And so my, so Jenny's, jenny's favorite, my favorite piece of advice from Jenny is this warrior, magician attitude. So it's it's, with all of that like the magic things are going to come. You're, you're putting it in the universe and the warrior is the proactive. What can I do today to nurture my relationship with money or to invite money in and things like that? So, um, it's very much taking the victim mindset that I had. In the past too, I had a very victim mindset about money, uh, but taking that away and replacing it with this like warrior act, yeah, and it takes a lot, takes a lot. I still have to write about it a lot to to counteract the other messages that say that I'm not worth sleeping in a safe place because I am an artist who sticks by my. You know like that narrative is just so prevalent. It takes a lot to counteract it.

Speaker 1:

What a good answer. Thank you, that was, I think I needed to hear that. So, yeah, and like it's such a trip, it's such a mindfuck. I think to like money feels and feels and is, I guess, like an external thing, and so we think we have to do all external things to have enough money and we do, you know, like to the warrior point, like we have to do things, but also like the way that we feel towards money and all the stories we were indoctrinated with around money like become a filter for that relationship we have externally with it. And yeah, I think for creative people, relating to money is one of the most difficult things because there's so many stories about just like creativity and poverty and like having you know, so I that's just that's super helpful to hear. Good for you too, Thank you.

Speaker 2:

One last tidbit, coming from that what you said. Um so, as as I started working with Jenny's deck, which let's put in the show notes, it's such an incredible tool as I started working with it.

Speaker 2:

one of the things was I would go down to the ocean and say money loves me, money wants to come on this adventure with me.

Speaker 2:

So I started with that and that was kind of uncomfortable to say. It took me months before I realized, oh shit, I have to also tell money that I love it and to say the words out loud I love money. Like I couldn't do it and and thinking about it in this way of a reciprocal relationship. And that's when, you know, I started to really work on this, like gratitude for gratitude for it's not cute, it's not, you know for where I cannot create art, when my brain hurts because I'm hungry, like, and I've lived that life and it's not sustainable anymore, I cannot do it, and that means I have to figure out a way to take care of myself, and that means I have to have this relationship with money. And for me it's about like just enough, right, like I just want enough so that I can eat and sleep safely, and so I don't. I hate that we are, I don't want to, especially right now, this like, oh, this vulgar greed.

Speaker 2:

you know that we're witnessing makes you think, oh, it's gross to say I love money, but it's, you know, we have to again, especially as artists. We have to reframe that.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, thank you for sharing that. I that I did a course called the Trauma of Money back in, I guess, 2023. And I did the professional track and you can get their certification, which means you can use their tools and materials. It was a really holistic course, um, that I highly recommend. And since I was like late turning in my certification thing that was due actually like last week, so I the last couple of weeks I was like going back through the material and revisiting and, um, the last couple of weeks I was like going back through the material and revisiting.

Speaker 1:

And the last couple of years have been kind of fraught.

Speaker 1:

I mean, a lot of my life has been fraught with money, working in nonprofits and not really, you know, it seems like the best way to like have a steady income is to do something corporate, basically, which is not a good fit for me.

Speaker 1:

And going through these materials again, I've been like this opportunity to like do cause there's a lot of different, like facilitators who show up in the course and offer different things and talk about different aspects of like capitalism and financial literacy and course like trauma nervous system regulation.

Speaker 1:

So, but long story long like, I've been working similarly with this notion like I had to be like, oh, money is not my enemy, money is my friend and like look at all the things money has enabled me to do, even though a lot for many, you know. Most of the time I felt like I just have enough or like it's a close call, you know? Um, so yeah, when you said like yelling, I love money into the waves, like my body was also like, oh god, that's a. Um. Yeah, there's like the part of me like the little kid, like I was reading babysitter's club and I was like I want to make a little money, or like the lemonade stand. And even when I started typewriter tarot and would do readings for like 20 bucks or something at a bar or like at an event or like a market, and then come home with like this, like wad of cash, or this little like three digit number in my Venmo.

Speaker 1:

I was like this is so fun and like it's okay. You know, to feel like, wow, I did something people felt was valuable and they exchanged this with me and letting that be okay, especially while you're like, oh fuck, billionaires and uh, yeah, our whole public system is being raided so rich people can be richer Like it's yeah, it's a real mindfuck, but thank you for sharing all of that. That's really beautiful.

Speaker 2:

One last thing about the earning money. As an artist, I've had these moments, um, that I recognize. I recognize again because of what I've learned the money compass deck of doing an art project where at the end of it I recognize, oh, I'm existing in the middle of this Venn diagram of emotional fulfillment, financial fulfillment and creative fulfillment and this project hits all three of those. It's in my you know, with my integrity and, and that's the sweet spot that I'm looking for and I actually have really taken years to like weed out doing projects that don't align with that. And you know it took me time. I hustled and did a bunch of dumb, dumb stuff for years, different jobs in the past, but also with art commissions that you know hurt to draw or paint or whatever. But over time that's really been my goal is to get to that sweet spot.

Speaker 1:

I love that Emotionally, financially, creatively. Yeah, that really is where it's at, just like out there for people who can't, through their work, like, access much of that or even get to be that creative when you know 40 hours a week or whatever, um, and to you out there, we love you, keep keep creating, fight, fight for it.

Speaker 2:

Um, yeah, so I think we're at a good place in our journey and probably time-wise, I was cracking up, because whenever I'm editing these episodes and I'm like girl Cecily, another two-hour episode as I'm editing, I'm like wow, wow, and now this one. I'm like are you sure we have to go already?

Speaker 1:

You see how it happens one.

Speaker 2:

I'm like are you sure we have to go already? You see how it happens and I just want to say you, you've shouted out in the past, um, like where people are tuning in from, and it is such just a delight. I was so excited getting ready for this today. It's such an honor, a delight to get to transmit a little bit of my story and my intention to people in other places and I am like you said, we're rooting for you.

Speaker 2:

I am cheering on the dreamers in every part of the world, especially especially those of you who feel stuck and tethered, and that is who I want to connect with, especially like Lifeline. I am absolutely going back in time to my past self, who felt so stuck and alone and saying, like, just keep dreaming, just keep visualizing, imagining like the most delicious scenarios and dreams and even if a little tiny piece of them comes true, like you'll feel that satisfaction, you know, and that fulfillment, and so, um, yeah, so I just want to, yeah, send the, send love tentacles out to whoever listens to this and thank you so much for taking your time and I hope it's giving you something.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and thank you, chantal, for offering all of this in our conversation. And yeah, so there's some ways people can support and work with you. You have a Patreon. We'll come back to that. You so you also. You you offer the creative journaling workshops from time to time. You do live performance visual projections. You're available for podcast editing. You're available for podcast editing. Chantal is great. If you've got a podcast or want to start one, call Chantal. Um, yeah, what happens? Tell us about your Patreon and we'll put all of these links in the show notes. So people, and your Instagram too, so people can find you yeah, thank you so much.

Speaker 2:

I, uh, my Patreon is, you know, been limping along for a couple years. It's been a struggle for me to figure out how what to put there. It's such a different modality than Instagram as far as engagement and like what, what do these people want? And it's long form, but you know, so I'm still kind of, but it's there and I do talk about, like you know, um, so I'm still kind of, but it's there and I and I do talk about, like you know, behind the scenes of my process and what, where I'm at, what I'm working on, uh, but I would love to revive it more especially, you know, as it feels healthier and healthier to spend less time, um, in the Instagram space, but, uh, for, fortunately, unfortunately, I, my Instagram has been a living portfolio for years now.

Speaker 2:

Um, and if you do want to check out, uh, specific aspects of my work, I ha, I use hashtags as a filing system, as a portfolio, so I have hashtag Chantal DeFelice video, chantal DeFelice audio, chantal DeFelice audio, chantal DeFelice paintings, chantal DeFelice drawings and a few more. So it's hard for me to let go of that space and you know the engagement there. But, yeah, so my Instagram, I'll put it in the show notes, but it's just my name, chantal t felice patreon.

Speaker 2:

um the workshops and I guess you do commission pieces if they suit you yeah, um, yeah, I've done a couple of fulfilling portrait commissions recently, but, yeah, the live video performance and, yeah, for artist residencies, I've done a few of those, a couple over the last few years, but I'm always looking for DIY artist residencies too. Oh, okay, so getting to go spend a chunk of time at a place and and make my art, I think, um, traditional residencies are really competitive and, uh, you know, really far out, like the application and then when the residency is, and so that's been tricky for me. But, um, but I love to, you know, make trades or I think I bring a lot to a space when I come to your town For sure, beautiful.

Speaker 1:

Well, again, all of that will be in the show notes, and thank you again so much for making this podcast possible and sound good. When the episodes don't sound good, it's probably because Chantal was not involved, and thank you so much for everything that you shared.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1:

Thanks so much for listening. Creative spirits, I really appreciate having you along on this journey and I hope the conversations and, yeah, I hope what we're transmitting is bringing something good into your life. If it is, and you want more support with your creativity and magic, I recommend hopping on my email list, which is where you're going to get information from me about what I'm sharing and offering in a more timely fashion, and you'll get like more savings and more bonuses and you'll just be more in the ecosystem and there'll be more for you. So you can hop over to typewriter tarotcom and add your. Add your name and email address. I email about once a week unless I'm like really launching something, but I always give you a way to um opt out of any emails that are coming at a faster clip. So, yeah, I just want to send you some love. Thank you for listening, Thank you to Chantal for being on the show and I hope there's some creativity and magic brewing in your week and I will talk to you next time. Okay, bye.