It’s slow and deliberate. It knows what it’s doing, what it wants to be. The code for it already mapped, coiled in the seed.

The two of swords says this is a scared pause, don’t skip over this period. It’s not that you don’t know what to do, because you do. It’s letting something clear before taking the next step. The waters are calm, there is no rush but you also don’t need to stay here longer than is necessary. Listen to yourself, you’ll know.

What needs to clear? The idea that is has to feel difficult to be real. That joy and play are not central and scared to the process. That joy doesn’t pack a thousand times more punch than grind ever could. The work is good, grounding, stabilising, but it’s not central to the life that flows through it. It exists in service of the joy that wants to be shared. The pure life force that wants a channel through which to flow.

How would we act if the centred joy? How would be respond to life if we played? These are new questions for me and they don’t yet feel comfortable or like my default. The more I dedicate myself to exploring my creative impulses and loosening my control on what that has to look like, the more I’m inching closer to answering them for myself.

I love to paint digitally. For a long time I felt trapped in a judgment that digital art had less value than something drawn or painted on paper or canvas. But I feel just as free, just as creative, just as inspired when I make marks with my apple pencil than I do when I make them with pens and brushes. I also quite like how neat and no fuss it can be. There are times for neat and accessible and times for messy and sprawling.

I’m letting the feeling of something guide me more than my judgements these days. Judgements that arose out of fear from seeing the way others sometimes reacted to what they thought wasn’t ‘real art’. We’re all afraid we’re not ‘real artists’.

I’m going to London soon for a museum day. I love days when I can just amble about and take in the art of others. I haven’t been to London for a long time so I’m looking forward to soaking it all in.

I feel like there is a portal opening in front of me, I’m just taking a deep breath before stepping through.

I’ve had a various different Substacks and social media accounts. All experiments that taught be something about how I do and don’t want to share/show up. My creative practice has taken time to develop. A lot of time. And it’s been a winding road to say the least.

It’s been frustrating but also fun and free at times.

When it comes to writing and painting - my two favourite forms of creative expression - I’ve had to untangle a seemingly never ending knot of self doubt, low self worth and a paralysing fear of being seen to try. Being an artist, to me, felt so embarrassing for so long that all my attempts to make it my life would ultimately be sabotaged by that inner voice that says this is dumb, you don’t deserve this life.

Where the fuck does that horrible voice come from?

I mean, I have a few guesses. But even so, it’s so so insidious that it adapts perfectly to every new phase of ‘inner work’ you do to move past it. I don’t thinking being an artist is embarrassing by the way. I have never consciously thought that, it’s the thing that means the most to me in the world and I love/feel incredibly jealous of those who are living that reality.

I have, at many points, tried to embody being an artist. Building a business. Doing all the things other established guru types say to do. I’ve learned a lot and I’ve also burned out a lot.

Of course we all have to survive, and that takes a lot of time and energy. Full time jobs, a mash of part time, casual gigs. Anything to keep up with eye watering rents and bills that strip away higher and higher percentages of your take home income year on year.

That in and of itself is exhausting. Demoralising.

So taking on the very real, very important work of being an artist in the world and following the mandates of your own soul is not for the faint of heart. The courage and passion needed are no joke.

So to all of us who have tried, collapsed, tried again, made some progress, deleted it all, came back later. We’re doing something real. Even when that doesn’t translate into thousands of followers or an income you can sustain your life on. And you deserve those things. Not because they are the only markers of success, but because you deserve to be well resourced and looked after in your dedication to following your intuition and trusting your own unique path.

We’re in the midst of a dying world and birthing a new one. The artists and the dreamers are the ones who midwife this new world into being. That’s the scale of the work we’re actually doing when we listen to our creative desires.

The old world wants you powerless and tired. They don’t want you to know just how powerful you are because the minute you do it’s over for them. We’re moving towards care and community that still honours our uniqueness. That actively supports it to thrive while we create systems to nourish all of us. No proof of humanity needed, your humanity honoured as the default. We, the artists who dare to commit to our paths now, are the ones who bring this into reality. And all we have to do is listen to and follow our own inner invisible thread, the inner map of strings and connect our fate to others. That’s why I’ve called this space Invisible Strings. This project has lived inside me for so long and now it’s time to birth it.

I’m figuring it out as I go, mistakes and stumbles as part of it all. I can’t keep it to myself anymore so I’m writing about it here and sharing my art and practice on my website.

Another part I haven’t mentioned yet is just how much working with tarot has helped me in my creative practice, and brought down some of those old patterns that have kept me stuck. I’ll be talking a lot more about that in future.

But for now, let this be the beginning.

If tarot and creativity are your bag, then I’d love it if you subscribed and followed along. I can’t say exactly where it will all go but I can say that we’ll be exploring the tarot and what it means to create in all the detail we desire. Together.