NAOMI ROSE, BOOK DEVELOPER & CREATIVE MIDWIFE / Consultations in-person or by phone or Zoom / To contact:  Phone: (510) 465-3935 Pacific Time (Oakland, California, USA) / Email: naomirosedeepwrite (at) yahoo.com  

Deep Conversations

To write deeply is to have a deep conversation with yourself. There is, at first, the listening — that kind of extended attention that pulsates with presence but is empty of content, to begin. And then, into this lovely waiting net comes — something. That "something" is the response. If the listening is deep enough (see the "Deep Listening" page for more on this), then a conversation ensues.

One morning I awoke with a desire to participate in deep conversations. To engage subtly and meaningfully with people whom I respected and wanted to learn about, and in so doing find ourselves in some shared but unexpected territory, some harmony not entirely of our own making. Not an "interview," so much as a deep conversation.

The distinction here is that, unlike an interview, there is no hierarchy, no “insider” and “outsider,” no “expert” and “questioner.” There are, instead, two beings who are available to hear themselves and one another. Out of this mutual exploration, something may emerge that goes beyond what either person was fully aware of beforehand, and that brings both of them to an experience and realization of wholeness.

Following my bliss, I reached out to people whose being (as well as work, ideas, lives) called out my wonderment and gratitude. On this page are the fruits of this inspiration. 

“The Courage to Keep Our Creativity Alive”

A CONVERSATION ON CREATIVITY with Artist and Spiritual Teacher RISALA MARY LAIRD

“It take courage to keep our creativity alive, but it’s worth it.”

“It takes courage to keep our creativity alive, but it’s worth it because it will keep us alive.”

So says Risala Mary Laird, an artist, letterpress-book printer, and spiritual teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area during our deep conversation on the subject of “creativity.” Risala is not only a vastly creative being, herself, but also an encourager of others’ creativity (including mine).

“Encouraging other people to embrace their own creativity,” she muses. “Isn’t that the whole seed of spirituality? That well doesn’t go empty.”

This intimate exploration between us in the recording below is for you. Slow down, enter a kind of hammock of the mind, and let yourself have the nourishment of whatever bubbles up from this reflecting pool that speaks to and sparks the creative spirit in you.

You can learn more about Risala by going to her website, which features her teaching and printing of fine letterpress books, and the meditations and retreats she leads as a Spiritual Guide in the Inayati Sufi Order, in the lineage of Hazrat Inayat Khan.

“The Journey of Creativity”

A CONVERSATION ON CREATIVITY with Spiritual Director, Writer, and Artist COLETTE LAFIA

“I think what matters is who you become, as you are willing to take the journey of creativity.” — Colette Lafia

Colette Lafia is a spiritual director, currently as adjunct staff at Mercy Center, Burlingame. I first met her at a one-day retreat with her, and over the years her depth, wisdom, approachability, warmth, humility, and sincerity of spiritual devotion made a lasting impression on me.

Colette also brings in the creative side through painting and writing. She holds a BA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, where she started a small magazine called If Poetry. Her books include Comfort & Joy: Simple Ways to Care for Ourselves and Others, and Seeking Surrender: How My Friendship with a Trappist Monk Taught Me to Trust and Embrace Life.

When I received her newsletter about her own experience of the connection between creativity and the spirit, I asked her to have a deep conversation with me on that subject. Graciously, she wrote back, “I would greatly enjoy and appreciate being interviewed by you. Let’s make that happen.” And so we did.

Here are a few treasured moments from Colette’s contribution to our conversation. (You can get the full experience by listening to the audio below.)

• “We’re the ones who can say, ‘This is important. This matters. This makes me my true self, my full self. The self God has created and wants me to be.’”

• “I found that judgment, or criticism, or ‘it doesn’t make money’ – those have all been painful traps within me, and even closed me down for quite a while in my creative journey. And finally I came to a point where I was like, ‘Just claim it! Claim it as part of just being.’”

• “Where one orients, or where one positions oneself, where one places oneself in relation to these things — writing, painting, prayer — is really the heart of it. The kernel.”

• “It takes courage, commitment, and shifting how we’re seeing ourselves in relationship to our creative life. Do we see it as a journey? Roads and curiosities and seasons and weather – or do we just see it as a place, where I just arrive?”

• “It’s who you meet in the writing. And who you’re invited to be meeting, in the writing of your book. What is it that writing this book wants to teach you and tell you about what it means to be you on your journey, at this time in your life?”

• “Through what I create, I just want to claim my voice and my experience. And the person that God has created me to be, and that God knows me to be, already – that I am. I want to live that person. I want to know her, as much as I can.”

• “How healing creativity is!”

Listening to this deep and potent conversation will likely bring you to a kinder, more courageous, renewed relationship to your creativity. It did so for me! I came away from our conversation glowing with an enlivened spirit, as if an actual transformation had taken place. What she said echoes much of what I say about creating, but more directly spiritually, about how creativity brings us into direct relationship with the divine. My creative engagement with my own writing has been blessed by the fruits of what she made known to me.

You can learn more about Colette Lafia by going to her website, where you can also buy her books, Comfort & Joy: Simple Ways to Care for Ourselves and Others, and Seeking Surrender: How My Friendship with a Trappist Monk Taught Me to Trust and Embrace Life.

May you receive as much from this conversation with Colette as I did.

Click here to download the transcript of our conversation.

“Feng Shui and Creativity”

A CONVERSATION with Feng Shui Educator & Consultant JILLIAN ROTHSCHILD-SCHOLAR

Jillian is a classically trained Feng Shui Expert who helps people who are feeling tormented with big, unanswered life questions but are unable to choose which direction to go in. Naomi Rose is a Book Developer & Creative Midwife who works with people who value the inner life and want to write the book of their heart. We are friends personally as well as professionally. In this conversation, we explore what classical Feng Shui is and how it can support our innate creativity.

You can tell that I like to have conversations with friends — either people who already are friends, or who become friends in the course of the conversation. Jillian Rothschild-Scholar is an already-friend who has a remarkable fund of knowledge about what helps bring about harmonious energies (in the outer environment and more), and loves to explain this to lay people seeking to make beneficial changes in their lives. We mutually came to the idea of having a deep conversation about Feng Shui and Creativity for the sake of learning, deepening understanding, helping our respective clientele (past, present, and future) — and simply having fun together.

Jillian is a classically trained Feng Shui Expert who has been working in private Feng Shui consultancy since 2010. She helps people who are feeling tormented with big, unanswered life questions but are unable to choose which direction to go so they are looking for someone they can trust to get clarity enabling them to confidently move forward. She specializes in collaborating with clients over time to awaken new possibilities and assist each client in achieving both personal and professional goals. As part of her Classical Feng Shui work, she consults for both residential and business properties worldwide. Jillian combines modern, practical solutions with the authentic Feng Shui perspective to successfully collaborate with her clients in personal and business matters. Her website is fsinmotion.com.

One more interesting thing about Jillian: she claims that “I don’t have a creative bone in my body.” (This didn’t prevent her from speaking helpfully about Feng Shui and Creativity.) But I maintain — having known her for several years, and watched how she learns and runs her business — that she indeed is creative. We tend to associate creativity only with the arts, but it can be a mindset, even a way of life. There is no one who is not creative by nature, only by conditioning.

In the following conversation, Jillian explains the basics of Feng Shui, addresses which direction in one’s home is the creativity energizer for the year in which we spoke (2020), and says things that allowed me to articulate my view of our innate creativity in a way that perhaps is only possible in deep conversation.

Watch the conversation here.