How to be Present, Innovative and Make a Difference in the World

Creativity and spirituality are intertwined…

Creativity is...

Live Fully and With Grace by Kathy Crabbe

For me, being creative means constantly challenging myself to explore new frontiers, develop skills, play, dream and live fully in the present. Creativity helps one be present and in the moment. When you’re creating you’re not in your head. Taking action can get you going and feels intense and amazing.

How can being creative make a difference in the world?

Art, artists and all creative beings can teach people that there is a greater purpose in life beyond just surviving: there is the possibility of creating something so beautiful, thought provoking, intelligent, funny, magical that one can touch people on a soul level and change their life. The world can become a better place for everyone in the process; people can come together in peace and love to appreciate all the arts. Art can help us care about life, make it worth living, and make it worth fighting for the things that matters.

Art reminds us that we have a soul.

Art reminds us to laugh at ourselves.

Art shakes us out of our complacency.

Art wakes us up to our potential.

Ar reminds us to live each moment in the present.

Art is life.

Margaret Atwood

Creative People I admire and why

Margaret Atwood: brilliant, edgy, biting wit, environmentalist, great writer working with integrity, makes me laugh and wince.

Maude (from the movie 'Harold and Maude'): great fighting spirit, passionate, young at heart, amazing home (a railway car), feisty, daring and loving.

Contemporary Japanese woodblock printmakers: their art is abstract, nature based, simplified, textural, primitive looking, graphic, bold yet subtle, beautiful use of color. Artists: Shiko Munakata, Naoko Matsubara

Success is...

- Knowing there are new frontiers to explore every day - being alone with one’s thoughts and creating - helping others through sharing, loving, kindness, compassion and insight .

Integrity is...

- Making a difference in people's lives through creating, writing and sharing with heart, soul, intuition, passion and intelligence.

My Story

I have always been involved in the creative arts: painting, drawing, making music, writing, journaling, dancing and have pursued these passions with much intensity and focus, often preferring my own company to anyone else. Being creative opened a door for me into the world of imagination.

At thirteen I began a dream journal which helped me connect with other worlds and realms of consciousness. I learned how to trust and request dream guidance for the important questions in my life.

In my early twenties I was guided towards meditation to further my spiritual quest and found a class led by a wonderful teacher called 'Om' who had been trained by the guru, Sri Chinmoy. I continue to practice meditation along with yoga, dream journaling and creative expression and this forms the basis of my intuitive and spiritual development. Because I have learned how to access and trust my inner voice and visions I am able to connect with the Divines.

Kathy Crabbe in Laguna Beach

Shortly after moving to Southern California (Laguna Beach) at age thirty I experienced a Rebirthing session during which I envisioned an entire business scheme for my LuLu Design artwork to be sold as cards, prints, clothing and originals. Soon after I discovered the perfect medium, silk painting and within one year I had been in over fifteen art fairs selling my work. I was also accepted into Laguna Beach's Sawdust Art Festival where I showed my work for eight years. Each year my husband would build a two story booth for the two month long (10 am - 10 pm) show involving over 200 artists - what an incredibly fun, successful, beautiful creative community that was!

During this time I continued to celebrate the seasons with sacred circles, ritual, tarot, dreamwork and meditation and my visions increased. Laguna Beach is also a mecca for astrologers, another passion of mine so I had the chance to study firsthand with many wonderful astrologers such as Steven Forrest, Jeffrey Wolf Green, Donna Cunningham, and privately with Patty Davidson.

Capricorn Goddess by Kathy Crabbe

I also spent an intensely creative month creating, painting and writing a Goddess Zodiac Playbook based upon channeled meditations for each of the zodiac signs in combination with the moon. As the moon entered each zodiac sign where it stayed for two days I created a sacred circle filled with all the symbols, foods and colors associated with that sign. I researched goddess lore for each sign (which wasn't easy to since most astrology books were not goddess oriented), meditated, wrote and channeled the energy of that sign which turned out to be an incredibly powerful experience! Then I would paint this energy as Goddesses. I also included poetry, stories and myth into the book and then gathered together a circle to experience the book firsthand - it was truly created to be an interactive experience.

In early 2000 I started drawing and painting exclusively with my non-dominant left hand, also known as the intuitive hand because it's controlled by the intuitive right brain (if you're right handed that is) and for five years drew only with my left hand. Because I had recently moved to an isolated spot in the countryside I had no friends for the first five years and so the 'Lefties' were born and I discovered over 500 new 'friends'!

During this time I turned forty and Uranus Opposition kicked in to help push me to really, really stretch and grow. I realized that I had absorbed and learned all I could (I felt very full!) and that I MUST share it by giving psychic readings using my art. It was the Lefties who suggested in a dream that I turn them into Lefty 'Tarot' cards and give psychic readings online (along with encouragement from my husband, favorite psychic and a wonderful life coach) and so the next day I did just that! I started offering free mini readings in the Etsy forum where I had previously set up a shop selling my artwork and I ended up giving 100's of free readings, learning a ton in the process!

Giving Psychic Readings at Karma Boutique, San Diego

I also started giving psychic readings at a local new age store, but soon discovered that distance readings (where I never met the client face-to-face) worked better for everyone because there were no distractions preventing me from connecting and channeling the Divine. When I give readings I always prepare myself through yoga, meditation, flute playing and with crystals so that I can become as clear, still and focused as possible. I receive clairvoyant visions, and sometimes smells, words and feeling sensations in my body which I immediately write down in my spiral note pad which rests at my side. I am usually guided towards specific crystals and oracle cards (I only work with cards of my own design). More about my technique can be found here.

It's been a lifelong journey of discovery, creation and intuitive, spiritual awakening so to be able to share it with you and connect others of like mind is a gift I will always be grateful for. We, each and every one of us have within us, the seeds to be intuitive, creative beings, for truly, we are all one.

Wise Woman Radio Interview: I'm interviewed by Susun Weed, founder of the Wise Woman School.

Reluctant Medium Radio Interview: Ghostbuster Jamie & I chat about past lives, spirits, developing intuition and more.

Purchase a Soul Reading here.

How To Consciously Manifest Your Intentions

Hint, hint...make something and when you do create it with intention. Be conscious that whatever feeling, thought, intention you put into your creation whether it be a pudding, crocheted hat, daffodil bulb that you plant or a painting that if you create with intention that you WILL manifest your vision into the world and learn about life in the process. I painted "Fairy Cat" in this way and it makes her all the more special on a deeper level than imaginable. Try it sometime! What will you create next, with INTENTION?

Kathy Crabbe is a soul reader, spirit medium, astrologer and artist who has devoted her life to spirituality and creativity. She has published three oracle decks.

Why I Quit Social Media

On January 3rd I made a bargain with the Divine and so ended my social media addiction to posting and sharing my artwork and life (except on my BLOG!)

I found myself way to caught up in getting "likes", attention and comments on what I shared; mostly my art. I don't want my work to be influenced by "likes". It takes me out of myself and into caring waaay too much about what others think of me and my work. This is dangerous territory. One can lose oneself too easily by going down this rabbit hole. And I wanted myself back; my quiet spaces, my fumbling artistic explorations, my intuition, my spirit, my self.

Since quitting social media posting, time has expanded and the pressure has lifted. I still paint at least one painting-a-day but no longer share it every day. I thought I'd lose my commitment because I was no longer being accountable to "My PUBLIC". HA! I'm still accountable to ME. And my public can wait until I'm ready to share.

So thank you DIVINE for forcing my hand and coming through for me once again when I needed you.

Want to try this yourself? Simply ask the Divine, your HIgher Power, your higher self, or whatever, for help and then JUST...STOP...POSTING. Could be for a day, a week, a month, and see how it feels. Journal about it. Be with YOU for a change, it's lovely here.

More articles on addiction to social media can be found here.

If you're looking for further guidance into yourself and your soul's purpose please consider a Soul Reading, Past Life Reading or Astro Report. Click here for more info.

Prosperity in Bloom because you're worth it!

I took this photo of a lone artichoke planted in front of my house early this morning. It doesn't especially like hot, dry weather and so I won't have a chance to eat it, but instead will enjoy it's beautiful purple bloom which ties in neatly with my good friend Chad Woodward's article about yesterday's Sagittarius full moon. He poses the questions: "What is blossoming for you now? What great, gestating truth emerges into the light for you to embrace?" For myself, I had an incredible marketing session with Marisa of Creative Thursday yesterday and feel invigorated, re-charged and ready to  initiate a new project and make some big changes creatively and soulfully. What I'm learning is important for all of us, but especially for artists and women.  We need to learn how to value ourselves and our work cause if we don't, no one else will.  To supplement this work I'm also doing a 40 day Prosperity Program; a meditation that I've shared with my Creative Soul Circle, so if you're a Museletter subscriber you are more than welcome to join us and try it out for yourself.

What is Your Gift?

Kathy Crabbe, Ande was ready for any adventure, 2003, mixed media on paper, 8x10”. 

This blog post has been a long time in coming folks, so thank you for caring. There have been many tears,  many goodbyes and much love and prayers shared with family and friends in the last two months, but as Denis says, "life goes on" and so it does, and so too does this blog.

I said goodbye to my birth mother Sally (I'm adopted) and to my Grandad (her father) over the last couple of months and I also spoke at my Grandad's Celebration of Life.

But, my news is, that my newest project is to be dedicated to Sally. It is both new and old; a project near and dear to my heart since it's infancy in 2000. As you may have guessed from the artwork above, my newest project involves the 'lefties' as they are affectionately known, or more formally as the Creative Soul Cards.

These cards meant a whole lot to Sally and me and to Sal's New Moon group of best friends. One Christmas I presented Sal with a New Moon Kit based upon my New Moon Class and we meditated, pulled cards and shared intentions at the New Moon during that visit. Afterwards Sal started her own New Moon Circle with several good female friends. The 'lefty' cards were a big part of this.

At Sal's Memorial I met up with these friends and we cried and talked a lot about Sally. Her friends told me how much this spiritual group meant to Sal during her last months and how much the Creative Soul Cards touched all their hearts and encouraged them to write and share their hopes, dreams and intentions with each other every month.

So, I'd like to dedicate these Creative Soul Cards to you, dear mum and I will continue to teach this class and share these cards with others just as you shared yourself with us by showing us what love is and how to be in love. That was your gift and this is my gift to you.

So, stay tuned folks, I'm working on getting this Creative Soul Deck published along with a guidebook. It will probably accompany my class which I currently teach online but would like to teach in person next.

P.S. The Creative Soul Card pictured above, "Ande was ready for any adventure" was one of the last cards I pulled for Sally and so it was fitting that Ande turned up today for my first "Lefty" post. And, just like Ande, Sal was ready for any adventure and I trust she's on her next big adventure right now.

Sally & Denis