Between the Moon - Ep 29: Artistry, bad first drafts, and the cyclical nature of creativity

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

Dear Moon,There is beauty in allowing ideas develop in their own time. So often we only get to see the final product, and we miss out on all the twists and turns that the creative process takes us on to arrive at that particular finished form. This can give us unrealistic expectations of creativity, and so I was inspired to share some behind the scenes insider lore about how this year’s cover artwork and theme actually came into being. The episode is an exploration of artistry, vulnerability, and the cyclical nature of creativity. But first, oh my goodness, have you heard? It’s Virgo season and time to launch the pre-sale of the 2026 Moon Calendars!! There’s a discount code at the end of this episode, take a listen :)traveling the distance from this… … to that…Where you begin is not where you end up! Seems obvious, but the creative process is designed to change you. This is inherent to the transformational practice of creation.let’s dive in!In today’s episode, you’re invited to join me for an intimate look at the journey of creating the artwork for this year’s Lunar Wall Calendar as I share about the messy process of going from rough first “bad” drafts to a finished piece.You’ll hear about the ups and downs: the excitement of new ideas, the frustration when things don’t go as planned, and the patience it takes to let inspiration unfold in its own time. You’ll get to hear about how themes like the harvest cycle, the symbolism of blackberries and bears, and even lessons learned from gardening — all found their way into the artwork. There’s a beautiful story I share about how a simple flower essence session sparked a creative breakthrough, and how the reciprocity between bears and blackberries brought all the themes together.weaving it all togetherThroughout the episode, I reflect on the importance of embracing imperfection, letting go of impossible standards, and trusting the creative process—even when it feels like, as I call it “a blindfolded wrestling match or an unpredictable dance with the muse”. You’ll get a sense of how astrology, nature, and lived experience all weave together in the making of something personally, and hopefully, universally meaningful.Whether you’re an artist, a creative soul, or just someone who loves a good story, this episode is a gentle reminder that creativity is cyclical, sometimes clunky, and always full of facing the unknown. I hope you enjoy this behind-the-scenes journey—complete with all the doubts, discoveries, and little victories that make the creative process so worth the struggle of turning the irritation of a grain of sand into a pearl.Thank you for being here, your presence is a gift! Aprilp.s. I started putting together a post with images of the creative process I describe in this episode … would you be interested in seeing more of the bad first drafts? Feel free to reply or lmk in the comments.the pre-sale sale has begun!Are you as excited as I am? I just updated all the listings for this year’s calendars — visit THE MOON IS MY CALENDAR and and pre-order yours today, yippee! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themoonismycalendar.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome, dear listener to the Between the Moon podcast. I'm April McMurtry from The Moon is My Calendar. And before we get started, I have a quick announcement, which is, it is that time of year. It is Virgo season. And this is when the launch for the pre-sale of the 2026 moon calendar's beacons. So if you haven't already, you can head to the shop. At the end of the episode, I will share a discount code that you can use to pre-order yours. And if you're listening sometime later in the year, they might already be shipping. So shipping happens kind of once the pre-order goal has been met, shipping can begin basically order your calendar. And the sooner that the calendars are ordered, the sooner they can ship. But it's estimated around early November, fingers crossed.

The theme of the moon calendars this year is an ode to the Blackberry. You'll hear all of about how the theme developed in this episode and how it was not the plan at the beginning, and really how the creative process is something that changes us by going through the process we are changed. And that's sort of why it can be challenging is because we're facing the unknown. And I don't mention the moon a lot in this episode. I think it's, for me, at least it's there as the foundation, as the practice of lunar tracking is something. that supports our ability in our skillfulness, skillfulness to face the unknown, the things in our life, whether that's creating a collection of paintings or making the next decision about where

you're going to live or relationships or your work and changing careers or different life stages and phases. All of those kinds of things are supported by self-study in relationship with cycles, which is why I make the calendars each year. This is the 12th year. publishing, producing, all of the things, editing. There's the Lunation Journal, Lunation Journal, formerly known as the New Moon Calendar and Journal, the Lunation Journal, and the Lunar Wall Calendar. So today's episode goes into just the origins of the theme

and where, yeah, all of the twists and turns. I think sometimes it does a disservice to only see the final product of something. and even myself now looking at the calendar and the proof, it's like, wow, it looks really polished. And part of Virgo season is learning to appreciate the mess and when things aren't all in order or sorted out. And so this episode will take us on that journey. And just it invites you to reflect on your own experience as well.

So thank you so much for being here and supporting this podcast and this work. Go to the shop. and pre-order your calendar. Again, there's a discount code at the end of the episode. All right, enjoy. Let's dive in. In today's episode, I'm going to share a behind the scenes look at the creative process for the watercolors and the artwork for the 26 lunar wall calendar.

So I just received the proof from the printer, and there's been so much editing that's gone into it and you know it's complete it's in its final form at this time of the year and in this virgo season I'm reflecting back on the really bad first drafts that needed to happen in order to get to this form this like perfected form and by perfected meaning more of the verb tense perfected to be completed rather than to be somehow like perfectly done. I appreciate that I'm a human and I do things that aren't perfect or can't be done by a machine, that interaction between physical body, like the earth nature of being human and the embodiedness of creating things that are not totally measured out like with the same

spacing and things that I look at now and I think, oh, I wish I could have done it a little more. It's taking that critical eye that I'm going to weave in some of the themes of Virgo because that's the season of the year that we're in, connected to this in-between time of summer and fall in the northern hemisphere. To take this critical eye and to see all the things, it's like seeing the gap, seeing what's missing, seeing what isn't so-called perfect or doesn't meet up, like, meet standards or one's own, like, outrageously impossible to achieve standards. So that can be switched in a moment. Seeing through Virgo eyes is being the editor.

And one of the times I went through and was editing the calendar, I only found one number that was off. It's so hard to look at all the times that the moon goes into each sign, for example, in the lunar wall calendar. If you have it, you know it has like the time stamp of when the moon enters into Taurus and Gemini and cancer, like all throughout each cycle. Going through and proofing all those numbers, it's mind-numbing, but I have to put on my Virgo eyes in order to catch the things like to look for what's wrong. But then there's a time where you need to look for what's right. And that is that inversion of flipping things upside down, of seeing what is the polarity and the opposite of what I'm doing or thinking. So in the sort of behind the

scenes of the creative process, I just want to share the inner experience, the things that you wouldn't otherwise have access to by just seeing the final product. So hopefully this helps you to connect in with your creative practice and with your own, you know, what can be these like struggles or inhibitions or the things that hold us back from our own creativity and and helping that to flow and helping to have I'm still understanding my own process. You think I would maybe know how to get in the zone and create and have an idea and make that happen. But it, I would describe it. Well, actually last year I described the steps along the way to create the cover for the moonflowers edition. And I wrote, sometimes the creative process

feels like a blindfolded wrestling match. And sometimes it feels like being led by the hand in some divine waltz with the muse. So that wrestling match, this year I would describe it really like having that grain of sand that becomes the pearl, but is really irritating. Like it just rubs, like it's just this itch that you can't scratch and then through that kind of as I'm talking right now I'm like wriggling around through this kind of process of discomfort creating that pearl is forming around that getting outside a comfort zone and getting outside of the known realm of not knowing and part of the creative process and working with what's now called the Lunation Journal update, the New Moon Calendar and Journal, which is a descriptive term,

has a lot of words. And so this year that is just shifting over, it's just a name change, to the Lunation Journal, how that has been a supportive tool in uncovering the unknown things that want to come forth. And doing that in a way that gives space rather than trying to control with the mind and come up with the idea just through a thought process. And sometimes that works. And sometimes there's space that needs to allow for something to land or something to arrive. You know, if you're working on a project, what's the name of that project? And you can think and think and think and often it's when the non-thinking that something will just pop in. Like maybe you'll hear the words or maybe you'll read something and it'll spark that. I will often write in my intentions

page, I wonder what the theme is going to be for the artwork. Let me actually get the calendar from so from last year. So this is the fourth year that I've done the artwork. So four years in a row of creating 12 or 13 pieces in a series. And working in a series, and working in a series for anyone who has come up with something like maybe an oracle deck or just a series of writings or whatever might be. I mean, it could be like a series of a menu of seasonal recipes that go along with a theme, like creating something that has a theme or even classes or workshops. Whatever that is for you or what you can imagine that to be, this is my fourth year of creating that and each time it feels like what's it going to be like it's a surprise to me i don't even know and so yeah last

two years ago i wrote on the seeds of intentions page i wonder what the theme for the 2025 calendar will be like oh i'm curious what's it going to be and who has the answer who where how am i going to know and so i just wrote that as the question and then later that cycle the answer it's going to be moonflowers and snakes and that whole process unfolded but it was not a cohesive knowing something at the start so that's the creative process it changes us like when we enter into something not knowing what the result is going to be like if we follow a recipe it's pretty guaranteed that it's going to more or less come out like the picture on the food blog that we're following or in the recipe book but the creative process when we don't know that is that special kind of struggle maybe struggle's not the right word but

that special kind of pearl making pearl making activity and for those of you who know me my oldest child is named pearl and so yes i am the mother i am the mother of a pearl okay so back to the project i in following along in quite questioning and wondering what the theme was going to be. Coming up with a bad first draft was actually the first step. So it was just saying, okay, I don't know what the theme's going to be. Generally, I think I want to work with a harvest cycle, which I did two years ago, that metaphorically sort of symbolically was following the pomegranate and the seeds through the yearly harvest cycle.

So I thought this year I want to do that. I've been wanting to create paintings with. or with and of the California Buckeye. I've had a love affair my entire life with the Buckeye tree and the flowering and the the Buckeye themselves and the whole cycle, right? It's very dramatic if you know that tree or other related kind of chestnut trees. It's very dramatic. But that just wasn't happening and it wasn't really lighting me up just yet.

For some reason, I think it's for a later time. this is another thing to know about your creative process is when the seeds come the ideas ideas seeds for me are kind of this interchangeable it's the very most essential not yet formed not yet fully formed thing it's the idea of it so that seed is there for me seeds will come that aren't meant to be developed until sometimes it's five years and so at the beginning i thought oh okay I got the idea. I got to act on it right now. But in following the creative process, and it might be very different for you. And this is self-study in relationship with cycles and cycles of creativity is it might be immediate. Like you might supposed to be acting on it immediately and carrying it out

if that's your sort of energetic signature with with your own the seeds that come to you. For me, it's often five years, which can be confusing. And a little bit of a little bit of. frustrating like what am I doing I'm not acting on this thing but it's cooking it's like germinating gestating not ready yet so buckye tree sorry not ready yet not sure but I even got colored pencils all with the shades of like greens and browns and grays and everything in preparation so hopefully those will come in handy down the road so choosing the theme the bad first draft. The bad first draft was me just deciding, okay, I'm going to take 12 square piece of paper, small, and I'm just going to sketch out super rough the 12 phases or stages of the harvest cycle.

And for those of you, oh, I have it right here. For those of you who have the book of houses by Robert Cole and Paul Williams, yes, I still want to write a book about the harvest cycle. and those ideas and seeds have a place now for me to record them. But writing a book overnight, that hasn't happened yet. It's not supposed to happen that way, but sometimes things come fast and furious. So just being like waiting for that opening or listening for that opening when the time is really ready,

often things will happen quickly. But that quickness comes from prior preparation. I've seen play out. So maybe that's true for you where there's something where it's playing with the idea of something, even maybe for years. And then all of a sudden this window, this door, I hesitate to say portal because that word is so overused, but something opens up and then you're able to step through really quickly and things fall into place. That was my whole experience with creating the very first lunation journal back in 2014. It was fast and furious. It was like the all the steps were all happening in the period of one lunar cycle so it took a lot of recovery after that

because it was very concentrated hours and hours of work in a condensed amount of time okay book of houses the stages so i created a little sketch for each of these the house of choosing seeds or the time of choosing seeds the time of germination also i like to say like the spirit of germination the spirit of seeing the sun, putting down roots, exploratory growth, pruning and weeding, creative growth, budding and flowering, pollination, reproductive growth, fruition, and harvest. So those are all the 12. They correspond with the 12 houses and also the 12 signs of the zodiac. So it's like a nature-based way of relating. And this was really early on in my introduction to astrology and really getting a sense and a feel for it was connecting it was something that I always.

is already familiar with. And I highly recommend that for anyone who is learning astrology or studying astrology is finding the thing that you relate to, that you is already familiar that you can then connect these ideas with. And for me, that was the stages of development of plants. And if I can connect choosing seeds with Aquarius and 11th house type things, that for me can, land in a way than creating artwork that has the symbols there, that there are layers to that that are based in the natural world. This year's artwork then started with a bad first draft, just doing sketches of very, I had to almost, I had to say this, but like I almost had to force myself to do something that felt very, not rudimentary, but very unrefined and rough. And,

Now I know better for myself. That is the first step is the rough draft. I don't like rough drafts. And I see this in my children as well, even when they're English teachers. Encourage the draft. Neither of them will do it. They want to do the final product in the first go. I get frustrated with them, but I realize that's just a mirror of my own, like, frustration with myself of not being able to.

but I say I'm not being able to. Creating this artwork and putting myself up to this challenge and this task has been what has helped me then do the thing that I was avoiding, which is the bad first draft. So think about for you what that sort of bad first draft that you might be avoiding or possibly currently working on. Are you giving yourself that grace to, doesn't have to come out right? and so-called perfect on the first try. Do you expect that of yourself?

And if you do, you might have strong Virgo placements. Not 100%, but that's often the energy of that kind of expectation of, I should just be good at this and I don't want to show that messy, messy, unlike polished part that it will take to get to the place of actually. feeling like skilled at something that kind of bringing the beginner's mind and bringing that like what is working the small little thing so that's not like I tried something and then I failed and so now I'm going to stop but what little seed of something was working there that then you can build on so these sketches just kind of sat it was like having these 12 little square cards I was like

okay well what I'm going to do with these these are really really just basic, they're not going to be something that on their own makes sense to then create a watercolor of. And then I was like, okay, well, I need some new paints. I used to paint with acrylics a lot. And then I just got so weirded out by their plasticness. I did a bunch of research, aka productive procrastination, to find a non-plastic-based acrylic, like a nature-based acrylic, whatever that is. So I got them and I was like, okay, now this is the answer. I found the paints, I've got the materials, I sort of have a rough sketch, and I painted the first, sort of translated my sketch into a painting when the paints arrived. And I was like,

I do not like this at all. Okay. You know, that feeling like, here's a roadblock. What do I do with, I tried this thing and now I don't, I actually don't like this. So what are the options? Get discouraged. Yeah, so I was a little discouraged. But at that time, it was, early spring. It was March-ish and I was doing a lot of rearranging in the garden. So I just kind of stepped away and was like, I'm just going to work with the plants and move things around because I knew from previous years certain plants that were not happy where I had put them. Kind of the responsibility of the gardener of taking that responsibility in our lives. I made this choice and did this thing and put this here and now I see it's not working.

So I was undoing a lot of work, but I didn't, I wasn't approaching that like it was a failure. I put this sage here, but actually there's not as much light as it needs. And so here's this other place over here. So it's like mapping out and remapping this whole, I say this whole garden space, these very limited little patches of very hard clay that I am I doing my best to work with? I probably could be doing a lot more with mulching. but I'm finding plants that actually are okay with the soil as it is, and I have found some, and so I'm like, okay, well, that's working.

All the other plants that died along the way that did not make it through a season, they just weren't up for that task. So I'm finding ones that are and then working and reworking. So finding in your life that thing where you don't have that same kind of possibly critical judgment around, and for me that was gardening of like, okay, well, no big. deal that was time and effort and money but there were things that were learned and now the next season there's a chance to try something new or different and apply that learning along the way so I'm trying and bringing that in and I'm sharing this with you because of these lessons that we can

learn that we in one area of our life to then apply into another area of our life and so in this case this was the creative practice. And so I had this draft. I had my first, okay, I've got it figured out, I've got my paints. And then I was like, okay, well, that's not it. So now back to the drawing board. Right around this time, I had my first session with a flower essence practitioner who is from Brazil and has been working with people all over the globe for like 30 plus years.

She's amazing. Her name is Ruth. and my friend Alexandria shared her work with me. And I'm so grateful because I had my first session. And actually it was just like a free intro call. And I was describing to her, I'm like, I have all of this inside of me. All of the ideas. There's the harvest cycle.

There's like a plant. I don't know which plant's going to be. But it's going to go through the harvest cycle. And there's like symbols and there's sacred geometry. And there's this like color mapping, color coding. elements. There's the quantities of light and shadow throughout the year, not shadow, day and night, more like all day for the summer solstice, all night for the winter solstice, and then all the varying night and days in between. All these things, all these things inside of me. And I am so

just irritated and I feel like there's that sand that just can't scratch that like itch of what form is this going to take? And how do I take the thing that's inside and bring it into the outside without knowing all the details yet? And I'm still clearly this work in progress of learning to make many, many, many, many drafts. Because I like to work things out internally and then have them come out more fully formed. Kind of like this podcast. Honestly, I took a bunch of notes.

It's been rattling around since the spring, since I was reorganizing my garden and working through all this, but it wasn't the time to record it. And also, my process isn't to write out all these bullets. I know for some people, it works to have your script and read plan it ahead of time and read through it. I have found that I need the element of spontaneity and a little bit of that edge of, I don't know what I'm going to say next. Is this going to even make any sense? sometimes that's when my best work comes through. You maybe you might not agree with that. Who is judging what is the best work?

It is a work in progress, all of this. So I had that session with Ruth, and as I was just describing, you know, I think she could sense that feeling. And for those of you who've had, like, everything's there just under the surface. And it wants to flow out. And maybe it still has some, like, clunky. kind of things to be figured out, but there's something that's there like ready to be

birthed or to be given some kind of form, whether that's visual or through sound or through writing or through working with whatever the different elements that you're working with are. And so she just said, you know, it really sounds like as you're speaking, I really am getting the sense of the blackberry and blackberry flower essence. And I was like, huh, I've never thought about or come across that particular flower essence or, you know, considered. And she said, yeah, it has, it very much has. And this is the, this particular one, which is from FES, the flower essence society up in Nevada City in California. This is the Himalayan or Armenian blackberry that's non-native here and also very invasive and very prevalent and also very deliberate.

and also very delicious and has a growing habit of being very like aggressively big almost like reaching out its arms and stretching out and like taking over like it could take over a whole cabin in the woods and just consume it basically but it has that energy of putting out your arms and like reaching out and just like going for it and doing the thing as i'm speaking right now i'm like we're reaching my arms out into the space that kind of feeling rather than keeping something in and contained. So it didn't dawn on me right away. It took a couple days, but I got the flower essence. I started painting and started working on the cover artwork and working with shapes and geometry and playing around with different images. And I think I'll, yeah,

I'm planning to make a post that has these images just to show the progression because I feel like it's not fair to just show the final product because there was so much awkwardness that went into the early stages. And I love sharing about the creative process. I love learning about other people's creative process. And I think sometimes that comparison to see someone's final work without seeing like the steps, some of the steps along the way and some of the things that were like, what if I had made a different choice and chosen like an earlier version? Everything would be different. I don't know if it would be better or worse.

It would just be different. So it didn't, there was a moment where the light bulb went off and it just clicked where I was like, oh, Blackberry is, this artwork wants to be an ode to Blackberry. Like Blackberry is what helped to break that seal and open up some of these floodgates. of creativity. There's a number of other flower essences that possibly work in similar ways, but for me, for whatever reason, Blackberry, really did the trick, and I am so grateful. So here in California, and on the West Coast, there's the Pacific Blackberry, or it's sometimes called the trailing Blackberry, and right around this time in early spring, I went on out

and some hikes and came across. You know, I didn't have my awareness fine-tuned. And I knew that there were different blackberries, clearly. But I just didn't quite have a relationship or a feeling of, how do you know which is which? You know, they look very similar to a non-botonist or kind of having a trained sense. Really, it's about relationship. I just got to go and spend some time in, really, the Blackberry, the Pacific Blackberry, which the Latin name I love because it has the word,

bear in it. The rubus or senis, rubus, the berry or senes is and the bear. It has a different kind of growing the way it grows. It's trailing, so it will just kind of drape itself over other plants and then give space and allow for other, all kinds of other plants to coexist. It doesn't need to take over with invasive species. It's like it just becomes a mono, I don't know, the ecological words for it. Like, it's not a monocrop. It's like a monoculture of that one plant just takes over the whole entire space, which the, I'll just, most people refer to it as a Himalayan blackberry, even though that's like a misnomer. Armenian blackberry has a different kind of growing habit. And so I wanted to have an ode to the Pacific Blackberry of like, leave space, like grow and do your thing, but

leave space for others, and that's what the Pacific Blackberry really does. So has five petals. It's in the rose family. I feel like it builds so beautifully on this last year's theme with the rose. And I didn't know along the way that the bear was going to come in to the artwork as well, because I thought it would just be an illustration of the stages of the harvest cycle. So there's two places where the black bear came in, and that's for the cycle of the solstice, the June solstice. There's a family of black bears, and I found a really beautiful, touching photograph of a mama bear in four cubs,

and I reached out to the photographer who has a bear sanctuary in Canada to ask if I could use his photograph as a reference. And so the bears came in for the cycle in that season, the cancer season of that kind of a lineage. I call that one the lineage of bear and blackberry. Their lives are intertwined. The bears eat the berries. And the Pacific Blackberry is named with the bear in mind

because it's like they go together. There's this, the kind of reciprocity of by eating the berries, the bear then we'll poop them out. and the seeds there can grow from that whole cycle of enjoyment of the fruit and the compost that comes through that cycle. Anyway, so that's the bear. And one of the very last paintings that I did, which was for the 10th house, which corresponds with the winter solstice, the December solstice, the harvest time. And I was like, okay, this is the culmination. if this whole series is about the blackberry, what's the culmination?

Like, what is the harvest? Like, clearly it's the berry, but I'm like, I don't want to have, like, humans what, like eating like a hand with berries. It just felt like out of place. And then I was like, well, okay, let's think about if you work with the harvest cycle or if you work with intentions or whatever it is, there's something that is like an end result, even if it's just like the next stage in an ongoing process. There's some kind of end result if you're writing. It's like, well, I want the end result to be a book or some form.

Maybe this is just me because I have a lot of earth in my chart. I want something like to be a physical, tangible thing. It could also be friendships or relationships or things that are not less defined, but there's a fluidity to the process. Anyway, with a seed, then if you want to have blackberries or eat blackberries, then that is connected to the blackberry seed. But if you want to be, you know, if you're growing sunflowers, then that's connected to a different seed. So that intentionality of the things that we plant, being connected to something that grows from that. And I think the process is, you know, there's a lot of mystery that's involved. And maybe it's not as straightforward. It's like, I have a sunflower seed. I'm going to plant

that. I have this idea for this painting project. So I'm going to plant some seed, but it's so, the end form is this unknown. It's not like you see the picture on the package of the thing and just add water and then poof, it'll become this thing. That's that wrestling match or that dance with the muse where it's like, or that irritating sand that becomes a pearl. What does this want to become? And so there's a relationship and that kind of co-creation with the seed of it's not,

I don't know, it does not feel predetermined. Now with the final product and in retrospect and in hindsight, I'm like, oh, it all makes sense now. Like it all came together in this way that makes sense. Along the way, it did not make sense. So for the final painting, the winter solstice lunar cycle, I was like, well, if I had, what would I make? If I had a bunch of blackberries, like, what would I really want?

eating blackberries one by one is like so delicious and i have a connection you know my whole childhood my father took me up to a farm and the path up this is northern california the path down to the river was lined with blackberry bushes and so we would just take like as long as we wanted to walk to the river and just eat and eat and fill our bellies with the blackberries and these were the um himalayan blackberries because you know they were mountains and and mounds, like that seemed when I was little, as high as the sky. Like, dreamy, so many blackberries, the abundance, like that feeling. I've been able to share it with my children, and it's one of the gifts that my father gave

me of being able to go to this place in this land where abundance was just in full expression and that anything that wasn't eaten went to the compost pile. And then it wasn't until recently, just last summer, camping up there, camping near the compost pile, where the bears go to eat, that I actually got to see some of the bears that have always, you know, that live on that land as well. I was terrified my whole childhood that I would see a bear. And sometimes I'd go out with my dad's friend, the farmer, and he would walk the perimeter of the farm just kind of closing up shop at night. And sometimes he'd say to us kids like, oh, you want to go out, you want to go out and see the

bear? I'm like, no, I don't want to see the bear, but sometimes I would go with him. And I mean, please, no bear, please, no bear. I was just a part of me that was just so fearful. And that speaks to not having a relationship when there's that kind of fear. That somehow in the last couple years when I've been there and I've been with my kids, I've been the one that has to, I don't know, for any of you that are parents, sometimes like facing fears as well, I've got to hold it together for my kids.

kid like my fear of elevators in taking my kids I'm like elevator sure no problem I'll go in the elevator I'm like okay play it calm play it cool and that's kind of how it was in seeing the bear at the compost pile of like okay let's just be calm and the bear's just having a snack and we're just going over here to use the outhouse I'm meandering here because yeah I just wanted to share that part of that speaks to this relationship that feels really meaningful to me to share this artwork and to have this, the culmination, the harvest. So just circling back to that story with the Blackberry bushes that go down to the river, they cleared some of the land going down to the river to create kind of more space for camping in a little wedding site. And they cleared out

just tons and tons and tons of Blackberry, the brambles. And there was a bear den right kind of off the path of where we would walk. And so literally the presence of the bear sleeping in the day was right there as we were walking, slowly collecting berries along the way down to the river. And when I heard that later, I was like, I wish I could have just been like calm and connected at that time. but I just, I wasn't. I didn't have that feeling or that sense of connection or that feeling of the bear's not here to hurt us.

And that's what actually the other photograph that I worked with the bear sanctuary. They do a lot of education about, yeah, what people do when they're fearful of whatever animal might be. Snakes, which is the theme of the last artwork, it takes a special person to really love snakes. and so many animals are harmed because of a kind of fear and lack of relationship and connection. So creating this artwork is a part of a full circle bringing things together. So with the blackberries, I thought about, well, of course I would want a cobbler or a blackberry pie. So I thought, but that feels a little out of place or is that a little cheesy to make a pie? So I painted it more like the shapes and the geometry.

So maybe it's not obvious at first glance. That's what it is just because I wanted to keep it simple and not like try to paint a realistic pie. But have the seeds, the shapes of the seeds. And yeah, and have the black bear there. The black bear gets his, gets to eat his own kind of pie without the just the straight berries. I mean, the berries in the summer cook and it smells like a pie, you know, when you walk by the bushes, the brambles. I'm sure there's another name. And then with that, I was like, oh, it's a pie in the sky. And there's the constellations,

you know, the big dipper and the little dipper that have the name, there's some major and or some minor that are connected with the bear in mythology as well. And just different sky stories. And so I brought those constellations in, and it felt like it just that feeling of like, oh, this came together in a way that I did not know ahead of time and would have never guessed or been able to plan out at all. But the elements just engaging with the process, the elements started showing up and clicking into place. It's like listening and following the lead of something rather than trying to control what it's going to be. But everybody has their own process, so I don't know. This is why I like hearing about other people's process and why I'm sharing mine too is just to add my experience to the ongoing conversation of what it is to engage with life

as a creative act. I do feel like for me that form of, it's only recently I started working with watercolor and I'm not trained. And so the creativity is figuring things out along the way. how we transfer, like I was speaking of earlier, transferring the lessons from the garden into the creative practice. And then what is it that we can bring from whatever our creative practice is into other areas of our life when we're making decisions about something and seeing, oh, if I'm creating the artwork for this calendar, and I'm not working with a creative director who's giving me directions or telling me what to do, but actually just having to make that decision, that call and thinking, well, maybe there's a better decision or maybe this isn't right or good enough or whatever. The doubt is to actually just make the call and say, well, that's what it, that's in my mind part of what it means

to have artistry. It's not necessarily to be like an artist as like a title, but just to bring in artistry in something is you're making decisions about things that could be a million other ways, but you're choosing whatever that way is. And I think, with this artwork in particular, there were times where I felt like, you know, I think the realization that came through was

when something is created and takes a particular form, it's going to speak to some people and not to other people. And that's that kind of ongoing lesson for many of us, I think, is, okay, what I make is not for everybody. And that's actually okay, and that actually shows that there's a point of view and a it's not just an aesthetic, but there's a,

because really, hopefully you can hear through this storytelling, there's a whole lifetime of lived experience that is coming through in some of this work. And if someone doesn't like that or that's not for them, it's not their cup of tea. It doesn't have to mean that there's judgment on that because there's so many different styles and different expressions and things to be drawn to or choose from. And so in that artistry, you're making something that someone gets to make a choice about for themselves. And those creative choices are, I feel like that's what, how do I want to say this? It connects in with leadership in the way of how we lead our lives in making the decisions that make the most sense to us.

Like the decisions that are the ones that we're choosing with the information that we have and moving forward with that. And then getting information and feedback from, oh, how did that go? So I don't know yet. You know, I'm about to launch the pre-sale not knowing, okay, will this resonate with people? It's its own creation. And yet there's such a part of me that's a part of it. It does take some stepping back and giving breathing room to the thing that's been, the form that something has taken. and otherwise things it could all feel very very personal but this feels like it has a life of its own

there's some of these paintings that I did much earlier on this year and some people who make calendars they're already working like two or three years in advance I haven't gone to that place yet and that's okay maybe I never will but as it is now seeing some of these I'm like I did that that doesn't this feels like it is its own like standing on its own two legs and I get to look at it with these eyes of like how did this all come together so hopefully this episode has been illuminated something for you about the creative process and the way that things don't necessarily come in fully form that there's like little glimpses here and there and it's part like following the breadcrumbs and part like getting support

when you need the support or bouncing ideas off other people, but also realizing like in the end, it's your call. And that part of Virgo of the discernment and making the judgment call around yes, this, not that, that kind of responsibility and responding to what, I just keep coming back to what form something wants to take that is this co-creation. that the muse is involved in some way, whatever, like, plant or animal, the spirit of those that are involved in some way. I am in awe of the process, and as you can probably hear from

this, it's not like something that comes super easy, especially in the beginning. And so creating the bad first draft. I'd love to hear other ways that you have approached, something that you know wants to come through, but the beginning stages of getting started when it feels clunky. Like, I am just for whatever reason, really, I'm really drawn to that. And I do appreciate when it all comes together.

Anyway, so this is, this is the episode. This is the episode here for Virgo season and for the launch of the calendars and just getting to share this kind of this storytelling. and there's more to come. Each stage of the harvest cycle, I'm still really drawn to this and want to share and be in conversation

about these themes and how they play out in each of our lives and how we connect with each of these stages that are illustrated in the calendar, the stages along the way. And I'm grateful for the Blackberry and the Black Bear for showing up to help illustrate that

and everyone who's been a part of the process and the behind the scenes work as it has come together. And so thank you for listening. I'd love to hear what you got out of this episode. And if you like this, if you'd like, I was going to say like and subscribe. No, whatever, you can do that or not. But if you like this theme or this kind of behind the scenes, creative process, if you're drawn to that, let me know.

Because I, you know, it has to do with the moon. Like, it's all there because creativity is a cycle that does go through. through phases and it's not just about the production phase. There's a lot more before that and after that and all the in-betweens. All right. Before I forget, I wanted to give you the discount code and this is good during the pre-sales. So the pre-ordering phase, which is before the calendar starts shipping out, you can use the code

Barry Moon. That's B-E-R-R-Y, Moon, Barry Moon. and that's for $5 off in the shop for your order, go to the moon is my calendar.com, and there's a button for the shop, and you can choose from bulk ordering or a single order or bundle. There's lots of good stuff. All right, thanks for being here. Until next time.