Wild Creativity Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Happy Winter Solstice everyone, welcome to the darkest moments of the year and an invitation into deep hibernation.

This bonus episode is a reflection over the past year, the incredible conversations, insights I've received and the wild creative growth the has occurred.

I talk about...

The Wild Creativity Retreat that I'm holding next October in Ithaki, Greece.

My Etsy Shop and how my art practice and belief in myself as an ARTIST has evolved this year.

My Instagram feed as a place to see me share my process on a day to day basis.

The potential and intention to hold in person Ceremonial Creative spaces in Colchester in the New Year - watch this space!

A promised update to my website which will be more reflective of the balance of work that I'm now doing.

And much more...

Happy festive break everyone, sending you Wild Creative Love.

Please do get in touch with me with suggestions or comments, I’d love to hear from you at sophie@thefireflycreatrix.com

Visit my website thefireflycreatrix.com

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In this episode I speak with Dr Helen Beckett Wilson and Dr Lindsey Metcalf McGrath from Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) who have been studying the experiences of people who have been prescribed medical cannabis in the UK. Their project is called MedCan.

Medical Cannabis has been legal to prescribe since 2018, but it’s estimated that under 5 people have received it though the NHS.

The study we have gathered to talk about is called “It’s a big added stress on top of being so ill”, a direct quote from a participant.

I have collaborated with them to create a short impactful video that shares an insight into the real life stories that they’ve uncovered, and now we’re here to discuss the backstory, how they did it, how the creative aspect fitted in and how it will be used.

This conversation is such a beautiful revelation of how academic studies, that can sometimes be perceived as stuffy and highbrow, are intrinsically creative in their nature (particularly qualitative studies from a sociological point of view), and how through creative output we get to share their powerful findings with a wider audience. And that’s how we make change. 

If you find this one interesting, go back and listen to my conversation with Dr Sara Baumann as well, discussing the power of collaboration and embedding creativity into processes within an academic setting.

To find out more about the MedCan project, follow them on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/medcanproject/ 

The film is launched on 3rd November 2023 and will be available to watch on YouTube. All links needed can be found in MedCan’s Linktree here: https://linktr.ee/medcanproject 

Please do get in touch with me with suggestions or comments, I’d love to hear from you at sophie@thefireflycreatrix.com

Find me on Instagram

@sophiemaliphant

@thefireflycreatrix

Visit my website thefireflycreatrix.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this first episode of season two of The Firefly Creatrix podcast I am speaking with Tamara, one of the Wild Sky Sisters about her experiences of reclaiming wild creativity… and what even is wild creativity? What can it look like? There are no definitions here, but the conversation opens up and embrace the notion that creativity exists in so many places, not just where we were ‘trained’ to look for it.

This is a conversation full of gems, of navigating this one wild and precious life together, of sisterhood and real, true collaboration where everyone gets to shine in their own unique way. Of the hurdles, the blocks, the challenges, the power of tears and release, and of the collective uprising into a new world of creativity that we find ourselves in.

Tamara and I met on Red School’s online Wild Power course and instantly connected over similar experiences with working within women’s empowerment movements in Nepal and simultaneously in our own societies. And that was the start of a beautiful and ongoing friendship.

In 2020 Wild Sky Sisters was born and I created the logo for Tamara and Ang which we are all still in love with.

Join us for this conversation of friendship, twists and turns, vulnerable shares, musings and breaking glass ceilings of how we get to show up. I loved it and hope you do too.

Find Tamara here on Instagram: 

@wildskysisters

@tamarawildbreath

And the Wild Sky Sisters website: https://www.wildskysisters.ca

The Wild Sky Sisters’ programmes are often held at times that are accessible to European time zones.

I'd love to hear from you at sophie@thefireflycreatrix.com with any thoughts, feedback or requests for content discussion!

Find me on Instagram

@sophiemaliphant

@thefireflycreatrix

Visit my website thefireflycreatrix.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dropping a little love note to you all on the Summer Solstice (for the northern hemisphere)

I hope this message finds you well and energised and that the brightness of this time of year is revealing things that feel good and nourishing to you!

I am in the process of planning and recording SERIES TWO and I couldn't be more excited about it!

In the first series I journeyed through themes connected to personal experiences on my creative path, which revealed wisdom that has been right under my nose.

In this new series, I am delving deeper into this theme and talking to incredible people that I have met at different moments and turning points of my life about their experiences of re-claiming their wild creativity. 

So curious to bring this topic to the table and normalise it even more! AND to hear the diversity in experiences and approaches...

Follow me on Instagram so you won't miss the Series Two launch and subscribe to the podcast too - that really helps!

@Sophiemaliphant

@thefireflycreatrix

I'd love to hear from you at sophie@thefireflycreatrix.com with any thoughts, feedback or requests for content discussion!

Visit my website thefireflycreatrix.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A conversational journey into the power and importance of unlearning our conditioning so we can be the creatives we came here to be.

Whoosh! This is a big one, and it's been waiting to come through for a while but NOW is PERFECT!

This is a reflection of what the process of creating this podcast has taught me to date, how I've been able to LET GO of imposter syndromes and embrace my humanness when listening to what I record AND how the content of what has organically been spoken time and time again has been a guide (and another nudge from the universe) as to what I am now working to LET GO of! I knew about my good girl conditioning, but I wasn't so consciously aware of my CREATIVE good girl and how she's still been showing up to try to get me to fit into one of the boxes that makes other people feel comfortable. Thanks and gratitude to this podcast and my listeners for revealing this to me further, giving me a space to play and be imperfect and reflect on this spiralling wiggly journey!

In the episode I reference a passage from Glennon Doyle's INCREDIBLE book Untamed. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone on an unlearning journey. Every time I dip back in, I read things in a different way, from the person that I am right now, and simultaneously feel seen and reminded that I'm not alone and I never have been. The passage I referred to is called Questions, and it's on page 221 of the paperback version.

This episode marks the end of the first series. Thank you for being on this journey with me up until this point. I'll be back after summer solstice to continue this conversation!

I'd love to hear from you at sophie@thefireflycreatrix.com with any thoughts, feedback or requests for content discussion!

Find me on Instagram

@Sophiemaliphant

@thefireflycreatrix

Visit my website thefireflycreatrix.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I dive into this conversation about creativity as a feminine quality, and its relation to sustainable change, social commentary and powerful movements, which therefore means it MUST be political.

If politics is "the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status" then creativity definitely has something, or actually a lot, to do with that! It may not always be brash and bold but it is a tool that people have employed since the beginning of time to get their point across and to encourage change.

See my instagram post of my photos to see what I was capturing at age 22

When I was 22 I was interested in street photography. Capturing mundane moments, interactions, things that represented the world we were living in. 

I never got too close, I was always the observer and I actually wanted to be invisible so as not to interrupt anything. Even so, it’s not something that I would do now, ethically it doesn’t feel right.

And yet, at that time, I see it was my way of exploring humanity, of trying to understand and make sense of the structures I found myself in.

In today’s podcast I refer a lot to these photos, the language that I didn’t have to explain why some things I saw didn’t feel right and were connected to misogynistic conditioning OR to explain how incredible moments between humans can be, tender loving and kind.

They mark a chapter in my creative journey, in my quest to create art that helps people feel seen and struggles be recognised.

My journal notes that I read at the end:

It’s always been political.

The politics under the politics.

What did that girl want? She wanted to comment. She wanted to make a difference. She wanted to share what she saw through her eyes.

She wanted to be free. She wanted to grow. She wanted to scream but she didn’t know what about, but she knew something wasn’t right. She just didn’t have the language. She wanted to be invisible and have the eyes. She wanted to see and be like LOOK RIGHT FUCKING HERE, this is real, this is happening. 

The power is in the hands of the few, yes. And the few underestimate the many. Especially the quiet ones. The anxious ones. Especially the women working through their shit, feeling all their pain. Asking why.

The newspaper clippings are still in the cupboard, covered in post it notes. Intelligent enquiries. How can these be used? Time has passed and the words get to come through me now. I found the language. I drew my map because the one they gave me was wrong. I draw because it’s a message, to myself in the moments when all is lost. Creative breadcrumbs. AND for those who are searching too. We get to do it together. We were never meant to do it alone.

So, don’t worry if we don’t shout, the quiet consistent murmurs are getting louder, they’re the heartbeat, the rhythm of the revolution. And they’re here to stay.

Thank you for joining me here, I'd love to hear from you at sophie@thefireflycreatrix.com with any thoughts, feedback or requests for content discussion!

Find me on Instagram

@Sophiemaliphant

@thefireflycreatrix

Visit my website thefireflycreatrix.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stories. A staple of my life but not something I'd associated with my creative process until recent times.

I unpack my love of fictional stories where I get to know the deep feelings of characters and see myself reflected in the nuances of the human experience. And how accepting and embracing that love has guided me to see the importance of our own stories... the bigness and the full spectrum of them! This has invited me to embrace the messy, non-linear way of the creative process, and to see how I have denied some parts of it in the past.

The creative process is beautiful, unpredictable and unique with each client, and I feel it is time to reclaim the whole experience, rather than just looking to emulate the 'successful' parts. Stories have also become an integral part of my journey with clients, honouring and hearing their full stories so I can truly capture the essence of what they do and who they are, which is inevitably influenced by the wiggly journey it's taken to get there.

In this episode I mention the How to Fail podcast with Elizabeth Day, which I highly recommend for a dose of the magic in the mundane.

Thank you for joining me here, I'd love to hear from you at sophie@thefireflycreatrix.com with any thoughts, feedback or requests for content discussion!

Find me on Instagram

@Sophiemaliphant

@thefireflycreatrix

Visit my website thefireflycreatrix.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A short backstory about how the concept of the divine / spirit / Goddess entered and changed my life, made me question my creative path, and definitely helped me shape how it has developed and evolved. Before that, unknowingly, creativity had been my devotional and healing tool - somewhere that I intuitively went to process the meaning of things! Now it is all deeply connected and entwined; one informs the other, or maybe they are one and the same thing after all! This conversation is a little way marker in my ever-growing, beautiful and confronting journey of learning to live in power alongside these two themes!

Thank you for joining me here, I'd love to hear from you at sophie@thefireflycreatrix.com with any thoughts, feedback or requests for content discussion!

Find me on Instagram

@Sophiemaliphant

@thefireflycreatrix

Visit my website thefireflycreatrix.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Exploring the relationship between grief and creativity.

Acknowledging the nuanced places where grief shows up.

And how the different forms and experiences of grief can affect, derail, morph and even catalyse the creative process.

This is a big topic and not one that can be 'ticked off' in an episode.

This is a start at unpicking the ways that grief has popped into my life after something that I had loved or longed for was lost, and how that has guided me slowly and sustainably into a more true version of my creative self.

I mention a container that I was in with Yoli Maya Yeh called Grief as a Superpower, which was really helpful for me to start to change the solely negative and shameful narrative around grief.

Thank you for joining me here, I'd love to hear from you at sophie@thefireflycreatrix.com with any thoughts, feedback or requests for content discussion!

Find me on Instagram

@Sophiemaliphant

@thefireflycreatrix

Visit my website thefireflycreatrix.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A topic I'm really passionate about, the menstrual cycle! How we relate to it, collaborate with it, learn about it and respect it.

As previously mentioned, one of my passions is Kumari's Adventure with her Moon Cycle, a community creating and championing holistic menstrual education in Nepal.

Here I share how working with the ebbs and flows of my menstrual cycle has informed and strengthened my creative approaches. It is one of my internal guides and honouring the energy of each phase has made the creative process so much more exciting and empowering... now when the self critic comes out loud and proud, I have the structure and container of my menstrual cycle to make sense of how much I need to listen to it!!

Please do rate and review the podcast wherever you are listening to it... that will help me to reach people who would enjoy this candid content.

Thank you for joining me here, I'd love to hear from you at sophie@thefireflycreatrix.com with any thoughts, feedback or requests for content discussion!

Find me on Instagram

@Sophiemaliphant

@thefireflycreatrix

Lots of love,

Sophie

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