S 3 E 1 Modern-Day Prophets: Featuring Spoken Word Poet Kae Tempest with Brianne & Erin

Welcome to season 3 of Loving the Imperfect!

Thank you for being patient with me over my long break. Join me this season along with my kindergarten classmate, Erin Grossi, as we introduce and discuss some modern-day prophets, people who, we believe, have at least one thing in common: the prophetic voice. The purpose of this season is to introduce listeners to some new artists and writers. We hope the selection we have for you will inspire you to read, write, and create to be a force of love in the world. 

Links to cool stuff mentioned on the show:

Hold Your Own: Poems by Kae Tempest

Book of Traps and Lessons Album by Kae Tempest

On Connection by Kae Tempest

Olga Tokarczuk's Divine Cosmos interview with the Paris Review

Kae Tempest Interview with Fe Ferraris: Musik Express

The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot read aloud

Richard Rohr's Everything Belongs Podcast

Versed Community Membership Invitation 

For more information about me and my work, please visit www.brianneturczynski.com or www.lovingtheimperfect.com

Transcript

*Welcome to Loving The Imperfect, a show for seekers of deeper contemplation. I'm Brianne Turczynski, a writer, a journalist, and an educator who has listened to the stories of many people throughout the years. I continue to read and broaden my understanding of the human condition through the stories of others.

Join me, along with my kindergarten classmate, Erin Grossi, a former educator who currently works for an education design firm. This season, we introduce and discuss some modern-day prophets—people who we believe have at least one thing in common: the prophetic voice.

The purpose of this season is to introduce listeners to some new artists and writers. We hope this selection will inspire you to read, write, and create—to be a force of love in the world.

Hello and welcome to Loving The Imperfect. We are starting a new season today! We got a new puppy, and so he kind of makes some noise in the background sometimes. His name is Yoda, and he was a rescue puppy from Texas. He's very cute, but we're hoping he is quiet.

So, anyway, welcome back to season three of Loving the Imperfect. This whole season is going to be about prophets, or people with prophetic messages who are living in our time—or were living in the last century.

The first part of this episode will be me giving you a little introduction of this person that we're highlighting during this talk. The last half of the episode will be the conversation I have with my friend, Erin.

We wanted to start out this first episode talking about the spoken word poet Kae Tempest. Tempest is a trans musical artist, a spoken word poet, and a writer. Kae was born in 1985 and started out, as he explains, as a kid who wanted to detach and numb himself from the world around him.

Usually, prophets are people who speak against the system—and that is what Kae Tempest does. He speaks against our society and how many of us are complacent and numb ourselves with all sorts of things. How do we get back to the heart? How do we get back to our souls? How do we get back to being our authentic selves?

In his book On Connection, Kae talks about creativity as a way to connect. I have found that my best work has come when I had no idea what I was doing and had to put all my trust in the Holy Spirit to help me find my way through to the finished project. This usually comes when I am doing something out of my own generosity.

It helps if you have someone waiting for you on the other side of production—waiting for your finished project, waiting to read your story, waiting for you, and with excitement.

I spent four years teaching, and a lot of my creative energy was put into teaching and doing the best job I could. I think after the four years, a lot of my creativity had been zapped out of me. I gave maybe too much of myself while I was teaching and didn’t really set up boundaries for myself.

I was listening to The Paris Review podcast the other day (I’ll put the link in the information for this show). An interviewer was speaking with the Polish author Olga Tokarczuk, and she mentioned that while writing The Books of Jacob, she gave so much of her internal energy away that a shaman told her once she had done irreparable damage to her life force energy.

I have recently gotten off social media. I get all of my news now from podcasts and The New Yorker that comes to my house. So, I am “off stage,” as Kae Tempest would say. He writes, “I learned that when you have no way off stage, you will damage yourself.”

And so, I think we have to be careful when we're in positions where we are out in front of people all the time—performing, performing, performing. We can do damage to ourselves that way. We're giving too much of our life energy away, and we need to conserve a bit of that for ourselves, to renew that creative well that exists in us.

Taking time for yourself—doing meditation every day, going on those “artist dates” that Julia Cameron talks about in her book The Artist's Way—these are very important to fill up the well.

Kae explains that his whole creative life was on stage. He would go from gig to gig, sometimes four gigs a night, four times a week—running to make it, drunk most of the time, sometimes even giving folks waiting at a bus station a show.

Then the unthinkable happened: he developed sores on his vocal cords that had to be surgically removed, and for three weeks he was forbidden to sneeze, cough, or produce any noise at all, including speech.

He writes that words had to be chosen carefully, and for the first time—with real and genuine intention—he began to listen to people, now unable to participate except by silence.

He also wrote the song “People’s Faces,” which he says is the song with which he ends his shows. It is the sunlight breaking through the clouds, he says, as most of his songs and poems, he admits, are dismal. It reminds me a lot of Isaiah or any of the prophets—their messages aren’t sunshine. They are dark and dismal too, with a little bit of hope shining through the clouds.

I’ve been listening to Richard Rohr’s podcast, which this season is a whole run-through of his book The Tears of Things, and that whole book is about prophets. So, I think I just had prophets on my mind, and I’ve wanted to do a modern-day prophet season for a long time.

According to Father Richard Rohr, prophets do not represent the system but draw their authority directly from the source—OK, Kae? The Holy Spirit, the universe, creative energy—wherever that’s coming from—in order to critique the system.

He also says that true prophets are somewhat rare.

And I will say that Kae Tempest had been recording albums—two, maybe more than that. Then he produced the album The Book of Traps and Lessons, which, to me, listening to it, seems like the first time he turned the lens of his storytelling onto himself and produced this incredibly rich, beautiful album. Sometimes the lyrics are hard to listen to, I’ll admit. But if you’re open—and you’re okay hearing the F-word maybe twice—I would encourage you to listen to that album from the first track chronologically to the eleventh track, where he ends with “People’s Faces.” It’s absolutely beautiful, masterfully written, just amazing—and so true.

He is openly going through a transformation—or was a year ago—to become a man.

In 2014, he produced a book of poetry called Hold Your Own. In that, he has a whole poem based on the Greek mythological story of Tiresias, who is both man and woman. So, in 2014, he was already telling us what was happening. He was already laying the groundwork for what he was feeling and going through.

The Book of Traps and Lessons explains more of that story—he’s just about to break through into who he really is, his authentic self. There’s also a YouTube video in which he explains this whole transition—when he decided that this must be done, that he must transition. I’ll put a link to that in the show information.

So, without further ado, here is the conversation with my friend. I hope you enjoy it.

_____________________________________________________________________________

So, I'm sitting here with Erin Grossi.

And we are kindergarten classmates.

Yeah. Yeah. We've known each other since kindergarten. We weren't really friends in high school or even middle school, really. But then I saw you walking in the park, and we started talking, and then, yeah, we get together, and every time we meet, it's like three-hour conversations.

So, my brother introduced me to this artist a long time ago, and I think I told you this story, where we were filming in Detroit, the documentary that I did with my brother. We were driving back on the highway on I75, and he's like, "You gotta listen to this song." And he started playing me the song, "People's Faces."

It hit me because we had just gotten done filming this homecoming service at the church that we were working with. So he played the song, and we're on the highway, and it's in the morning, and the highway's kind of empty at 10:00 in the morning, going north. And it was a Saturday, and it was loud, 'cause he likes to listen to it loud. And we were just completely silent listening to all the words. And I'm like, "Who is this person? This is the most amazing, perfect song that I've ever heard."

After that, I was really interested in learning all about him. And so, Kae Tempest is a trans artist, lyricist, spoken word poet, novelist. And I was just really into watching his story.

A lot of my listeners, I think, go to church, and they listen to nice things. If you've listened to his music at all, some of it is kind of upsetting. I don't like the F word if it's being referenced to sex. Like, mm-hmm, that upsets me 'cause it feels so violent. It's not like he's writing this stuff to be violent, but to tell a story, I think. But I'm just saying that I think that some of my listeners would be like, "Oh, you want me to listen to this?" and then they go listen to it, like, "Whoa!" and they're scared. So, I mean, I'm just warning you, it might be a little, yeah, upsetting, some of the music.

So I did this experiment. I watched that interview that I sent you, I'll put a link in the episode file, that everyone should go watch if they wanna understand why I am choosing this person to start season three. I've been listening to their music, but I realized that after that interview, it was The Book of Traps and Lessons, which was released in 2019, and this is the first album when Kae Tempest, I feel like, really starts to talk about themselves, starts to reflect on who they actually are. In track one, "Thirsty," you can see the story that is in that interview that I sent you is starting to come alive in here, in that album.

This album in 2019 is when he started to realize what he needed to do, what needed to be done, which was to transition. Yeah. Which is what he felt like he was all along. He felt like he was born a boy, and he was a boy until puberty hit, and then his body started changing, and he couldn't stop it, and there's nothing he could do. And so he had to sort of conform into what society wanted him to be. And so I can hear it in that album that's where he's starting to discover like what he needs to do, what must be done to live.

It's so weird 'cause I'm listening to it, and I'm also reading right now, The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot. Have you ever read that? Okay. So, I am, I'm gonna just say this 'cause you already know. Mm-hmm. But I just started, um, as a member of The Versed Poetry Community, which is led by a former Harvard professor, and you pay the monthly fee, but you have access to all these classes, and you have access to poetry workshops and fiction workshops and everything. I'm doing all the talking. Just hold on. Mm-hmm. Sorry. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And, um, teacher's a cute nerdy guy. Yeah, he is. He's so cute. He wears his sweaters and his collared shirt, and he's in his cute little Boston home or apartment or something, and with all these books, and it's so picturesque. It's exactly what you would think a Harvard professor would look like. He's just missing a pipe.

So anyways, he did a whole class on T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland, and it's amazing, and it's really coming alive for me. And so I listened to the whole recording that I'll also put a link in this podcast episode for. This woman, she must be an actress, 'cause she read that whole thing, and the whole poem just came alive even more, because she was doing the different voices. Because basically that whole poem is just fragment after fragment of like different scenes. It's like if you were standing at the side of the road watching all these people pass by.

And T.S. Eliot wrote it as a response to not only his own personal turmoil because his wife had just had an affair, his father had died, and World War I had just happened and ended, and all of these people were coming back totally blown apart, and the world now broken, and they know that they can never go back to what they were. And so he's in this poem like reaching for all these classical and romantic works, and he's, he's like, name-dropping, all these like different works throughout, like trying to grasp what used to be, but it's just falling through his fingers and all this torment and pain.

And that is what The Book of Traps and Lessons was reminding me of. It was reminding me of The Wasteland. But he ends, that whole album with "People's Faces," which is a very, very hopeful song. Just like a prophet would, there's gotta be hope mixed with the horrible stuff.

So, anyways, I just thought that was really interesting, and I wonder if anybody else picked up on that or maybe he wrote it and was thinking that too.

In this book, On Connection, he talks about creation. He says, "If you force creativity, it will not open. Trying to make it mean something kills the meaning. It should occur to you fresh in the moment. It's through you, not because of you." Which I thought was really, was good.

I know, you write. Do you write every morning, or no? Like what's your deal with writing? Yeah. What's, uh, I'll be honest, if I am going through really hard transitions, I actually am a big fan of The Artist's Way is another book by Julia Cameron. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But in that book, it's all these practices to get back onto an artist's way of living or creative way of living. She mentions the morning pages. So I really just write for my own kind of like brain dump.

So, if I'm feeling anxious or something, and I wake up with anxious thoughts, I'll kind of like, that's the first thing basically I will do is just kind of train your subconscious. You're just getting your like thoughts out, and you're not judging the thoughts. You're just literally writing anything. Anything is okay. Even if you had nothing to say, if you're getting started or whatever. And she describes this way better in the book, so I recommend checking it out. But if you're stumped, it's like there's, there's no rules, so you just kind of brain dump.

And so the more you do it, the easier it becomes, I think. But also, the thing that I think is interesting is like that one exercise is kind of to shake out thoughts, right? And she advises, I think, in the book, not to go back and read it. And I think that, that for some reason, after doing that for a while now, and I'm not a daily morning pages person by any means, but if I'm feeling off, I will go back to that little trick in my toolbox to get through some tough times.

Yeah, it can be helpful. But to go back to the question of harnessing creativity, how does that work? Is it because of me that an idea is coming to be birthed into the world? No way. Everything, I think, is like remixed, and I feel like what Kae Tempest is saying is, you're an instrument for something, for an idea to come out into the world. So, I think once you fully in your whole heart and soul and body know or understand that I know that ideas just keep coming.

And I know that's probably like a moment, but I feel like it has something to do with the idea of knowing these, ideas are not coming from me. I'm just open. Yeah. You don't stifle it with your own arrogance or try to make it something it's not. I think that it comes a lot from just being open and wanting to share things. I think that when you're doing it for yourself, then you get writer's block. Or some sort of creative block, yeah, like at work or something, yeah, because you're too caught up in, "How am I gonna get a promotion?" or "How am I gonna impress my boss?" and then it kind of goes backward.

You kind of step, take two steps back as soon as you start thinking like that. Even sharing things on social media, I'm not on Facebook or Instagram anymore, I mean, I'm on there, but I took it off my phone, so I don't engage with it anymore. It's been about two and a half months, but before, every time I posted something, I'd have to ask myself, "Why do I want to post this?"

 "What's my motive here?" "Who do I want to see this?" And that would stop me a lot from posting things, to not wanna get attention from someone, even in a way that would make people feel jealous or bad about themselves, but you also wanna talk about your successes.

It's so hard. It's like the norm on social media. Yeah. Right. But you want that because you want the affirmations. You want people to be like, "Oh, good job," and all the support like a mother or father would, but at the same time, I don't want to do that and put it out there and, and somebody feels bad about themselves because they didn't do something cool.

Yeah. I had to also get off social media, same boat. I took social media off my phone, 'cause I was just kind of noticing my own anxiety or comparison of like, "Oh, I'm not getting this thing at this point in time or at this point in life", and it wasn't helpful.

I definitely can really, I feel like this is something I'm learning, I probably will be learning throughout the rest of my life too. I do think I can identify as like a creative person, but, and that would be like in a project, or I was a former art teacher or something.

But it's also just like in life. And I would say one thing that I have a very vivid, visual, I can picture things. That's probably why I'm in now have wandered into like an architecture world. I can see how you might design the space really easy in my brain or in my mind, but then it can be challenging 'cause there's like infinite number of factors.

And that product or the final product, I don't think I've ever really experienced it being the thing that's in my mind. It's always something totally different, and I've had to learn to accept it over and over. Yeah. Again. Oh my gosh. And that's what he talks about in this book, is that it's, oh, I have it written down.

Hold on a minute.

Uh, if it's not here, it's in my quote collection that I have it in my, somewhere in the list of quotes. Yeah.

Oh my gosh. I'll have to go get it. But yeah, he says something like: You're always gonna fail when you're a writer because, and or an artist probably, because you have that vision in your head, and it never ends up the way you thought. Okay. Once you get it out into the world or out into the, on the page.

Yeah. It's never what you thought. But I think it's okay. We have to accept that it came out probably better. Maybe or more impactful. For someone else than it would've if it was exactly perfection as we defined it. 

It's funny, even walking through your home, I was like, and you've been here many years. I was like, this is such a cool place. You've got all these collections of things. And you've probably been collecting these things over time. I've been garbage picking for 15 years. Yeah. And it looks awesome.

Like you go, it's this really cool creative space. And Oh, thank you. Yeah. But it's like one of those funny things where I'm like, oh, I'm gonna set something up quickly. Or I have the vision, I'm gonna set it up. I'm gonna move quick on these things.

And it never really like ends up looking good, because it's like either too rushed, or it looks like AI did it. Yeah. Yeah. It just looks... there's something off. Yeah. Because it's like the, what's the virtue? And this is probably where I'm gonna get into like more of my spiritual beliefs, but what's the virtue behind choosing certain things and like in writing, same thing, like you're choosing words, like you're choosing just the right word.

Otherwise, don't put it in your writing. Yeah. But it also just, it's like, what's the meaning or what's the intent behind each thing that goes into like a greater picture or whatever the thing is that you're creating. And half of it, like you said, it's like you think you're in control of that, you're really not. 

Yeah. It's something that I think has to be nurtured and cultivated over a certain amount of time. And depending on what it is, like a novel, like the novel I finished, but it's still, I'm still working on it. It's been seven years. And even this morning, I thought it was finished, and then this morning I'm like, no, it needs a new beginning.

I wrote the whole beginning again. Like a weirdo. But like a poem, depending on how crazy you are, I guess. I mean, sometimes poems can even take two, three years to make. Like, T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland, I think he wrote that over the course of two years.

That makes me feel a little bit better. 'Cause I feel like, yeah, I've often like struggled with like, someone's like, "Oh, I taught art," elementary art, let's be clear. I was teaching elementary art, which, that's so cool. It was fun. Yeah. But people would be like, "Oh, you're an artist."

And I'd be like, "Eh, I'm like a creative person." Can get behind that. But you had to take a lot of art classes in college, probably. Yeah. But my trouble was, I didn't like what I was making. Oh. I struggled with it, and I would quickly give away stuff. Like, it'd be like, my stepbrother would be like, "Oh, I like that."

"Can I have it?" "Yeah. Get it outta my face." That's how I felt. Yeah. Oh my gosh. But I was thinking what you were just saying about how these incredible poets or writers or whatever, it's like taking them years to write these things. I'm like, oh, okay. Maybe the crazy brain dumps that I'm doing for 20 minutes will turn into something.

I know. It's so ridiculous.

Yeah. Um, we might have to move. I know. But you're great. And that's the problem is we're too insecure, I think. Yeah. Because I'm the same way with stuff. You just don't think that it's ever good enough.

And that's why this community that I just joined is I think really important because for the first time in my life, I have other writers that are amazing scholars. Like they, most of them it seems have their MFA. And they're like dropping linguistic terms and Shakespearean quotes off the cuff. I'm like, "Okay, I belong here?"

But it's amazing because they're actually looking at my work, and they're affirming me because they, they'll be like, "I really love this line." Everything is so complimentary. They don't critique you like in a negative way. Everybody is so kind and, what's the word I'm looking for? Like compassionate or, yeah, compassionate, but also, encouraging. And it's really important, I'm realizing how important community is in that regard.

If you're an artist or creative person or trying to make a transition, and especially like, Kae Tempest went from a girl to non-binary. I forget what year that was, 2020, I think. They were like, "Okay, I'm non-binary." His biggest fear was that people would stop listening to his music and start rejecting him because he had made this huge transition in his work, in his private life.

And then now he's really going full force with everything, and so now he's [identifying as] a transman. So that was the big fear. So, I can't imagine the fear and the sadness that people who cannot be their authentic self, even in their art, all the people that just can't, even in countries where they're not able to be, yeah, free to be themselves. And that's really sad.

So I just think it's cool because he's doing this so publicly. That interview I sent you, the sweetest person in the world is interviewing him.

Yes. Fe and Kae. Yes. It was so cute. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Really sweet. You could tell that Fe was just like the sweetest person.

One of those big questions right now is how are we respecting our neighbor? And even think really more so like focusing on our own inner dialogue and our own heart and soul or whatever to understand the questions we're grappling with. Like, if you don't actually have a process or daily habit or some kind of ritual or routine you like to do to kind of get to know your own mind, then it's really hard to help other people along that journey to the self or whatever you wanna call it.

That's something that I've been thinking about, I think a lot of people are thinking about that right now with the way things are headed in our own country. You're like, "What's happening?" And that's what I think the morning pages is so good. Yeah.

'Cause you have to sit there and like sort of filter out your thoughts. Yeah. Or even meditation. You asked me what my meditation practice was, and I forgot to ask you what yours was. Yeah. Because you're practicing Buddhism.

Yes. The meditations that I usually use are from the Buddhist tradition. So, I was telling you this afternoon before coming here, I met with a friend, and we were reading about anger. And the antidote to anger is patience. And so, in some ways, even just having that thought partner for an hour or so to read from a Dharma book is almost, it's not meditation, but it's like medicine. Yeah. For sure. 'Cause you're working it out. You're in community with someone else talking about it.

That's why community is so important. Yeah. Connection with someone else. Yeah. It's almost like a mentorship kind of, but you're both on the same kind of level. Yeah. And there's things in the tradition that I met this friend through that probably would sound so weird to anyone, random person off the street.

So it feels good to kind of, we randomly, it's like you read certain books or you preferences or whatever, and you find people that have the same interest, and you're just like, "Oh, okay. Like, you get me." Yes. Yeah. Are they like the same band or something? Yeah. Yes. It's really weird. "Okay, like, oh my gosh, I just met my best friend."

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It does help to find your people. It totally does. Yeah. Otherwise, it can be really lonely, I think. And that's why I'm gonna bring it back to Kae Tempest: that's why it's so great that he's being so public about it. Yes.

Because there are so many kids that are just like he said in that interview, that are in that moment of puberty, and they're terrified because they know that they're changing without their permission. What a strange time to think, remember back to the way he's framed that.

I can't even imagine. And when he started talking about himself, turning the camera, that lens onto his own story, that's when the music, I think, goes up about 10 levels.

All of the songs give you chills. Like "Thirsty" is so good and "People's Faces," and you're just, you get the sense of who this person is. The first couple albums he was putting the lens on everyone else. "Look at this story, look at this story, look at everything except for me." Because he was probably in such turmoil. But yet he was given such a gift of creativity, that he couldn't help but create and tell these stories. I think his authenticity is amazing because he's now opening up about who he really is.

And in our creativity, that's when our stuff gets really good. My mom told me that the other day too, and it kind of bothered me, 'cause she's like, "You are such a good writer when what you're talking about. What does that mean though, Mom? Thanks a lot." "Thank you," 'cause I wrote some fiction too. But even in the fiction, I'm in there. 

John Green's presentation last night, at Oakland University. John Green came to Oakland University, and, oh my God, the line was so long. Yeah. People were just lined all the way down into the, almost into the cafeteria to see him. And I went last night (by myself). Sorry. No, it's okay. He said that he stopped writing fiction for a while because the interviewers that were interviewing him started to pick up on little things in his book that were him.

They were like, "Oh, do you struggle with depression? Do you struggle with getting nervous kissing women?" and all this stuff. And so, he stopped writing fiction because he felt like he was under some sort of spotlight. But it's true. I mean, even fiction, the author can't help but be in there, I think.

Yeah. So, it's interesting. This is making me think about, I don't even know where I've read this or picked it up or whatever, but it's like once you basically put your art or writing out there, it's like it's not yours anymore. But maybe this is more of a question in my head right now. It's like the moment you put the work out there; you now are releasing like an old version of yourself? Yeah. Maybe. That's interesting.

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I mean, it could be maybe. But if you're like still identifying, if you're like, "Oh, I put something out there," and you're still identifying with that thing, I would be kind of vulnerable. And it's hard because not only, especially if you're kind of an amateur writer, my first novel I self-published, I'm still really insecure about that because I know there's so many mistakes, and if I were to rewrite that, it would be better, because now I have more training. But at the time, that was like me just trying to work out some stuff that I was dealing with, and it was, it was helping me. And it wasn't really going anywhere, but I didn't want it on my computer anymore. And so self-publishing it was a way to get rid of it and send it out somewhere else. 

So, did you feel an inner change when it was out there? Yeah. It was cathartic to write it, and then I just wanted to keep writing after that. Like, that was almost like a practice in writing. Like, "How do you write a novel?" "Okay. Well, I practiced it." And then I wrote my second book, and that's the one that I've still been working on for seven years. And that's been like a practice, in progress. And so I've been perfecting it and perfecting it and perfecting, till now. Like, I had this author read it. I paid him. He said it was amazing. So, I mean, I don't know. He's like, "I really think you're gonna find a home for this." And, and that was just hopeful, whether he was just being nice or whatever. But he didn't really have any negative critiques about it at all. He thought that the characters are really well developed.

And I think that's just 'cause it took me seven years to do it. And it takes time. And so like we were saying before, hurrying the process or trying to get something done quickly is just not gonna work for something that's masterful. It takes time. And I mean, you look at these people, these authors, and I read about them all the time because I need hope, right?

 Some of them like didn't even get their masterpiece until they were 70 or 80. So I need to chill out. I'm okay. Pretend time doesn't exist. Yeah. Yeah. Right. It doesn't. I actually think that's truer than the other. But we don't live in that thinking.

I just wanna end with this. So he says, "When an opera singer hits a particular note and shatters glass, they are amplifying the resonant frequency of that object. All objects have a frequency at which they resonate, including you. So, what's your frequency?"

Humans' frequencies, it's just depends on your mind, how you're feeling, what you're thinking. So, I think our frequencies can change. I love yoga. I practice yoga, and I went, I did do like a teacher training at one point, and you learn about, I mean, some really out-there stuff of like your chakras. So your chakras are, they're like up your spine, and they have, it's almost like a rainbow up your spine, but all these different colors, like energy fields.

But that's where my mind went. If you're living from a really confident place, that would be like your, I don't know what is it, like your third chakra? But it's yellow. It exudes the color yellow. Or your root chakra is red, and that's community and grounded-ness. Oh, okay.

So red represents that, so I was thinking about that with a question because I was like, "Well, I don't know, how do you know that your frequency is putting out a certain thing or message?" And it made me think about the colors and the chakra system.

 I'm curious about it, and I changed my mind a lot. But what I think is for sure true is simply like even today when I was reading about anger and patience. So, watching your mind, if I'm feeling, if I feel annoyed or something, okay, I'm watching my mind.

I'm feeling annoyed or angry. This is an opportunity to practice patience. So I would imagine the frequency I'm putting out there, if I'm really focusing on patience and enjoying it, I'm gonna focus on patience versus being like, "Gosh," and just go down the rabbit hole of anger. So, what frequency do I wanna put out? I am trained to train in patience.

So that's kind of how I interpreted that question. That's an interesting, I love that interpretation. It's my random wild brain, like going in a thousand directions. But yeah, because I think that he meant it like, what lights you up? Like what, what inspires you? What really gets you going? But that's interesting because if it is connection, music, that's creating some sort of community. If I'm angry, I'm not gonna connect with anybody. Why would you choose a negative frequency or whatever, when you can choose something that's like way more fun?

See the bright side of the situation, like that. I mean, you're alive. The blood is going through you. You can breathe. You have your life. But I think what you said with like the music, you find your people, you find your truth seekers, and it'll show up in a range of things. But what lights you up? What lights me personally up? Yeah. Like so many things. Music, for sure. But is it the lyrics that you love? Or the beat or the rhythm? Like what is it?

I love reading lyrics. I think I told you this story, but growing up, we had the tune room. We still have the tune room at home; there's no TVs. It's literally my stepdad's amp, perfectly tuned to just the right sound.

And we would, as a kid, we'd just sit there and listen. And he would be like, "Okay, what'd you think of the sound? What'd you hear? What do you think the song meant?" And I just always preferred listening or trying to figure out the lyrics. So I think that's where you and I connect too, there's something about poetry or lyrics that it's just so juicy or something. That's something that's lighting me up. I'm just interested.

Words are really important, and yeah, that's why I've been really into this study of poetry lately, just trying to understand it. Like why do they capitalize some words? Yeah. And some people don't. And is meter really important? Like, I don't know.

"How are you judging my poems? I've been rejected how many times," and I'm like, "What is the secret?" Um, but that's good. You're getting like the reps in by putting your work out there, which I need to. Yeah. I would love to build up the courage to do that. Yeah. You just have to like get used to rejection 24/7. 

But these people that have their poems on this Versed Community, I'm telling you, I mean, there's a football game that's just like a mile away, and it's really loud. So if you hear it, that's what that is. It's that rivalry game we were talking about earlier. Um, but these people are amazing poets, and they get rejected all the time.

So that makes me feel better too, 'cause we're all in the same boat. And all of our poetry is great, 'cause it's from us, and it's authentic, and that's all there is to it. And I'm just happy that somebody sees it. I don't have to get paid or have accolades or anything, but I just want somebody to read it. Someone else besides my mother. 

Maybe next time you can share something new. Actually, when you were saying that, it was making me think about all of the really, really good songs or books, I know, or poetry, super thoughtful, tons of great messaging behind it, great virtues behind it, and just for whatever reason, didn't get out into the public. Right. I think about that all the time, which is actually kind of a beautiful, that gives me hope actually, more than anything.

Right. I think of the stuff that was burned in all the cities for thousands of years, in somebody's house. Cities that were taken over by other people, and they just would burn everything. What journal was amazing that somebody burned?

That's what John Green was also saying. I'm gonna bring him up again. Last night he said the reason that he got into writing was because he was working at this publisher, and he was just a data entry guy. So he didn't have anything to do with the actual publishing part.

Yeah. I'm sure he met a lot of people though. I don't know, but whatever. Yeah. I won't be there. It'll happen. It's on the way. But he said that this publishing company reviewed books for a living. Like that's what they did. And there were 400 books a week being reviewed. And he's like, if there are this many books getting reviewed and published and out into the world, then I could write a book. And that was kind of his mentality. So he wrote a book before he started Crash Course, which was his big YouTube channel that he did with his brother. But I thought that was interesting. He saw that and thought hope.

Whereas I would see that and start thinking like, "These people are so much better than me. I could never do this." Yeah. I don't know. Maybe if you saw that money though, coming down the line, you'd be like, "All these people, come on." It's hard to keep your confidence up when you're putting it out there.

But like you said, to go back to like connection, to have a group or like people that you can relate with to be like, "Yeah, it's scary, but I'm gonna keep going anyway."

And to see other people do it too and cheer each other on. Right. It's nice. Yeah. I had this one lady, I put this probably the best poem I've ever written, and I put it out there because I was really proud of it, and I was like, "I want this to be the first poem that I put in this manuscript I'm putting together." She was like, "Well, how much feedback do you want?" I'm like, "I'm not attached to it. Say whatever you want." I was like, trying to be cool, but I was like, "Yeah, like please don't hurt me." She started saying, "You need a line break here, line break here," like, I'm like, "Is this your poem?"I actually took two of her suggestions just for certain line breaks, but I did it my way.

Yeah. It wasn't like her way, but it was like, "Okay, yeah, I can see how this could be." Oh my gosh, yes. It could be this. And it turned out so much better. So I'm glad, yeah, that she kind of ripped it apart. Good on you for like, getting feedback from someone out of someone different. When something's your own, I fully understand what you're saying. Like, yeah, you do not, you really have to agree. And that's where I think even going back to the start of the conversation of ideas aren't our own, they're like coming through you.

Yeah. And even when you're writing something, right? You have editors. They're giving their spin. I know. Yeah. When does it end? Like when does it actually become yours again? Yeah. I don't know.

I feel like my stuff comes from the Holy Spirit, the universe or the creative spirit that flows through us that makes us co-creators with the ultimate creator. It's so hard. Feedback's like trying on clothes.

Yeah. You don't have to keep it all on. Yeah. Like, you might wanna fit into that size. It's just not, it's not for my body. Right? It's hard.

Well, thanks so much for doing this. That was fun. Well, this is just like a normal conversation. So it's, yeah, I know. Any final words you wanna say? No, just thank you.

Thank you. 

Thank you for joining us on Loving the Imperfect. Next time we will gather to enjoy the writings and wisdom of Mirabai Starr, an author, speaker, retreat leader, and translator of the mystics. I hope you will enjoy that episode. I hope you enjoyed this one, and we will see you next time.

New episodes will launch on the first Wednesday of every month. So, we look forward to creating these episodes for you, and we're excited for the months ahead. Thank you for joining us today. I hope you have a good rest of your week and the rest of your month.

And we'll see you next time. Bye-bye. Bye.

*Transcribed with the help of AI software