The Courage to Create

Come as you are. Bring your wonder.

The world is but a canvas to the imagination.”
— Henry David Thoreau ✨

✨this month, creativity asked me …

to slow down enough to pick up black-tipped markers, coloured pens, my imagination again.

To wander.
To doodle.
To colour and live, outside the lines a little (okay a lot), physically, metaphorically.
To handwrite thoughts instead of typing them into neat little boxes.

So this week’s newsletter arrived differently.

In journal pages and scribbles.
In pulling painted mandalas of the past to the surface and celebrating the stitching and art my son added to his coolio shoes.
In candlelight, coloured pens, wandering thoughts, and the beautiful reminder that creativity is not reserved for artists alone … it is part of what makes us gloriously human.

What follows is less an article and more a creative unfolding.

A remembering.

An invitation back into imagination, play, expression, and the courage it takes to create a life from the inside out.

✨throughout my life, I have loved …

the majesty and spark of creative play.

In life-schooling our boys, creativity was never treated as an extra, but woven into the fabric of everyday living. Sketchbooks appeared at the table, coloured pens spilled across counters, ideas became stories, drawings, inventions, stitched shoes, painted symbols, and imagined worlds brought lovingly into form.

I have always believed creativity is part of how we listen to the soul.

In the quiet of morning, I set tone and place for creative space before the world arrives. Candlelight. Music. Pens to page. A lingering conversation with God and the ideas that flow from divine essence into shape, colour, movement, and meaning.

Over the years, I have also slipped away on retreat to create in concentrated stillness, gathering pieces of myself through art, reflection, imagination, and prayer.

This collage gathers just a few of those moments.

The mandalas were created alongside the boys during seasons of exploration and wonder. One became a visioning mandala, with equanimity at the centre and the outer circles holding the life I hoped to cultivate and experience: healing, openness, trust, creativity, silence, abundance, connection, adventure, and love.

My son’s shoes last week became tiny travelling canvases (as they often do), scribbled with stories, symbols, fave song lyrics, and imagination carried into the moments of an ordinary life.

And in keeping with our first SoulFull Session — The Roots of Creativity: from the Dark Ages to the Renaissance, I am reminded again how essential it is that we create space and place for these expressions in our lives.

The world will rarely hand us spaciousness for wonder, imagination, art, or reflection.

We must become vigilant guardians of it ourselves.

We must hold fast, even in seasons of ache, longing, uncertainty, exhaustion, and responsibility, to the understanding that creativity is not frivolous.

It nourishes us. Restores us. Helps us see beauty again. Helps us move through difficulty with vision, tenderness, meaning, and hope intact.

Creativity reminds us we are still alive inside our lives.

Together, these pieces remind me that creativity is not separate from living.

It is one of the ways we remember who we are. And this Sunday, you too can join us for an essential conversation on aligning our lives with what longs to emerge.

To meet us ‘round the soulful
fire as we align our living with the values we cherish ...

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✨ sunday soulfull session LIVE

The Courage to Create
Come as you are. Bring your wonder.

This Sunday, Todd and I invite you into a playful and soulful conversation on creativity, imagination, expression, and the courage it takes to create a life from the inside out.

Together, we’ll explore the creative spark that calls us toward beauty, meaning, artistry, innovation, play, and deeper self-expression … and why making space for creativity is not indulgent, but essential to being fully alive.

Bring your thoughts, your ideas, your curiosities, the dreams nudging quietly at your heart, or simply your presence.

Sunday, May 17
10:30 a.m. PT

Your link to join us HERE.

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✨inside the soulfull way

Each month along The SoulFull Way, we explore one theme together and provide key touch-points for staying attuned and aligned to experience and create it within ourselves and in the world.

This month, we are exploring Creativity.

Together, we are making space for imagination, expression, wonder, artistry, play, and the courage it takes to bring what lives within us into form.

Flowing through the month:

✨ Weekly newsletters to set tone, share stories, poems, reflections, creative practices, and soulful invitations into living Creativity in everyday life.

✨ One SoulFull Session LIVE already behind us, where we explored The Roots of Creativity through history, imagination, the movement from the Dark Ages to the Renaissance, and the beautiful role creativity plays in shaping humanity and culture.

✨ Mother’s Day Sunday, May 10th — a gentle pause in our LIVE gatherings as many in our community celebrated, rested, reflected, and gathered with loved ones.

✨ Sunday, May 17th — SoulFull Sessions LIVE: The Courage to Create
A playful and soulful conversation exploring imagination, expression, curiosity, creative becoming, and the ways we reconnect with the creative spark within our own lives.

✨ Sunday, May 24th — a special live Creativity Panel Conversation featuring a beautiful collective of humans living creativity through their art, storytelling, entrepreneurship, healing work, service, writing, leadership, and lives.

This gathering will take place live on Zoom, with details and links shared through Substack LIVE and upcoming newsletters.

✨ Last Saturday of the month — The Soul of Creativity Workshop
A two-hour immersive online experience exploring creativity as soulful practice and expression, followed by an optional stay, sip n’ chat afterward.

Flow includes:

✨ a sprinkle of meditation
✨ guided introspection through your Gift Guided Journal
✨ soulful conversation and reflection
✨ small groups, beautiful souls, meaningful connection
✨ creative exploration and playful expression

Free for newcomers, those in need of support always, and paid subscribers of The SoulFull Collective.

Or if you’ve already found precious value here and would like to make a small donation, that is always deeply appreciated.

To your week of wonder, imagination, playful expression, and listening closely for the creative spark calling quietly from within.

✨jenni