Creative Spirit Work
If what currently passes for culture feels empty, how might we begin to create something inspirited and beautiful at the margins?
Photograph in my studio by Cheryl Juetten
Hello Friends!
Welcome to my Substack—Fierce Sincerity—where I’ll wonder at the nexus of spirit and culture work, healing and creativity, and muse about the spiritual core of punk.
I think it’s fair to say that by every meaningful measure, we’re here at a particularly troubled time on planet earth. My aim is to wonder how it is we arrived in this place, to speculate about different, inspirited ways to meet our aching moment, and to explore whether or not clues to another way of being can be found at the margins of what currently passes for culture. Drawing from myth, wisdom traditions, the inventiveness of punk, and my own spiraling path of soul recovery, the work here will move between the personal and the collective, the within and without.
Some logistical stuff…
It’s my intention to publish twice per month, on the full and new moons. While I like the idea of claiming some witchy-headed reasoning behind this decision, it’s mostly that I enjoy marking time in this way. May we all be reminded to look up at the night sky at least two times per month!
As you may know, Substack gives readers an option to upgrade to a paid subscription on free publications. Put plainly, this feels awkward to me. Of course I’d be touched and grateful for any pledges of support. But why don’t we just see how I do here for a few months before anyone goes fishing for their wallet? I’m a beginner in this space after all, and I’m glad for this humility as an anchoring point. My aim is to love well through this practice of writing and sharing. Let this come first.
A Tension! Attention!
Lastly for now Friends, I’m touched how at this particular point in time, our attention might be the most valuable thing we possess. How we spend it. Who we give it to. It is no small thing to give oneself over to words on a page or screen. My hope is that you’ll find a spark of recognition in Fierce Sincerity. Something achingly familiar to you that may have been mislaid in the comings and goings of modernity. May something undomesticated and true make itself plain in the weave of what I share. And may we inspire one another towards courage now.
More soon, Dears. And thank you, thank you for your very precious attention.
Yours in fierce sincerity,
Jules