The Fertile Unknown

Our Creative Uniqueness informs our Creative Service to the World

We are all needed to create more hospitable, loving, humane world. And, we are not all designed to contribute in the same way. We each have a unique set of gifts, skills, talents, drives, understandings, learnings, and experiences that combine together to create our unique signature offerings/contribution to the world. Whether you work for yourself or someone else, this creative "soul signature" is uniquely yours.

It takes some conscious effort to detach from the belief systems, fears, and judgements (in yourself, and in the world) that no longer serve you, and (re)establish connection to your own "creative source" - the life-generating, source of meaning, purpose, passion, and creativity within you - which contains the unique creative gifts of your soul. We are the ones we've been waiting for, and now is the time we've been waiting for.

For some, that means joining or leading a movement or cause. For others, it means working in the front lines...or creating new systems or structures...or creating in the arts, business, education, technology or science...or in coaching, facilitating, healing, teaching, or serving others...there are as many ways to be of service as there are people who need what you have to give.


Michelle James @2020

Creative Emergence Image Series - Emergent Potential

This  is a prismacolor pencil drawing I did a few year's ago for my Emergence Series, called “Emergent Potential” - the fertile place filled with potential waiting to be created forth. It's the place within us I work most with my coaching clients - tapping into their unique, ripe, creative potential, discovering what is calling to emerge, and cultivating it out. I see myself an emergence "midwife" helping my clients birth their creative calling and offerings out into the world. #creativeemergence


Michelle James ©2020

We Need More than Thinking-Only to Create a More Life-Giving World

When we are in uncertainty, we often first seek to go to the familiar...which is often the  left-brain dominant way of analyzing and making sense of things. I see that all the time in my work. This poster speaks to "Yes Anding" that with additional ways of knowing, intuiting, experiencing, feeling, and being to be able to solve problems, heal, make sense, and create a more generative habitable world.

It is not about the exclusion of critical thinking and analysis, it is about the INCLUSION of other ways of processing as well. Valuing rational-only thinking over feeling, the creative unconscious, and intuition keeps people disconnected. What about rational-AND thinking? We need our whole selves in order to be in connection. We need compassion. We need our creative imaginations. We need space to connect with our inner voice. We're not just talking heads, and emotions have a place in business and life because they contain passion, inspiration, and heart. Much meaningful was created with emotion in times of hardship. This is a reminder in these times, for those who resonate, to value all of your various ways knowing, processing and solution-finding.

Michelle James ©2020

Creative Emergence Image Series - Taking Form

Been getting back into drawing and panting lately after 6 years. In revisiting, I found some prismacolor drawings I made many years ago that I never posted. This one come from an Emergence series...it's called "Taking Form." It's healing to be back into painting, and helps me get more clarity about what's calling to emerge at this time.

I use an inside-out painting process w my coaching clients to help them access their unique creative source to paint concepts and use for transformation as well. Painting or drawing is one way you access otherwise unconscious thoughts, creative blocks, hopes, aspirations, and inner guidance. It also offers a sanctuary to feel your Creative Self within a chaotic world. Breaking patterns leads to new insights and ideas.


Michelle James ©2020

Creativity for Re-enchantment, Reconnection & Purposeful Direction in Tough Times

"In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person
complaining of  being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions: When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence?" ~ Gabrielle Roth

Good wisdom in this time when so many in the world are disheartened, dispirited, or depressed. Getting back to our Creative Self - dancing, singing, artwork, theater, improv, storytelling, writing, journaling, meditating, movement, reflecting, imagining, writing, visioning, creating in any form - helps us navigate a world disrupted (and even a world not so disrupted). Just more urgent now. It is not about waiting until AFTER the fear, pain, and chaos ends, but rather using the creative practices to help us MOVE THROUGH it...within ourselves and with each other.

It is an often overlooked part of what the world needs to transform. Among other things, the lack of whole-brain, whole-person embodied creating - and the life-generating  "enchantment" it brings - in our everyday lives and workplaces leads to feeling disheartened and dis-empowered. This is not the time to contract away from our Creative Source energy in the face of a dispirited world...instead, it is an essential time to learn to CREATE from and with your Creative Self - in whatever ways you are uniquely called - to help change your experience AND the experience of the world.

There is no one right way to engage, create, or produce. There are multiple potentials and possibilities of what can be generated. And all types of creative expression can feel good and be generative. But there IS a way, or set of ways, for you that is uniquely yours - that is more alive and purposeful than others - that is embedded in your soul's purpose. I have seen this without exception in 20+ years of creative emergence coaching purpose-centered, heart-centered, soulful entrepreneurs.

In exploring the possibilities by trying out different forms of expression, without judgement or needing it to be perfect, you can access the uniqueness of your Creative Self. it is a discovery process. Your unique inner garden of creative delights does not look like anyone else's - and when authentically seeded and cultivated, will produce your one-of-a-kind juicy fruit that is also nourishing for the world. The more in trouble the world is, the more new healthy creative foundations are needed - seeded by each of us. It's so significant now to discover what is ours to do to contribute to a more humane, just, life-giving world.

It's not always easy, and takes some time, attention, focus, integrity, and self-awareness. But that's the sweet spot...where your unique creative aliveness meets the needs of the world...as it is, where it is, to naturally create a more generative, alive, healthy what's next. We all need that now. This sweet spot, once cultivated, serves ourselves, others, and the whole. That's embedded in its nature. Don't give up. Your Creative Self awaits your engagement, and it offers a possibility for re-enchantment, re-connection, and purposeful direction - especially now.

Michelle James ©2020