T. Thorn Coyle on Creative Determination During Messed Up Times

In this solo episode, author Thorn Coyle discusses the importance of creativity as a form of resistance against oppression. They emphasize that love is a powerful force that can counter fear and disconnection, and that community and connection are vital for resilience. Thorn shares personal experiences and insights on how to remain creative and connected in challenging times, encouraging listeners to embrace their own magic and creativity.

You can support this podcast at https://www.patreon.com/c/ThornCoyle

Thorn mentions two upcoming Kickstarter campaigns in the show. Here are the links:

The Winding Road - Contemporary Magical Fantasy:  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thorncoyle/the-winding-road-fantasy

Evolutionary Witchcraft and Stars of Power: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thorncoyle/evolutionary-witchcraft

Transcript

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Hello, T-Thorn Coyle here with Magic, Creativity, and Life. And I'm trying something new this month. I'm considering doing some solo shows because my Patreon people said they'd be interested in those. And this episode today is very short because it's just an experiment, me talking about creativity and love. But my Patreon people will get first dibs at... asking for themes or getting questions answered, that sort of thing. But you can always leave comments on my YouTube channel or join my Patreon if you want to join in the fun. And in news, I'm still working on my Stars of Power book, which I talk about a little bit in this episode. And I have finished The Winding Road, which is my new contemporary fantasy novel. It's actually at the printer, getting proofs made set up for that. And I will be doing the Kickstarter for that in May. So please head to Kickstarter and look for my name, Thorn Coyle or the Winding Road and you can sign up to get notified upon launch. Other than that, it's springtime here. I've been enjoying my walks and doing my work despite the state of the world, which I'll also talk more about in this episode. Wishing you well. Let's dive in. Hello, welcome to the next episode of Magic, Creativity, and Life. And I'm trying something new today. I figured I would try a solo show and see how that goes. My Patreon people said they'd be interested in that. So here we are. And I'd like to talk about something that came up in a conversation I had yesterday. I met up with a writer friend I hadn't seen in a few years and In the course of our conversation, this person asked me if I was having trouble writing lately, if I was having trouble being productive. And I thought about it for a moment and said, well, I'm still writing because I refuse to let these fascists steal my creativity, my productivity, my joy and my work. So I have felt an increasing sense of determination to remain creative during this time. Because oppression is the thief of creativity. And to counter oppression, the more creative I can be, the more I'm staying in the flow of life and love and connection. And the better off I feel, the more energy I have to face the very real problems that we're all encountering these days. And the more energy and resources I have to help others right now. Whereas if I'm allowing myself to be consumed and taken over and distracted by all of the truly horrible things that are occurring right now, all my life is undermined, right? My creative flow is undermined. Who I am is undermined. And slowly I'm ground down more and more and more. And my energy gets eaten. My creativity gets eaten. My ability to help others is undermined because I don't have the energy, the wherewithal, the presence to back it up, right? And I'm not saying I'm not struggling. I'm not saying I don't have my moments of being filled with rage or disappointment. you know, or the fact that I feel as if I'm reliving things that I already thought we had dealt with in my youth, right? The stuff I fought against and marched against and blockaded against and was arrested for, for decades. Here we are. Things feel worse. Exponentially so. And that makes me determined. So every morning I light my candles. I say my prayers. and I recommit to creativity, to magic, to life itself. So I walked to a cafe today and wrote, I did two rounds of writing. The first round was fiction on a novel I'm currently working on. And the second was an entry in my Stars of Power book, which I will be kickstarting along with my 20th anniversary edition of evolutionary witchcraft in the fall. I'll leave a link at the end of the show. But I wrote something today about the point of love on the pearl pentacle. And it felt germane to this conversation. So I'm going to read that here. And the title of this section is Love is Greater than Fear. If love is the great connector, the absence of love brings disconnection, fear. Decades ago, during one round of the US war with Iraq, I used to sit in meditation outside the San Francisco Federal Building with a sign that read, Love is Greater than Fear. I still hold that message to be true. The more we live in fear, the more our connection to love constricts. There are those in the world that want nothing more than for whole groups of us to live in fear because in sundering our connections with each other, they increase their power over us all. This especially holds true for any groups. What I call the overculture is intent on making marginalized. When actively oppressed groups insist on connection, on art, beauty and community care, love triumphs. These communities survive, resilient against the onslaught of corruption, abuse and pain. Think of one single abused human. If they can find connection with one other being, their odds for survival and eventual healing increase. That has been true for myself and for many others. Love reminds us that we need one another, not only to survive, but to thrive. Love exists in the simplest of actions and encounters. Love is in the smile to the passerby. Love is in the dandelion growing in the sidewalk cracks. Love is in the kind word, the cup of coffee, the listening ear. Love exists when a group of people surround their neighbor to protect them from detention by fascists. Love exists when someone speaks up in support. Love makes us stronger, more resilient, better able to show up for the fight. Love offers rest and respite, beauty and joy. Love is the great connector. Love is always stronger than fear. And there's much more I could say on this topic, of course, but for me to continuously return to being grounded in my connection to life force and grounded in my connection to love, that's what keeps me going. Right? My anger stems from love. Right? My outrage at injustice stems from love. My wish to create stems from love. My wish to connect with you stems from love. Love is not weak. Love is powerful. Love is strong. Love does not say everything is okay. Right? This isn't whitewashing over pain, anguish, injustice. This is saying no. We stand up or we show up for what we love in the face of injustice, pain, anguish, fear. We are not going to fear control our lives. We are not going to evil, greedy people control our lives. We're going to cling and bolster and support each other. right now. And for me, part of that stems from my insistence on remembering beauty, my insistence on remaining creative, and my insistence that you will not, they will not take away my magic, my creative voice, my ability to connect. They will not take away the strength of community. I'm insisting on magic, creativity, and life today. How about you? Thanks as always for being here and for listening. Thank you so much to my Patreon supporters for making the recording and captioning of these podcasts possible. And if you're interested in following my Kickstarter campaign for Stars of Power and Evolutionary Witchcraft, I'll put the link in the show notes, or you can search for my name on Kickstarter itself. Please sign up. on Kickstarter to be alerted for when the campaign launches. The more followers a campaign has, the stronger it tends to perform and the more people it reaches. And I would love for people to be reached by my work. So thank you again, wishing you a magical creative day. And once again, thanks so much for joining me. I hope you enjoyed that podcast and it gave you some food for thought regarding creativity, life, and navigating these times. As always, you can find me at thorncoyle.com and you can support the recording, transcriptions, captioning of this podcast on my Patreon, Patreon slash thorncoyle That's C-O-Y-L-E. And other than that, I'm wishing you well and I'll talk to you next time.