Welcome to Soul School – your Hump Day treat. Your midweek boost! (WEDNESDAYS)
Today comes some wisdom I gleaned from Cal Newport.
On FRIDAY come back for a longer conversational guest episode!
I liked Cal’s take on working towards skills that are rare a valuable.
It flies in the face of a refrain we often hear, “Follow your passion!”
In a recent Soul School I told you that the Secret Sauce I kept hearing from the many people I speak with indicated that people followed their curiosity and created something useful often found success and meaningful work. LISTEN HERE. On that journey they were doing the very thing Cal talks about, “becoming so good they couldn’t be ignored.”
Shane is a Soul Friend (Spiritual Director) with a focus on artists and creatives, be they “yuccies”, “slashies”, painters, musicians, or any one in need of deeper and more sustaining, soul-level communing.
How we find spark:
Together, we make the Spark My Muse podcast happen.
I prepare something and you digest it.
I invite you to just listen, read the show notes and click on links, and give what you can.
That’s all. :)
• If it’s worth nothing…um what? Are you serious? This just got more awkward..Aw…snap! I sincerely apologize. Let me know what I can improve and please come back and listen again soon!
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simply, tap into the river of gratitude in your heart and contribute what you can– HERE or use that Paypal button, over yonder.
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Every little bit helps a lot.
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• A trained Anam Cara (soul friend in the Irish Tradition).
• He lived with his wife and family in Ireland for 11 years!
Conversation (podcast) notes:
MINUTE 3:00
How Shane and his wife and family happened to live in Ireland for 11 years.
4:15
How God begins to grow dreams in us
Working at the Willow Creek Church
People have long said that still seems true. When foreigners come that end up being more Irish than the Irish themselves.
7:20
One of the most potent lessons learned from the Irish was the necessity to put people first. They take time to connect with each other and share life.
9:00 A sense of call to minister to artist and creatives.
9:40 On why he feels a passion to serve the creative community: “I believe the creative of today is the prophet of old”. It is a prophetic call.
10:10
“Creatives are called to paint a picture of the future that God is calling us all into. His Kingdom coming.”
10:50
“When a creative (person) using their gift…it taps into something deep inside of us and reverberates…and it feels like echoes of home.”
12:00
Jesus invites us to “walk with me and work with me.”
12:20
answering: What is Spiritual Direction (or soul friendship) actually?
13:00
A soul friend is “the best friend you’ve always wanted.”
and the Saint Bridgette quote…
13:50
A good picture is in the New Testament of the friends walking to Emmaus and then Jesus come in their midst. Unpacking life.
14:00
“The Soul Friend is someone who helps us see how God has been at work in our lives…so we can (as St. Ignatius says) “to recklessly abandon ourselves to his loving care.”
15:20
The problem with the phrase “Spiritual Director” on two counts so I use “soul friend”.
18:00
How he was trained in soul care and soul friendship
21:00
On becoming an Anglican Priest…
25:00
What he find to be the deepest needs of the creative community he works with?
Affirmation and Presence
30:00
Living in a Creative Age (moving from head to heart)
31:30
There’s an affective moving in society leading with Beauty first and then Truth that leads to freedom.
32:00
Alan Crieder
Behave Belong Believe (in which order should be in what era)
33:20
“What the heart loves, the will chooses, and the mind justifies.”
35:00
The error of focusing too much on trying to convince people just intellectually.
36:00
Ignatian Spirituality
Celtic Spirituality
Soul Friendship
by Rev Ray Simpson (Church of England)
The Celtic Way of Prayer
by Ester De Waal
Holy Companions
42:30
on the hospitality and generosity of Irish spirituality.
The story of an Inn with 7 doors for the 7 roads.
Thank you so much for listening to the show!
To get alerts of the topics and the new and interesting folks coming to the podcast in future episode click HERE.
Here’s a tasting of who’s coming in the next few months:
Make sure your wine never tastes like wet dog fur. huh?
Spark my muse is The podcast for curious creatives types, wine newbies, and those willing to put up with my occasional silliness. Thank you so much for sharing your time with me.
How wine can go to the dogs and how to best store wine in the wine segment.
Plus, a bit about a topic and a book that has made a huge difference in my life.
This episode of the podcast is brought to you by:
Dog in the Gap
Having a pet in your care, who helplessly depends on your for life and well being can teach you a lot of things. 10 essays both funny and insightful written by 2 authors and plenty of memorable photos.
Or get the bonus addition for $1 more that has an extra essay and non public video links, and other assorted goodies. Name Your Link
Today’s wine segment!
Why might your wine taste like wet dog fur….and what to do about it?
Basic Stats:
A wine bottle has 25.33 oz. (750ml).
A serving (a glass) of wine is 5 oz . (Half way up the glass is full. Where the glass is widest (aroma reasons in the design)
1 bottle = five glasses.
If your wine smells stale or like wet dog fur…it is Corked!
(The cork is not working and too much air has mixed with the wine.)
Wine last 24 hours if the air is pumped out
Here’s the one I recommend we use it at work. It pays for itself after two uses.
Wine lasts only a few hours if it’s not pumped. It’s not harmful, but it won’t taste its best. Pushing the cork back in won’t help too much because air is trapped in there.
Another reason Wine is stored on its side to expand the cork. A bottle corked with a plastic cork won’t be helped by horizontal storage.
On the next PODCAST – I’ll talk about my favorite tool for opening wine and why, and the bottle opening tools you should (probably) avoid !
Now to spark your Muse
Brené Brown’s work made its mark on me before she did her famous 1st TED TALK which lead to you famous ins TED Talk on her research about shame and vulnerability at the University of Houston.
The topics in the book and some of the passages I’ll read to you have really gained new significance because putting up a podcast is risky. I feel vulnerable and I feel like I might get rejected. Some people won’t like it and I can’t change that. I don’t want to fail. And I don’t want to look like an idiot. And looking like an idiot is extremely probable.
When we are about to step out into unknown territory or if we doing something that makes us more vulnerable the two main things we think are “who do you think you are?” and “You’rd going to look like a fool” and I might add one to that “You won’t do it right” (it ’s related to the 2nd one) Maybe you can think of others that come to you mind.
We seem okay to handle other people’s vulnerability but really reluctant to risk that ourselves.
Excerpts from Daring Greatly:
Pg 35 “I define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure”
My note: We can’t risk feeling vulnerable if we are dealing with shame.
pg 68 “people who don’t experience shame lack the capacity for empathy and human connection”
My note: Social also social pain. We fear rejection and isolation.
pg 67 “shame derives its power from being unspeakable”
Language and story bring light to shame and destroy it
pg 71
Guilt is “I did something wrong”
Shame is “I am bad” (or “I am something wrong”)
• When new feel shame we lash out, get anxious, hide, or numb out, and really we need to do the opposite of those things to have victory.
• Instead of lashing out or hiding we need to reach out, to some one we can trust.
• Instead of overcompensating we have to cut ourselves a break. “I make mistakes. I’m moving on past this one.”
Pg 80 Brené says “If I own the story I get to write the ending.” I just heard a fascinating TED TALK from Monica Lewinsky and she sounds like she’s taking this advise. She said it was time to take back her story and control her own narrative.
Reaching out and being honest creates an environment of empathy, and that’s really why I’m sharing all this with you.
Don’t be afraid to create and do things that are your passion. And mess up while doing them. I’m messing up a lot, but I’m trying to not let those mistakes put me in a choke hold of shame and inaction.
I hope you will be inspired to do the same.
Thanks for listening today!
Or if you have read Daring Greatly, what was the most powerful thing you learned. I’d love to hear from you! Leave comments at sparkmymuse.com or the email contact@sparkmymuse.com
subscribe to the podcast….tell your friends what you and I have been up to. See you soon.
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I plan to take this series and broadcast it…as a podcast!
The Spark My Muse podcast is coming in May and a “wine for newbies” segment will be on every show.
Two shows are finished so far, and a few more will be completed before it launches officially.
Stay alert for updates!
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Be a patron!
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So, about those grapes!
Grapes are actually classified as a berry. They are berry cool.
(shout out to Strawberry Shortcake, yo!)
What’s so interesting about grapes is that only taste like grapes if they are eaten fresh or squeezed into (unfermented) grape juice at just the right time, with few exceptions.
• Fermented grapes seldom taste likes grapes (among those few exceptions are Muscat, Niagara, and Concord).
• Instead, once grapes are wine they taste like a whole variety of fruits and other things.
The chemical compounds in fermented grapes are even more complex than blood serum and taste far better (unless you’re a vampire).
Wine takes on characteristics of many different sorts of fruits, depending on the variety and where they have been cultivated. Additional taste notes happen during fermenting, refining, filtering, aging, and so on, done by the vintner (wine-maker).
Here’s a very short list of the many fruit notes (subtle tastes) that fermented grapes can offer in both sweet and dry (non sweet) types of wine.
Citrus Fruits:
lemon, lime, grapefruit, orange, etc…
Pome Fruits:
Apple, pear, quince, etc….
Stone Fruits:
Peach, plum, apricot, etc….
Tropical Fruits:
Mango, pineapple, star fruit, passion fuit, papaya, etc….
The nutshell is this:
I wanted to write a story that captured my story.
Recently, I was intrigued by the phenomenon of “The 6 Word Memoir” idea. I like that idea that you can share a lot about your self quickly.
It’s poetry, really. (But that word scares -some-people.)
I’ve also felt nudged to write a memoir myself. But on which part of my life? There’s a lot of drama!
And really, I don’t have the fortitude to cover the seriously painful parts of my life. It wrecks me. I see why people just hire editors for that sort of thing. But, those are the parts that offer the best memoir material.
Also, any successful memoir is written by a famous or infamous person that has a following of some sort. The other kind of written for family member to read. The only reason I want to create one, or a few (it’s not an autobiography I’m interested in, mind you) is because have so many stories that beg me to tell them. To birth them into the world. But, it’s a lot like yelling into the void or dancing alone in a hall of mirrors.
And then the idea hit me to write a short story that was a kind of universal memoir.
In the same spirit as The Little Prince and Where the Wild Things Are I started writing something and in about a day and a half it was done. It was gestating for a long while. Years. (And of course, I just mean the first draft was done.) But, in truth, the story came out in nearly one whole piece. That never really happens.
So, now, I’m in the final stages with the layout. Gorgeous photos are in place. Illustrations are forthcoming. It’s a passion project and those sort of things have to be done independently–not for the publishing industry Machine.
Since an ebook can be done so easily, that bit should be available semi-soon and I’ll list it for free or a low cost. But, the nature of this book is not good for that format. It’s just NOT the sort of book. It won’t “work” 100% if it’s only digitally available. It should be material.
It should be held and kept by the bed table. Read to children who turn its pages and hear the sounds of the paper, and feel the texture on their little fingers. It should hold the occasional tear puddle like some of my Narnia books, and my Little Prince book have. It should be beautiful and lasting and not just a click away.
And for adults it promises to have the same magic of the classic stories read to them once in the twilight nights of warm summers when the lighting bugs danced, and everything was possible.
So, I’m going to raise money and self-publish with art book quality as a short run. You can join me in this leg of the journey.
Here is the cover. (Stop by within a week and see another spread.)
A conversation with Shane Tucker:
