Creative Careers : Naomi Rose Interview : Page 6 of 6

Creating a Fabulous Career in the Arts

An Interview with Naomi Rose

By Molly Anderson-Childers

(con't from page 5)

Some ways that help me get present to myself:

• Being in nature. Even a 20-minute walk at a nearby creek, surrounded by arching trees against the blue sky, smelling the moist scent of the earth, listening to the music of the creek, slows me down. Brings me back.

• Singing. I love to sing, and I have a beautiful voice. When I sing, whether a cappella or accompanying myself on piano or dulcimer, something inside that isn’t about doing, planning, getting things right has the chance to surface. I remember what is real. That definitely helps.

• Deep breathing. Breathing in a way where I remember that breath is a given, and a gift. That gives me perspective on what’s real.

• Taking a nap. (I don’t use this often enough.)

• Doing Breema, or getting a Breema treatment. Breema is an amazing, ancient bodywork that has been brought down through the ages, and that not only helps the body to align, but also helps the mind and feelings to align. It is healthy, good for you, and joyous. And you don’t have to do anything but lie there and receive it. (I have written a bit about Breema in MotherWealth.) I’m blessed to live in Oakland, CA, where the Breema Center and Clinic reside. But there are Breema practitioners all over the world. Check the website: www.breema.com.

• And sometimes, I just veg out. I watch TV (hopefully, judiciously). I rent a movie. I eat chocolate. I attend to someone else’s story that way, in hopes of re-finding the thread of my own.

• Also, water! Water seems to be a universal creative “flow” starter. I’ve had inspirations in the shower many times. Even washing the dishes. And swimming in a lake — well, what’s better than that?

Q: Just for fun — what’s your favorite way to spoil yourself? Your most fabulous guilty pleasure? The way you treat yourself like a Queen?

A: I’ve already mentioned chocolate. I’d say, going into nature for an entire day. I love the town of Point Reyes, CA, about 1-1/4 hours away. Hills, birds, beaches, fabulous restaurants. If I get better at spoiling myself, I will add on a spa as part of the experience. I’ve been told about a Japanese spa in the country that immerses you in something unusual, like buckwheat hulls or something. It’s expensive, but one day I’d like to try it.

I think my most fabulous, and not so guilty (anymore) pleasure is something that I do weekly. I get a weekly 25-minute Breema treatment from the same person, a lovely Danish woman named Birthe, and have for about a year. I just lie there and receive this wonderfully nourishing rocking and rolling and stroking and cradling. I feel like a well-loved child, and it’s good for me, too. My lower-back flexibility has really increased, and the experience of being in my body is becoming delicious, instead of “what body?”

I also get weekly acupuncture treatments at Berkeley Community Acupuncture (www.bcaclinic.com) from a wonderful woman named Thuy, who is teaching me about what real health is. (She has also become my writing client, so we have a most sweet and interesting set of ways by which to relate). It’s a joy to sit in the well-stuffed reclining chair in the communal treatment room, receive these delicate, relatively painless needles (including in my third eye!), and not need to do anything but relax and pay attention to whatever arises (unless I just bliss out or fall asleep). This weekly routine is my health-care. And I have more and more life force available because of it…which, actually, influences my experience of writing for the better.

Q: Anything else you’d like to add about upcoming events and projects, or a few last words of inspiration to our readers?

A: If you’ve read this far, you deserve to call yourself a “reader”! I’m happy to share my upcoming projects and events with these committed readers (and writers):

Upcoming projects include:

• The publication of the expanded MotherWealth, with my own illustrations.

• The redesign and re-publication of Starting Your Book (reviewed on Creativity Portal by featured author and artist, Shelley Klammer, www.collageforself-discovery.com — also a client of mine, who is writing a wonderful book on Collage as Self-Discovery).

• A catalog of my books on money and the inner life.

And, as soon as I can get to them:

• A “Sacred Writing Kit”

• A CD of my songs, with voice, dulcimer, and piano, to accompany MotherWealth (or stand alone) called “Inner Wealth”

• CDs of my books, read aloud

• And, I’m sure, other great things.

Upcoming events in the San Francisco Bay area include:

• A two-day workshop on “Money and the Inner Life: Claiming Your True Inheritance,” slated for September 2008 in the San Francisco Bay Area. Based on my books on money and the inner life.

• A workshop on “Writing from the Deeper Self” not specifically focused on book-writing

• A workshop on using the Writing from the Deeper Self process (above workshop a prerequisite) for writing a book. To be followed (if there is sufficient interest) by monthly meetings in order to develop the participants’ books and keep the ball rolling.

• Hosting of client book-readings

• My readings from my books: Starting Your Book, MotherWealth, The Portable Blessings Ledger and The Blessings Ledger.

• A Creativity workshop — including writing, movement, drawing, singing — all arising out of the deep Self within. Intended to be both fun and healing.

• A writing retreat. Please visit my website for dates and further details!

If reading this interview has generated the desire to possibly work with me as a book developer, please know that even if you live too far away from Oakland, California to work with me in person (the best of all possible worlds), I have successfully worked with people by phone and/or email all over the world. So if you have the will, there is a way.

And a few last words of inspiration:

If you really want to write a book, you can do it. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t done it before, if you have some fears, if you don’t know what you want to write about or where to start, if you have scraps that have languished in a drawer for 20 years — or, if you’re just in the perfect place and are ready to get started. The call to write a book is a sacred call. Sometimes these calls get shelved for a time, but then they return.

Honor what calls to you. Honor what is in you. You may, or may not, need to learn things in order to write your book; but the essence of what will support you to do that is already within you. Perhaps it’s not yet evident what that is; perhaps a light needs to be directed inside. You may be inspired to do that on your own. If I can be of service, I’ll shine my light on yours.

In-spiration has to do with breath. If you focus more on your breath than on your fears, something will inevitably come knocking at your inner door. “Write me down, I’m good for you!” it may, in essence say. So, write it down. Be interested in your own process. Explore how the creative life takes root and opens doors in you.

It will enhance your life. Creativity isn’t a property owned by anyone. It is the very nature of life. It’s yours.

Naomi consults with writers individually in person in the San Francisco Bay Area. She also works by phone and/or email with her out-of-area, international clientele. She teaches periodic workshops, classes, and other events on Writing from the Deeper Self, book writing, creativity, and money and the inner life. Her website is www.essentialwriting.com. Rose’s books, along with other products to encourage deep writing, are available from her online store, “The Creating, Comfort, & Centering Store.” Additionally, Naomi Rose can be reached by email at naomirosedeepwrite@yahoo.com.

More About MONEY: A Final Word on The Big Bling

Naomi writes… I hope that Creativity Portal readers will choose to read my books on money and the inner life, in order to have their own direct experiences of the learnings and blessings. There’s something about having the opportunity to connect with someone’s concrete story, and bring your own life to it through identification, that opens up inner and outer doors in a way that condensations and more abstract presentations of ideas don’t seem to.

I have now written 2.5 books and an article on the subject. They are all available to be purchased, read, and integrated into readers’ lives (except for the .5, The Blessings Ledger, which is still in progress). The other books are The Portable Blessings Ledger, and a beautiful, inspiring story-with-teachings called MotherWealth: The Feminine Path to Money. The article, “The Almighty and the Dollar: How Paying Attention to Our Inner Lives and Bringing Compassion to Our Dealings with Money Can Bring Us Closer to God,” is available as a small booklet, and will also appear in the fall of this year in the magazine, Pure Inspiration. These are available from my online store.

© 2008 Molly J. Anderson-Childers

Creativity Portal hopes you enjoyed this feature, which is copyright © Molly Anderson-Childers and not available for reprint on your Web site, blog, or publication. Please respect the creator's copyright by not duplicating this material elsewhere.

About the Author | More by Molly Anderson-Childers
Molly J. Anderson-Childers is a wildly creative soul living in Durango, CO. She is a writer, artist, and creative arts instructor. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Fort Lewis College with a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology, and successfully completed their Elementary Teacher Education Program. Her work has appeared in various publications, including The Durango Telegraph, Southwest Colorado Arts Perspective, Images, Voice Be Heard, The Four Corners Business Journal and On the Wings of Poetry. To contact Ms. Childers, please email her at: stealingplums@yahoo.com or send a snail mail to P.O. Box 4281, Durango, CO 81302-4281.

05/06/08