Living a devoted creative life with Carolyn Yoo

This episode is for the seasonal artists, contemplative writers, and sensitive souls. 

In this gentle conversation, Emily speaks with artist and writer Carolyn Yoo about living a devoted creative life, weaving the spiritual into our artmaking, and attuning to natural cycles and rhythms. 

Tune in to hear Emily and Carolyn discuss…

• Reflections on devotion, discipline, and the tarot 
• The Ouroboros and whole integration of the creative process
• What it means to be quietly public as an artist on the internet 
• Seasonal living, writing, and zine making 

To learn more about Carolyn, her offerings, and creations visit www.carolynyoo.com and subscribe to her newsletter.

Thank you Bre Legan for our artwork and Paul Krasnoshchok for our music.

Resources & Links
🌹𖠿 Join the Gates of Venus waitlist
🌱✨ Subscribe to the Soil and Stars newsletter
🌔🌀 Receive the free Lunar Living guide and attune to the gentle, nourishing cycle of the Moon

Transcript

Intro

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Welcome to Soil and Stars, a podcast exploring our interconnectedness and unique roles within the web of life. I'm your host, Emily Hall, and I invite you to awaken your mind, open your heart, and remember that you are made of soil and stars. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Soil and Stars, a podcast where we enchant and deepen our relationship with the living world and cosmos. I am so grateful to have you here with us. I am grateful for your attention and your presence. It means a lot that you are choosing to listen and support this podcast. And it is officially Leo season. Woo! I'm so excited. And the day that this episode is released into the world is on the Jupiter Kazimi and Leo. And I'm very excited because I am a Leo Rising. And so Jupiter and Leo, when you have Jupiter transiting through your first house, not that that transit won't come with its challenges, but I am just here to be open to receive all of the abundance and blessings and confidence and authentic creative expression that Jupiter and Leo has to offer. And I think when we really meet these transits, I think they really meet us where we're at in our journey. So and Jupiter expands everything they touch. And so, of course, if we are in a moment of struggle, of contraction, of anxiety, a Jupiter transit can amplify those struggles. And so just know wherever Leo falls in your chart, Jupiter and Leo for the next year is coming to offer some lessons, perhaps some blessings and really invitations to grow, to evolve, to transform. And yeah, I love Leo season. I think my two favorite times of year we're looking at micro seasons through when the sun is transiting through the 12 zodiac signs. My number one favorite micro season is Taurus season because I am a Taurus son. And my number two favorite season is Leo season because there's just something so energizing about the sun transiting through my first house. It really does feel like this burst of vitality and energy. Leo season is midsummer in the northern hemisphere, and it's just such a time of aliveness, of being out in the world, connecting with the vibrance of the earth, hanging out with my friends and my community and going to see concerts or going to music festivals or just kicking it at the beach with my partner and swimming in the lake. So it is just such a beautiful time full of vitality. And so I hope this Leo season brings all of us that sunshiny warmth, that deep connection to our heart space. And I hope we all get to experience a little Jupiter kazimi magic. And for those who don't know what a kazimi is, this is when the sun and Jupiter conjoin, because kazimi means in the heart of. It's whenever a planet is directly conjoined, the sun. And think of that planet as being in the heart of the sun, receiving that warmth, that life-giving energy and vitality of the sun for a fleeting moment. And just how can we open ourselves to receive that boost and that vitality? So I'm wishing you all many infinite and grounded Jupiter Kazimi blessings. And so this week we are continuing to explore all the many faces and sides of Venus. And if this is your first time tuning into Soil and Stars, welcome. I'm so grateful that you are here. And I invite you to venture back and listen to a couple of previous episodes for more context. But this season is in devotion to the Venus. And so each conversation I have, we are revealing different sides and different dimensions of Venus. And each guest is revealing that through their insight, right? Through their body of work, through their creative expression. And so I was really excited to connect with an artist, yet another artist. I really love speaking with artists. They inspire me, they nourish me, and we need more creative beings in the world. And inherently, I do believe we are all creative beings and we can look to the artists who are really embodying their creative life force for guidance, for support, for wisdom. And I love when artists are really transparent and open about their process because everyone's process is so unique to them. And I just I have learned so much about my own creative process through reading about and receiving glimpses into other artists' processes. So

Meet Carolyn Yoo

SPEAKER_01 5:50

this week's guest is a lovely artist, and our conversation was so grounding, so gentle, so soft, so nourishing. And I really appreciate that this artist, a big thread of their work is giving us a glimpse into their process and supporting other creatives in uncovering and finding their process. So I hope you will enjoy this conversation. And my guest is a fellow Leo Rising. So I hope she is really receiving this lovely blessing of Jupiter and Leo and the sun in Leo. So let me tell you about our fabulous guest today. Her name is Carolyn Yu, and she is a Korean-American artist and writer based in Brooklyn, New York. Carolyn is devoted to self-reflection, self-discovery, and honest storytelling in her creative practice, brought to life with hand-drawn lines and analog textures. Carolyn is also passionate about encouraging others to engage in creative practice through her weekly newsletter, CU, and in-person and online workshops. We have such an expansive conversation. Carolyn really weaves the spiritual and the seasonal and the cyclical into her creative life, just as I do, which is why I feel a resonance with her creative work in the world. And so this episode, we really peel back the layers of Carolyn's creative practice and we talk a little bit about devotion and what it means to her to really live this question of what it means to live a devoted creative life. So I hope you enjoy this conversation with Carolyn, and I hope you have a very blessed Leo season. Hi, so happy to be here. Thanks, Emily. I am so grateful to have you here and talk with you about your art practice, what it's like to be a working artist in the world, and some of the different projects and threads that you weave through your art and your writing. So I would love if we could begin, if you could share a little bit about yourself and anything that's on your heart today.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Absolutely. So yes, my name's Carolyn Yu. I'm an artist, a writer, um illustrator, zine maker, lots of hats. And really, my question for making is to explore what it means to live a devoted creative life. I love exploring different patterns, whether it's like seasons or moon cycles, as a path towards self-understanding and documenting a lot of my own art practices, whether that's drawing or painting or writing, and how through all of the different mediums we can come to understand ourselves and discover ourselves through the process of making.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

I love that so much. What

Devotion, discipline, and the tarot

SPEAKER_01 9:14

does devotion mean to you and how do you practice that?

SPEAKER_00 9:18

I think devotion is tough because for a long time I didn't even consider the word. I just thought of like discipline as the all-reigning guiding principle towards making anything happen. I would say I was very productivity-pilled in my 20s and was like doing all the bullet journal um stuff. But I think devotion is um a curiosity to kind of ask and tend to the questions and show up to a practice as a means of engaging with those questions rather than having to reach a certain goal or intended outcome. So it's really like a matter of um staying in that like liminal space of grappling with, you know, a question or a curiosity of something that you have and trying to have a relationship with it through whatever practice you have, whether that's, you know, drawing or writing.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Thank you for sharing that. And I'm actually just remembering, I I love the word devotion. And, you know, I this this season of the podcast, as I shared with you, is really centered on Venus. And I think devotion is such a Venus word. And I have a, I really do feel like devotion is kind of like a way of being and an orientation, and it's how I like to show up in the world. So I'm always so curious how other people relate to that word. And I just remembered, Carolyn, as I was preparing for our conversation today, I actually read your Substack piece where you wrote about discipline and devotion and the difference between the two. And I really liked maybe we could weave a little bit of tarot in. And I remember in the piece that you wrote, you had the page of pentacles representing devotion as the card of devotion, which I have never thought of the page of pentacles in that way. And I love it. It resonated very deeply with me. I was like, oh, aha, yes, that makes so much sense. And then I think it was the eight of pentacles for discipline. So I was wondering if you'd want to speak to that a little more.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Absolutely. Yeah, I'll start with Eight of Pentacles, which has the man on the bench, you know, making what I assume are pentacles, and he has like a stack of a stack of coins already. And yeah, I think it's kind of that like factory worker sort of imagery we have of, you know, growing up and seeing um people work and being in a nine to five. You just like put in the hours, make the things, and you keep going. Um, and there's, you know, like I I think you can see the man like clearly focused on his work, but there's no real expression of joy or pleasure. It's just like, you know, this is what I'm doing to make my bread to survive. And yeah, contrasting that with Page of Pentacles, you know, the pages are always so playful in whichever element they embrace. And this is in the sign of the pentacles of the earth. And so I think it's really like bringing this act of like expansion of possibility and like bringing a like playful reimagining to that sort of grounded everyday. And I feel like that's really what devotion is no matter how well or not well a certain like project is going or an outcome of like a certain piece that you're working on, just like holding that sense of curiosity and like and finding new ways to engage and approach it, I think is very page-like energy.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

I love that. I'm so grateful. I love talking to other people about the tarot and their relationship with the tarot because it just expands my own understanding and relationship with these cards. And I agree, the pages, there's such a child-like whimsy and joy and like a beginner's mind, but the beginner's mind that comes, um, I believe it's Lindsay Mack talks about how the court cards in particular, they have integrated the aces through the tens. So they hold that wisdom and that lived experience of going through that minor arcana journey of the aces through the tens of their suit. And so then we get to the court cards, and the pages are the first ones of the court cards, and they are so childlike. And I feel like when we've been through a journey that has struggle in it, that we've learned something about ourselves, that we've changed, we've grown, and we can return to that childlike wonder and awe and being just baffled and just so in love with the world. And I love that about the pages. So thank you for sharing that with us. And Carolyn, we we chatted a little bit about astrology uh before we hit record. Would you be willing to share your sun, moon, and rising with the listeners?

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Of course. Yes. So I'm a Virgo sun and a Pisces moon, born under a full moon. Um, and I am a Leo rising.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

Yay! Oh, so beautiful. Yes. Fellow Leo Risings unite. Wonderful. Well, Carolyn, I also um was kind of putting a pin in. You said, I feel like this is a good segue. Um, I want to hear a little bit about the journey. You know, you're talking about tarot, talking about astrology, and I feel like these kind of divinatory tools and practices are really like support for us on our life journey. And so um, you mentioned in your 20s being productivity pilled. And I just so deeply resonated with that when you said that I too have been a high achiever and like a work very hard to strive and to achieve and to do well, and really kind of in the context of like a capitalist workplace and having that uh for me, that conditioning of well, if I want to succeed in the world, then that means climbing a specific career ladder. And so I know you have had a past life before becoming a working artist, you know, working

Carolyn’s journey of becoming an artist

SPEAKER_01 15:36

in tech. So I was wondering if you could share a little bit about your story and this journey that you've been on to becoming a full-time working artist. Of course.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Yes. So I've always been journaling and writing my whole life and sort of kept that as a hobby. Um, but yeah, after graduating from college, I was working in marketing for a bit, found that really unfulfilling. So I pivoted to become a software engineer, which I worked as a software engineer for about a decade in tech. And the like difference between engineering and art is like quite great, especially the kind of art that I make, which is like mostly analog, very childlike. And I think I was always using my art practice as a way to counter the like kind of stuck body that I was in while working as an engineer. Like I was just my day job was just like glued. I was very glued to my laptop. I was like on Slack or like cycling through all the tabs and like always in a sort of like urgent reactive state to kind of deal with any, you know, bugs or things that were happening across the different products I was working on. So art was this real like safe haven for me to kind of like bring myself back to my body and my imagination. And yeah, I think though, you know, as I mentioned, being productivity-pilled, I was wanting to really like make that a career or like find some sort of exit strategy from tech. Um, so I began as a freelance illustrator around 2022 and was just juggling lots of different, you know, work projects and like side projects and all sorts of things during that time. And I could like see how it was affecting my art practice in a way that I just like felt a lot of pressure in terms of like whether a project was going well or like how I was feeling towards it. It was all being like kind of cooked in a high-pressure container that I was creating on my own accord. So yeah, I think it took a while for me to decide to leave the industry, but I did eventually in 2024. And now my um kind of like since then have been repairing my own relationship with pleasure and with embodiment. I think because I grew up my father was a software engineer as well, and I like grew up in a very tech-oriented household, and I was like an indoor kid, did not spend that much time outside, um, you know, which I I love my bookworm energy, but I'm also like been, I've been repairing my own relationship with um, you know, feeling comfortable being outdoors and like relishing in all the splendor of nature. And I I I'm feeling that it took me the severance from corporate life for me to really be able to repair and heal that part of myself that was missing.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

Thank you so much for sharing a bit about your journey with us. And I'm really curious. I totally love journaling as well. I feel like journaling is like the heartbeat of my healing practices, my spiritual and magical practices, and my creative life as well. Like just coming to the page and putting, you know, analog page, putting pen to paper. It really is just where everything that's underneath the surface and in my inner realms can just come out. I also have a Gemini moon. So it is very amplified for me sometimes to feel to truly feel or to understand what's going on within my own psyche and within my own body and within my own life. Like I really need to process it either verbally with a friend or written on the page. And so I really feel like these writing practices, these art practices are, I feel like we to be human is to create. I feel like we are all creative beings and that can take many shapes and many forms. And it's almost this journey of like deconstructing what we were told creativity and art making is, and that actually viewing life is really an art making practice, whether it's cooking a meal or hosting a gathering or tending a garden or painting or taking photos, there are so many creative acts in life, and I feel like they really do nourish our bodies and our spirits and our soul and really support our healing and

Slowing down and reflecting through journaling and creating

SPEAKER_01 20:25

growth. So I'm curious for you, Carolyn, how has your writing practice and your art making, how is how have you seen that support your own healing and growth over the years?

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Absolutely. Yeah, I think first and foremost, like journaling, as you mentioned, has been so helpful. I think the most helpful thing is that it leaves room for slowness and reflection. Um, it doesn't like demand answers from you. Um, I kind of turn to my journals as a way to slow down and just explore a lot of questions that I'm grappling with without feeling that I need to like come up with answers right away. And I can tell if I've been like overwhelmed or not well, if I'm like avoiding my practice of journaling, which happens sometimes. So that's like an extra sort of sign that I need to like slow down my nervous system and just get back to just discovering like what might want to come out on the page. But I think for both art and writing, the more that I've been creating and sharing in the world, I've been realizing that a lot of what I make is really for myself. It's like my own medicine. And so, like, you know, I I create things that are either a way for me to process some event or experience that happened, or it's a thing that's in response to like something that I just went through. And then I'll see the sort of like spiral patterns of that sort of conundrum or. like challenge coming again. And so like even the past past writing or art that I've made, I'll like rediscover and see like, oh, I actually needed to hear that message again. And I think it's kind of um a reminder, like the practice of writing or creating can be a reminder of the things that are important to us and how like it's a way for us to like re like entrench the sort of beliefs or values that we want to retain that we might forget otherwise. So that's kind of how I approach art and writing.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

I love that. And and one thing you've shared um in your newsletter on Substack, which is called See You, which has to be a play, a play on your name, Teryl and you, right? I was like, it took me a moment and then I was like, wait, I get it. See you. And you've written about in your own art practice that writing is a through line, that it's not only the illustration or the zine making or whatever you're engaged, whatever medium you're engaging with, but that part of like the integration or the sharing or the digestion is writing about it. So I'm curious if you would share it a little bit more because I don't think every artist out there is writing about their art practice. Like I think that is unique and it's something I deeply resonate with. I too am a writer and obviously a podcaster. I need to verbally process and share my process to integrate it, to understand it, to deepen my relationship with it.

Generating, making, and releasing with the Ouroboros

SPEAKER_01 23:37

So what is it about this relationship between writing and the rest of your creativity in art making?

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Yeah, I I think that for me writing about myself or my practice is on honestly it's a compulsion. It's something that I'm unable to turn off. And you know usually one would think these are things that you privately put in your journals and there's no need to like have to share. You could just share the work. But I think how I like to approach you know this more reflective style of writing is a concept of the Ouroboros, which is um it's the visual of a snake eating its own tail. So that's just like a cycle of the snake eating itself great uh symbol if you want to look up the imagery for that. But I kind of use that symbol as a way for like whole integration of the writing process. So obviously there's like the generation stage of the ideas and then like the making of it. But it's that last part um the sharing of it that's like the part where there the actual digestion can happen. I found that like if I'm just reflecting on my own and not necessarily letting go, which I associate with the act of sharing then all of that sort of like the thoughts and the energies are just kind of stuck within me. And it's only through like fully releasing it, sharing it in the wild that I'm able to like clear it out of my system. And so I think this it has been really helpful when I like teach this concept to other writers too that like we're not sharing to have to like promote our work or because we believe that all these people are going to read it because that's exactly what's going to block people because they're like no one's going to read it therefore I don't have to share. But the act of sharing is really just for us to digest the experience and move on and really be able to like clear the space for the next thing to arise because if we just hold on to it on our own, I think it kind of still lives and stagnates within the body I so deeply resonate.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

I feel like this is a very like mercuryal nature that it's writing and releasing and sending it on its way as part of that integration process. And you mentioned that you have a Virgo stellium and do you have mercury and Virgo?

SPEAKER_00 26:10

Yes Mercury and Jupiter.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Wow such a powerful Mercury placement Mercury and Virgo to me that is Mercury's manifestation as the psycho pump that is that guide that is ushering beings to the underworld guiding souls on their journeys and it really is that process of going from the upper world to the underworld and then back again. So I can see even this connection between the Ouroboros and Mercury and Virgo and the psycho pump. And so I just so deeply resonate with what everything that you're sharing because that is so such a lived experience for me as well. And although I don't have any Virgo placements like I shared I have a Gemini moon and you know both of us are Leo Risings and have this Virgo second house and this Virgo way of being in the world is really how I resource myself. And so a lot of this sharing and expressing and writing and podcasting is is a big part of my life as well. And so I'm just really grateful to be connected with you and hear how writing and sharing is really a big part of your creative process. And then I believe you have a writer's group called Ouroboros, which I don't know if I'm saying that correct.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

I think you are

Writing group to give and receive compassionate feedback

SPEAKER_00 27:28

but would you be willing to talk a little bit about this writing group yes um we just did our first season in the spring about a month ago we concluded our first Ouroboros writing group and it really came out of a place of wanting to be in a small group of writers and exchange work. You know I used to write more fiction and I took a lot of workshops around New York City where I live and always as part of workshops there's a part where you like submit your drafts and everyone like gives you feedback and it's it's very nerve-wracking but also very helpful. And I wanted a version of that in a softer container for artists and writers who are writing about their own creative practice, which is not really a form that is necessarily that there are going to be classes about or is like supported in an institutional setting. So yeah I wanted to explore the Ourobor cycle and kind of emphasize the ways in which we can share and generate ideas for talking about our own practices and the different shapes that that that can take outside of the sort of linear or like here's how to do XYZ kind of article and narrative. So it's it was really really lovely just to see folks sharing their writing with other folks for the first time and receiving like an actual close reading of it from readers, which I think is it's really rare to receive that you know in the online space even if you publish your writing you might like get some nice comments but people aren't really like saying oh I really loved this sentence and like maybe I was more curious to like find out about this other section. So facilitating that um experience of getting seeing people like receive and give feedback to each other for the first time was just so wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

That sounds so nourishing like I wow yeah I feel like I love a writer's circle. I have not actually participated in one but it is something that I have been saying for a while now like it would be really nice to just be in a space with other writers and I come into writing very much like self-taught you know how to love writing as a child kind of lost it in my teenage and and young adult years and then came back to it you know around my Saturn return. And I don't I I write publicly I write a newsletter I share it but I don't ever really send my unfinished writing to a group or to other writers to get that feedback. And I feel like that feedback is such an impactful and meaningful part of the creative process. And for those of us who have sensitive nervous systems or perhaps are neurodivergent and may struggle with like rejection sensitivity, I feel like this is also not only supporting the writing practice, but even like serving the person in cultivating capacity to receive feedback and to receive you know maybe critique I don't know if that's the right word, but from a generative place, not from a I'm criticizing you, I'm shaming you, I'm criticizing your writing, but from a generative space of honestly sharing that so I'm really grateful that you have that space that just is I think such a beautiful part of the writing process and definitely something I'm interested in exploring more as I deepen my own writing practice.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

Absolutely yeah I think I was very intentional about structuring how the feedback process would go just because I know that's um you know most of the other of the writers who've joined the group are also self-taught or there are also people who've like been in educational um systems where they've received feedback um especially as like people of color or people telling um more transgressive or you know like out of the norm stories and just receiving like really hurtful feedback like I don't get it or like why would you write about this? So I yeah I was very intentional in in setting up like framing everything from a lens of curiosity or wanting to know more about things and really starting grounding the feedback beginning with all the things that we appreciated about the piece as well. And yeah I think it's also just an invitation to like somatically track what is going on in the body while people are um closely reading and giving feedback on your work which is something that yeah frankly I too like avoid I I love working like in a cave without any intervention. And so yeah just having like a small space to really see how I can like nourish my own nervous system while being in a more vulnerable space of receiving feedback is really helpful to have.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

How lovely that you've cultivated this space and with such intentionality. Are you offering that space again in the future?

SPEAKER_00 32:54

Yes um I think we'll be back probably late August um to September.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

Wonderful well and this episode will air at the end of July so I will be sure to link that in the show notes for anyone any writers out there who may be interested in joining Carolyn's Beautiful Space. So with that

A seasonal glimpse into Carolyn’s creative life

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Carolyn I'd be really curious can you you know right now as we're recording it's just after the summer solstice and this episode will be released into the wild about a month from now so we'll still be in summer we'll be in midsummer it'll be Leo season um so can you give us a snapshot of your creative practice and creative life at this moment or this season in time absolutely so you're catching me at a at a good time a funny time because I've just been in the woods in North Carolina for two weeks um very deep in like the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains where I was on a writing residency with about five other residents there.

SPEAKER_00 33:57

And I have never spent that long just only working on my you know creative work without any other sort of duties or even needing needing to like cook my own meals nor have I really like spent that long in the woods. And so it was a really really refreshing and like rehabilitating time for me not only in terms of like my creative work and like getting to immerse more in a world but also to feel closer with nature and like speak to the trees and feel feel you know like identify more of the plants and birds and wildlife that were out there. So yeah I would say right now I'm sort of easing my way back into city life after the residency. While I was there I started working on two personal essays one of which I will try to get to publish and another which I don't know if I'll be sharing. But yeah, I think part of that was trying to be more comfortable writing things that might feel too personal to share publicly but just seeing where it goes anyway. And then the thing I'm most excited about that I worked on while I was there was I wrote a short story like um kind of more of like a myth or a fable and I was making a bunch of illustrations um to depict that world and so that idea feels very alive for me right now. So I hope to continue working on that and release that in some form. Also I was surrounded by um at least three other residents were poets. So I usually don't write poetry but I think summer is a great time to just sit out in the sun, write poems and um yeah revel in like the ways that you can write that just like can be so much more sensory and like pleasurable and I think that ties to the sort of Venus and Leo energy poetry and Venus I feel like are a one-to-one match. So yeah I think those are the different scattered seeds of things that are on my mind right now.

SPEAKER_01 36:14

Thank you for that snapshot. I love that and I know that the seasons are right you like you mentioned that the cycles and the seasons and the patterns at the beginning are really big muses or inspirations or influences in your art making. So um how lovely that you got to experience that residency in the woods and and be a little bit more immersed in a different environment versus a big city. So that sounds like a lovely experience and when you were talking about writing a deeply vulnerable personal essay that's maybe pushing the boundaries of what feels too personal to share, I was actually thinking of your Venus and Leo placement because to me Leo is the sign of authenticity of this really raw just like essence of who we are at our core and Venus and Leo being that authentic that just I feel like that creation that comes directly from the heart space unfiltered just shines out into the world and it can be a deeply vulnerable space. So I could see just yeah is it is it too vulnerable to share I'm always like share it. I'm like I'm a recovering oversharer and I have learned a lot more boundaries around oversharing and but it's also for me my writing style is personal essays always and you know weaving in the things that I love like astrology and seasonal living and herbalism and my relationship with the earth but always through this lens of personal narrative and personal storytelling. So thank you for sharing that snapshot with us.

Weaving the spiritual and the creative

SPEAKER_01 37:57

So I would love to hear a little bit more you know we've been touching a little bit on spirituality. We mentioned the tarot we've been talking about astrology and I know on your website you do name that spirituality is woven into your creative work.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

So how does spirituality weave into your creative life and are there any spiritual practices that are really that really nourish your creativity absolutely yeah I think the more that I create and the more the more separately I've been um living apart from a corporate job I realize how much um spirituality and creativity are really intertwined. I think the top way that I experience this is through nature whether it's walking in nature in the spring I like I really enjoy seeing all the new flowers bloom and painting that outside. And I think that relationship is reflected um in my creative work and the seasonal zines that I make as well. And so I would say I think that spirituality is or like that devoted practice of um tending to spirit from a creative lens is most present in drawing for me because drawing is such a way to look at the world closely and give it attention and in that sort of attention is the sort of reciprocal relationship that you're developing with place. So I would say drawing is the practice that nourishes me most but separately from that I think you know I love doing yoga and meditation chanting and like getting back in my body going on silent retreats like all of those have been hugely helpful to just like cultivate the inner mind a silent retreat feels very aligned for someone with a Virgostallium because there's this connection I love silent retreats yeah I look I all my friends were like why would you sign up to do that? And I was like I'm like super at peace here like I was not worried one bit about not having not being able to like talk to anybody for a week so there's this connection you know there's a relationship between astrology and tarot and Virgo is connected to the hermit card in the tarot.

SPEAKER_01 41:09

So that quiet practitioner you mentioned earlier in your creative practice you like being in that cave and I'm just really feeling that hermit energy kind of emanating from the stories that you're sharing and uh the silent retreats just feel very aligned. So for any listeners who have heavy Virgo placements maybe a silent retreat is is uh is the right fit for you. So this actually I feel like the silent retreat also kind of weaves into I'd love to talk about some of these other projects that you're working on Carolyn. You know you do have the seasonal zines which are so lovely. And you also recently started a new series on your newsletter on Substack called Quietly Public, which is feels to me in my astrological worldview and lens that I have this quietly public. This public part to me is the Leo rising and then the quietly is this Virgostelium. So I'm

Being quietly public on the internet

SPEAKER_01 42:08

curious if you could tell us about Quietly Public and what does it mean to be quietly public as an artist on the internet.

SPEAKER_00 42:16

For sure thank you. Yeah so I I came up with that phrase um a few months ago quietly public and for me it's um a sort of reaction towards you know what we see on social media and what people tell us is like the way to grow a business or grow an audience now is to put your face out there and you know pitch something or like sell something or at least like be an educational expert about something. In contrast with that, I think Quietly Public is to prioritize building and inhabiting your own world on the internet I'm really thinking back to when I fell in love with the internet as a child, um making my own websites and I, you know, I've been online blogging on the internet for God knows how long, since I was like in fifth grade. So having that own like journal online and like setting your own colors and things um is a way to be quietly public to me to kind of set your own norms of what is kept public and what's private and not being expected to share anything beyond what you personally want to share. I think for some people you know like an online diary might be like incredibly personal and wild to share but like on the other hand there are people who are like so happy to share all of their inner life but like they don't want their face or any photos of themselves attached to it whatsoever. And other people could be the opposite. So just choosing your own flavor of um how you might want to Keep things private, but still be able to show up on the internet and resist having to like perform any sort of creative work that you don't want to. And I think one last part of being quietly public is embracing the different interests and rabbit holes that you might have. And so I think one way of doing this is through digital gardening. That's my, that's my sort of way of showing up on the internet with all of my different research rabbit holes and things that I'm thinking about or different values and beliefs that I have. And just sort of like dumping them all online for someone to discover and weave through when they find it. But also, you know, it's not, I'm not like sending that in like a newsletter or social media post being like, you have to read this, or like, you need to think about this. It's just sort of like simmering, it's like a simmering library for someone who wants to come through.

SPEAKER_01 44:57

I love that. I like the image of we of someone weeding through your digital garden that it's a little bit, you know, it's a little bit unkempt and it's just kind of very kind of in that raw form. Like I was mentioning that raw authenticity. And I love this idea of being quietly public. And I, when I was reading your newsletter about it, I was like reflecting. I was like, am I quietly public? I mean, parts of me I feel like are, I really resonate with, you know, you and I are on camera together today, because anytime I interview someone, I want to be face to face as much as possible. But our video is not being recorded. I have no interest in doing video podcasts for Soil and Stars. And I really just like broadcasting my voice and my words and my writing. And lately, you know, we we kind of got connected through the through the webs of the work of Amelia Ruby, who is the host of the off the grid podcast. And she tends an amazing online community. And really her her body of work is all about, you know, grappling with social media and having a small business and a and a robust creative life or public creative life without relying on social media. And I have been attuned to Amelia's work since 2023. So for about three years now. And through that entire time, I've been grappling with my relationship with social media. And I less and less want to share my face on social media. That is like a deep deconditioning I had to go through. And I was grappling with my own, maybe I don't know, addiction might be a strong word, but unfortunately these apps are highly addictive in the way that they are designed to keep us on there with the endless scroll, you know, triggering the dopamine. I am neurodivergent and ADHD, and I get many dopamine hits from the Instagram app. And in the last three years, I'm like, I don't like posting my face that much, but I do like sharing my voice. And so I've really found I really like this idea of quietly public, you're building a world and a home world on the internet. You're you're having your corner where you have your home. And I resonate with that in what I'm creating with Soil and Stars as a podcast and as a newsletter, primarily as the public-facing aspects of it. I don't have a website yet, but that will be eventually developed down the road. But that it is this world-building mechanism. It is this place where people can find us and they can decide whether they enter the gate or not, whether they walk down the path or wander into your digital garden. And I do really think of with my newsletter, especially as like this is my digital enchanted garden, is what I call it. And, you know, a little bit different uh than the digital garden that you're speaking to. But I think there are all of these different ways to show up online. And so I just appreciate this quietly public series as another reframe and another reference point for creatives and for people who are sharing on the internet to really sit with that you don't have to show up in these very loud ways that we are really told to show up on social media, dancing in reels, following the trends, posting our faces as much as possible. So I just really appreciate that you've are following this thread and sharing it. And I'm curious, I know you've recently interviewed another artist in this series, but how are you seeing other people showing up quietly public online?

SPEAKER_00 48:40

Yeah, I I think uh one of the folks that I had interviewed um is a fellow artist, Kenning Zhu. And I think about her work a lot because I I think I first discovered her through this Substack called Spacies, run by Michelle Pelazan of Holisticism. And when I discovered her work, she she just has like years and years of archives of blog posts and um all sorts of delightful writings and art on her website. And when I discovered it, I was just like hours and hours just like going through the rabbit hole of her world. And and Kenning really does zero social media, even the courses that she um markets, or you know, I don't she doesn't even like the word marketing, but the courses that she like releases into the world um is very gently um promoted. And, you know, nothing about her is um urgent in terms of the engagement that she asks for from people, but I think it's like a real trust in the developed voice of you know, continuing to share your work and seeing what might emerge from that, and then trusting that the people will come and if they resonate with one thing that you say, you'll like they'll follow the path towards discovering your past archives too. And so I think there's like an importance of owning all of the archives of your work. I I kind of find it similar to like musicians and needing to own their masters and how you know, like if you're an online creator on social media, like you don't own your masters, you know, like all of that. I mean, you might own the files, but the engagement, the comments, the community, like all of that is kind of lost if that platform um ceases to exist tomorrow. So at you know, choosing platforms where you can at least export that data or having places for you to have that yourself. I find that to be really important. And yeah, I think I think the funny thing about Quietly Public is that, you know, I am not really on Instagram, but I do have a YouTube. And I feel like the YouTube platform speaks to my Leo rising and wanting to like do a bit more performance or like storytelling with video. And so I don't think it's the I don't think being quietly public is like you can never show your face or like do all these things. It's really just like a matter of choosing how you want to show up and encouraging folks who maybe might not see um the ways in w how they might crave to show up, like the fact that they're missing examples of that online doesn't mean that they can't, you know, share in the ways that they want to and sort of um trust that the people will discover and come. So yeah, I think it's kind of like an open-ended uh like exploration or like a scene that I want to facilitate happening of folks who are focused on building their own world online.

SPEAKER_01 51:55

I really love the emphasis on the lack of urgency and that there's no need to be urgent in these spaces where you're creating your world online. And yeah, I really do love the I I really fully identify as a world builder, and I think um there are so many ways to be a world builder in our communities, in our relationships, in our creative work, and in our online lives. You know, we are all living in the digital age. You and I are connecting because of the internet. I reach connect with many people because of the internet, and I think there are many ways to showcase who we are, our visions for the future, what's on our hearts in these internet spaces. So I'm just really grateful that you're exploring this realm of being quietly public. And I'm just excited to sit back and read more interviews and just read more about how you're exploring this and deepening it and deepening into it. So

Seasonal living and creating

SPEAKER_01 52:53

uh, Carolyn, I'd also love to talk with you about your seasonal zines. That is a project that really speaks to my heart as I am currently writing a year-long newsletter series of guiding people through the Wheel of the Zodiac and the Wheel of the Year in a very seasonal context and viewing the zodiac signs as seasons, as the sun is making their way through each of the signs. So, would you tell us a little bit about your seasonal zines and maybe why you created these?

SPEAKER_00 53:24

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, so I started making a seasonal creative companion zine series starting with winter of um the beginning of this year. So we've released winter, spring, and now we're at summer now, which is live on my shop. I really started, you know, I well, I think first I fell in love with the seasons once I moved to New York. I'm originally from Southern California, where seasons don't really exist. There's summer and then there's less summer. Um, so my first um experience with the seasons was moving to New York. And, you know, I am born in September, so I'm already like an autumn girly, but obviously that amplified, you know, a hundredfold because of the beautiful fall foliage in New England. And yeah, I started noticing, you know, the cycles of my own like wintering, and you know, I there for a while I was still writing the whole like New Year goal resolution train, and then I would like really crash out by February and be like so burnt out. And it took me a while for me to sort of attune to the energy of each season and paying attention to where my attention was going, both in terms of you know, just how my body feels, but also the creative projects that I was most curious about during each season and seeing that there were ebbs and flows. Like, for example, you know, winter I would want to be doing a lot more writing and journaling, and ironically, like it was it's more one of my more productive seasons because I can be a complete hermit, and then spring, I would really love to be painting and color, summer, I would like to do more teaching or communal sort of things, and autumn, it would be kind of the preparation to go back underground again. And so seeing that in myself, I didn't necessarily want to force, you know, the rhythms of my own creative practice on anybody, but I really wanted to create like an homage to the seasons and invite people to have ways to engage with the different months and also provide reflective journal prompts based on the astrological seasons and lunar transits so that they could reflect on how they how their own creative practice is changing through the seasons and how they might want to reframe certain expectations they have for themselves during each time. So it's been really fun to r release that and and mail those to people every season. And um yeah, I've been getting really good feedback on how it's helping folks ground themselves in the energies of each season as it comes.

SPEAKER_01 56:10

I love that. And I feel like when we create something seasonal, like we've been talking kind of talking about this uh thread of needing to write about our own processes. And for me, and I'm picking this up from the creation of your seasonal zines, one, they are all invitations, and I I am such a huge proponent of seasonal living. And even that can become dogmatic in some ways. Cause like you said, when you're from Southern California, your experience of the seasons are drastically different uh than mine. I have lived in the Midwest my entire life. My ancestors are from uh Europe, they're from Poland and Germany. And so I feel like being a seasonal being and it's deep within my bones. It's in my ancestral lineage. Like I have just come from people who are who have lived in places that experience these very distinct four seasons. And I have never lived outside of the Midwest. So I have always known the seasons. And so it is this deep ingrained way of being within me, but that is not true for all people across the globe. And there are many microclimates and bioregions. And in my own exploration of the seasons, I'm really curious to learn about people from different parts of the world and their experiences of the seasons. Cause I would think that even in Los Angeles, Southern California, in places that are much closer to the equator, when you start to cultivate a relationship with the plants and you start to learn their life cycles or start to learn more about the birds and their migration patterns and the insects, that you do start to attune to these life cycles and these rhythms. And maybe the season is not very clearly distinct winter, spring, summer, fall, like I experience here in the Midwest and you experience in New York City. But maybe it's a rainy season and maybe winter is a monsoon season, or maybe spring is the season of the bird migration. Or I'm thinking of in Mexico when all of the monarchs who are now traveling back to the Midwest where I live in the fall, they are returning to live uh in Mexico. So November to March, those folks who are in those regions in Mexico, maybe the winter is when the monarchs are returning and there's millions of monarchs living in these trees. And so I just really love uh I definitely just such a seasonally and cyclically oriented person. And I love that your work is an invitation and it's not like a dogmatic, like you have to follow my seasons and my rhythms. But here's an homage to how I'm exploring this and how I'm experiencing this, and it's simply an invitation, and I just deeply resonate with that.

SPEAKER_00 59:01

Thank you. Yeah, you're actually reminding me that for next year I'm brainstorming how to separate the dated prompts with the seasons because I've heard from people in the southern hemisphere being like, should I buy winter or summer? Because it's it's the date is summer, but you know, I'm living in winter. So I think, you know, being more cognizant of that too is a good reminder for me. You know, we're all living in different sorts of seasons.

SPEAKER_01 59:30

I'm trying to think of that too, right? Again, being an artist and a creative person on the internet is we can connect to connect with people who live across the globe and live in a different hemisphere. And actually, one of my beloved collaborators and dear friends who is an artist and an illustrator and as actually the designer who created the Soil and Stars logo, uh, shout out to my beloved Brie Wegan. They are living for a year in Australia, and so I'm following their newsletter and learning about like their experience in a different hemisphere and a different continent. And, you know, they I met them here locally in Milwaukee, and it's just, they're also a very seasonal and cyclical oriented person. So it's really cool to kind of see, okay, now I have someone that I have this beautiful relationship with where I don't, outside of Brie, I don't know anyone who is like from Australia and living there, you know, all the time. But it is cool to have a friend that is out there and experiencing life in a different hemisphere and to get like a little taste of that through their writing and just through their my conversations with them. So yeah, I appreciate that because it is, you know, when you get into these rhythms, it's going to be different across the globe, but we can all root into these rhythms and it's really specific to our microclimate and our bioregion. So yeah, I'm I'm so fascinated by that. And, you know, we also are living in a time where everything is shifting. The climate is shifting, our seasons are shifting, and it's, you know, everything is always evolving and in fluctuation. But I think to orient to the seasons now is a really potent time to do so and and to appreciate them in the moment as they are, and to reflect on maybe how they were in our childhood and how they're shifting and evolving. And there is going to be grief that comes up with being a very seasonally attuned person as they are going through rapid change. And I feel like there is no more powerful moment to really appreciate them for how they are now in the moment and um to just be able to kind of be with them as they change. So yeah, Carolyn, thank you so much. Thank you for this conversation today. I your work gives me so much to think on. Um, I just deeply resonate with so many things that you you create and you put out into the world. But is there any final reflections that you'd like to share or anything you'd like to leave the listeners with?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:55

Absolutely. Um, thank you so much for having me, Emily. This was such a delightful conversation. Um, yeah, I would say, you know, as this comes out, it's still peak summer, or, you know, for the north north hemisphere people, it's peak summer. I think for me this season, like pleasure and feeling more embodied is a real priority for me. So I've I would love to recommend readers, if they haven't already, to read Pleasure Activism, which is the book I've been making my way through right now by Adrienne Marie Brown and reflecting on ways to, you know, embrace pleasure in their summer season. Whether that's, you know, eating really juicy fruit or going for a long walk or you know, dancing under the sun or the moon. Yeah, I would just invite all the listeners to um invite in more pleasure into their day-to-day.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:55

I love that invitation so much, and I wholeheartedly agree. And thank you, Carolyn. I will include all the ways to connect with you in the show notes, and I really encourage the listeners to check out Carolyn online in her newsletter on her website and in her digital garden and to connect with her. So thank you so much for being here, Carolyn. Thank you to the listeners. Until next time.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:20

Thank you.

Outro

SPEAKER_01 1:03:28

Soil and Stars is a labor of love that is edited, produced, and hosted by me, Emily Hall. Thank you to my dear friend Brie Legan for designing our enchanting logo. And thank you to Paul Krasnoshok for our music. To support the show, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, leave us a review, and share this episode with the people you love. You can also become a patron for $5 a month or $50 a year by subscribing to the Soil and Stars newsletter at of Soilandstars.substack.com. Your patronage supports the sustainability of this project and will help me hire professional support in the future. Thank you for tuning in. Visit the show notes for links to connect with our guests, to subscribe to the newsletter, and for other resources mentioned in this episode. Thank you.