Keep Going as a Creator- 3 Powerful Irish Lessons Gleaned from Two Bad Centuries 

So powerful Kate and so timely! I continue to be amazed at how much the Irish have to teach us and you are so gracious to continue to share it with us :) I think you are right on all fronts, and maybe even more dramatically than we now realize. It's so important for us to find and maintain ways to allow our creativity to surface and flourish -- I've been passing on some basic tools of artmaking with people who think they have no creativity and we're all being amazed at what happens -- and you're so right, our acts of creation are expanding our own lives (and, I think, the universe itself) in ways we cannot even imagine. Thank you again for sharing these encouragements 💚💙💜

I'm so glad you and I started creating so young. We waited for zero outside approval. We loved it with our whole selves. Nothing was going to stop us from playing and writing. We persevered with a lot of negative attempts to stop us. We win. We're happy and sane and still in love with creating. I love, "Give to yourself first." Absolutely, it's like compound interest, saving $, and pay yourself first. I remember eating, good and fruity candy ,as a young child and thinking, I'll save the red and orange ones for last since they are my favorite. But by the time I ate the green and yellows, I didn't want any more. It backfired. I think stifling our creative selves always back fires. And diminishing ourselves with any of the negative comments we've ever heard people say is a load of rubbish. We are what we say we are. Just because you have an old memory or negative thought doesn't mean it's your thought. Don't repeat it. Don't believe it. There is no outside approval needed. It's totally an inside job. As you think so shall you be. 2000 years ago Senica wrote, "Why do you postpone yourself?"

Thanks so much, Kate. Very encouraging!

It's amazing how videos like these change and totally save peoples' lives. You do mine

My inner Queen Bess says, "You're too tired to work on that... it's too late to start on that now." She and I are still at war. No resolution has yet been reached. But I keep trying 😊.

Work and toil is the common fate of all. Who would want more? But creativity and music, why no one ever has enough. The history behind this is intriguing and very new to me. Even though it can be hard sometimes to keep creativity foremost, it is almost always worth it in the end. Thank you for sharing and I can't wait for next week's video!

I live with the consequences of the history, and still the oppression and all its ways, along with the betrayal. I live and came into the disabled, and went through the worst, including dealing with mental health and all sorts of things. I had to give up the imagination, along with the strange, weird, wacky of the creative, because I was dealing with the medical and am in the situation of the incurable. I left my doctor this wisdom, Just because I see what others can't does not mean I am mentally ill, it just means I am a visionary. I lost everything, including my ability to dance, but instead of chasing after what others do, which is hurtful and corrupt, I want to use my gifting of dance, for healing, recovery and things people don't think possible. I learnt things, people not interested in what I learnt, but I still do it anyway. I learnt that Irish dance, Sean Nos is good for dealing with things like prevention for alzeihmers, and those that have traumatic brain injury and things like that, also good for dealing with balance problems. At the moment I can not hear music, because I have to deal with damaged ears, hearing and listening, not just my own, but the damage that is in nature. Music gives me a headache, even my voice, can cause my hearing to shut down and there is sensory deafness, which can cause me to stop breathing, but I hear the music in the silence and that is what I dance to. It is remembered in the silence. I wanted my family to cry with me, they could not even do that. No hugs, nothing, no sitting together, not shared grieving, just stand on your own two feet, and just alone with only one other and having to deal with the world of silence. But the nature and the silence that is here, is so beautiful, none can disturb it. Even though its a battle at times, because the isolation can be suffocating, I hear the music in the steps and I learn and live in silence. Sometimes the outrage comes out, but in the end it goes, there is silence and peace once more. I found a special place, of rest, recovery, and healing. A sanctuary for those neglected and have nothing left, its a second go place. Given another go even when death and deaf is preferable, Its a place of rainbows, and rainbow frost and mountain drops that carpets all. And sun that lights up the trees and there is all these rainbow fairy lights everywhere. The truth is I needed my family, they did not want me and neither did the dna. You see I was and am the peace, that everyone tried to kill. But I can not forget.

Ah yes, I've spent much time telling myself I have to keep working to support my family. No time for creativity. I've gathered art materials and musical instruments over the years with intention to create but "no time too tired"; the work indeed expanded to fill the space. My "work" has been building, making, restoring, fixing and it's often been said how creative my process and product is. Which is great but now it's just me and my overheads are reducing it's time for the softer creative arts. And this body is telling me the same. Thanks for your words that concur with my journey to rejoin the bardic path. To honour and heal our maligned ancestors. I must say though I'd rather be in the hedge than the hall ... 🍀🙏🍀

Thank you so much!!

Thanks for this, Kate. My high school chemistry teacher told me “chemistry before romance”. And that was the rule for the next 25 years. But I made up for it in the subsequent 25 years… and counting. I hope to continue as a creator for as long as I can. I so enjoy studying folklore and Irish with you.

Wonderful video, especially the end, I stopped it to sit at my piano and play 😂

Hello Kate, I'm planning a trip to Ireland this Sept. or Oct.. Seamus Heaney wrote powerful lines about experiencing the Wild West Coast in those months. I won't drive, so am reliant on trains, planes- and taxis. The plan is to begin in Dublin, and take the train to Galway (Connemara, Aran Islands). What might you recommend after that? The theme(s) will be music, water, food, theatre, more food. :) Writing from beautiful Vancouver Island- also forty shades of green!! 💚

I believed in soverignty years ago, I believed in it for all, and I was persecuted because of it, but still believe it anyway and I see it where it wasn't. No one can stop you believing. What ever you do, I already did I am in your opposite. I want my family to love each other and end the hatred in the dna. When the whole UK are your family and all the dna is as one and the hatred kills the dna. I believe for the fighting to stop. One day my family will love each other, will stop fighting and will be what I know they are, the peace. Sometimes Peace is most important of all. QE1 I loved she was my family, so were the english, irish, scottish, welsh, cornish, it was all my family❤🎉❤ So what part of my family am I to hate, when I don't want to hate any of you. This little child in me just wants their family to be a family together, not seperate all the time. This little child just wants God's family to also stop hating each other. Along with humanity. That is more important than creativity.