Beth Morey's Blog, page 6

We Need Your Art Now More Than Ever {She of the Wild: The Podcast}

Today the world is changing. It is always changing, but today more so than most other days. How do creatives cope? How do we find the energy and drive to continue making art in the face of oppression and injustice? Tune in to find out why we must keep creating, now more than ever before.

Books mentioned in this episode:

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins Shatter Me by Tahrerah Mafi Divergent by Veronica Roth

Subscribe to the She of the Wild podcast in iTunes, or listen right here:

Want to feel...

Kindle Deals on Good Books {Jan. 9, 2017 Edition}

It's like following a treasure map -- you find one great Kindle book on sale, and soon you're following the trail to a dozen more delicious books on sale for just a few dollars (or less!). Instead of just hoarding all these discounted Kindle books for myself -- which, I assure you, I still am doing -- I thought I'd also share my findings. Here are my discoveries, current as of January 9, 2017.

Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman

It's really hard for me to pick a favorite author. But if I real...

January in America [2017 Edition]

Every day, the ways forward seem more narrow, fewer, darker. The future feels tenuous, as if the future itself is not quite sure it exists anymore.

Each day I wake, and more doors seem to be closing against me and mine and us. But we have not been locked out -- we have been locked in, and there is only so much air and so much space and too many bodies.

Every day, I look around at the people I see driving the mini-van in the next lane on the way to work, or the cashier at the supermarket, or...

Making Art a Part of Everyday Life is Non-Negotiable {She of the Wild: The Podcast}

We make art (whatever that kind of art is: oil painting, cooking, needlepoint, writing, music, etc.) because our souls demand it. Because the work is inside of us and begs to be made, to be released into being. Because we need it.

But we live in a world that places little value on the practice or product of creative work. So why bother with our art when it doesn't support us financially, and is seen as frivolous, unproductive, or unnecessary by the culture surrounding us?

Because we need it....

My 2016 Wrap-Up: Or, The Anxiety Episode {She of the Wild: The Podcast}

You knew it was coming -- this is the episode that answers your wondering, "Where the heck did you disappear to??" Basically, 2016 has been a hell of a year, due in large part to a major flaring of my anxiety. So this episode is not only about where I've been, but an off-the-cuff discussion of anxiety and mental health.

Subscribe to the She of the Wild podcast in iTunes, or listen right here (this episode has a few f-bombs in it, in case that bugs you or you're listening around little ears...

I Don't Know How to Be Around You

I know I’m supposed to look for the good.
I know I’m supposed to be the bigger person.
I know that when they go low, we go high —

But I can’t.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
But certainly not yet.

I don’t know how to be around you.
I don’t know how to hear you tell me, “I love you,” or feel you embrace me, or eat food that you have generously prepared for me and not want to vomit or rage or weep.

When you do those things — good things — all I can think about is how you voted for crimes against women to b...

Words are Like Water

Words are like water, washing

and washing us with their truth --

or otherwise drowning

us if we won't allow it, healing turned

to windswept tumult to get our

ever-wandering attention. They are

everywhere, reach everywhere, patient

enough to hollow out caverns

in the deep, strong enough to

tumble down the thin and ruinous

beliefs we clutch the closest. In

time, with ruthless endurance,

everything they touch transforms.

"A story is like water / that you heat for your bath. / It takes messages between the...

The Altars I Didn't Mean to Leave Behind

I couldn't tell you how many times I sat in this cafe, books and headphones and words strewn across its population of worn tables. How many times have I taken refuge within these brick walls, been nourished by the scent of baking pies blossoming from the kitchen, sipping coffee and writing and writing and writing?

I couldn't count. I couldn't possibly.

I've lived in this mountain-circled valley for, god, over ten years now. I was not born here, did not grow here. How can I be old enough to h...

This Isn't Right, I'm Not Right [Yet]

I am in tears as I sit here before the blank screen, trying to figure out how to say what I need to say.

This isn't right.

This. She of the Wild. This work.

It is good work, this I know. It is honest and needed and I believe in it. I will keep doing it for these reasons.

But it isn't quite right, not quite in alignment with The Thing that's inside me and wants to, needs to get out, be born, be in the world, be there for you if you choose it, if it chooses you.

And god, that is hard to admit, beca...

Don't Give Up. Keep Going.

It's okay to feel like an absolute and total mess, like you don't know what to want or what you want. It's okay to want to sleep all day for a while. It's okay to be where you're at.

What's not okay is to deny where you are and how you are. To not look at the things that need to be looked at or not feel the things that need to be felt (this is [part of] what got you into trouble before).

Your task now is to feel and to mourn, and to let that process grow and illuminate yourSelf. To see where...