Writing the Next World Reflection (i.e.: Ireland Trip!!!)

On that afternoon in Cork, one of our facilitators told us this cohort experience would open up a portal that would close at the end of our time together at the Inish Beg Estate in Coastal Cork (in IRELAND!!!).

Earlier this month, our cohort came together to be a part of Bog & Thunder’s fourth circle in the Writing the Next World experience. It’s an experience was coordinated by the phenomenal Kate McCabe & Max Sussman and was facilitator the storytelling creatives themselves, adrienne maree brown and Autumn Brown, and for myself, has been the first writing experience I’ve been selected to be a part of!

Though many were filling my with recs for Dublin and Cork which I’ll need to go back to explore more, the time that our cohort spent together in Coastal Cork was healing, was affirming, was loving, and so very nourishing—from the fantastic food to the immersive experiences activated to the writer wisdom shared from the experiences of our facilitators, our guides, and across one another.

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Being in a leadership cohort like The Collective prepared me for the importance of fellowship and growing trust with trusted people and how we continue to build one another up and show up for each other. Along with my time Pausing in Peru, venturing to Ireland was a break from my usual traveling – for work, for family time, for friend group experiences and weddings, or for more work – as this was an investment into both myself and my writing. And another HUGE THANK YOU for those who shared, contributed, and supported in a variety of ways, I could not have easily gotten to engage with this experience in Ireland without the investment others put in myself and my writing. thank you for everyone who helped me get here and for the continued support you wrap around me, my stories, and the creative endeavors I’ll be exploring as I finish this draft of the novel and my other ideas activating within my whacky wanzy warbles and wanderings—you can subscribe (for free!) on my Substack or just review the vault of stories on the creatives works section on this site.

Amongst the many things that were shared, these were the phrases and lessons that resonate with me still, rattling around my creative noggin, spilling into this reflection, but also soaking into the novel-in-progress and other simmering stories getting ready to be told:

• Understanding visionary fiction as a solution oriented thrutopia

• Examining the barriers and blockers to attempt to prevent me from writing

• The importance of intuition

• Opening portal(s)

• Alters and intentionality of who we channel

• How the world build and what co-creating a new world looks like (cultural practices, settings, beliefs, principles, assumptions, issues, conflict[s], characters, and more…)

• Making the revolution irresistible

• Impact of, Importance of, and Inspiration from the history and continuation of oral storytelling

• History is an echo

• Magic of Mantras – I am a writer, I am going to write

• Write it down (whenever those jokes or phrases or aside rattle within or stir reactions with others, write it down!)

• Getting to that sweet spot (in writing)

• Influence Mapping + Identifying Ideal Readers

• Nourishment and Rest (to nourish our dreaming)

• Protecting priorities and understanding adaptability and accommodations rooted in relationships grounded in trust

• Cards, Rituals, Astrology, Enneagrams, Intersections, y más

• Creative Collective Comradery, Commitments, and Connections

• Having adventures to activate creativity

• Finding our 3s and 8s

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There was so much wisdom and storytelling shared by the Brown siblings who have fostered such a safe and supportive environment in Writing the Next World. Thank you for both seeing me and helping me feel seen in our time together. All that you shared has excited my storytelling nature and I’m elated to share more of it back to our group and my audiences (both current and those I’ve yet to reach). There was the loving hospitality that Ophelia offered us (and those three adorable pups) underscored the value of nourishment with the food and tea and snack and vibes we needed to be ready to write, create, bond, and collectively craft together.

There were so many random (or mayhaps fated) interconnecting aspects of ourselves, from where we’ve lived, to what we nerd out about, experiences we’ve shared, people we had in common with one another, to discussing about how Chani’s astrology reading mentioned the week we arrived in Ireland being perfectly primed for a creative writing retreat (we theorized that she knew this retreat was happening this weekend). I even unearthed my Cifton Strengths 34 assessment and the armor framing from Chichi Agorom who was thoroughly discussed along side Enneagram dialogues all week. Vibe-wise, I brought the Ace of Cups with me from home (which ended up on my alter with two rest deck cards and two mantra cards) and pulled these other two cards during exercises:

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The storytelling amongst our very loving cohort was magical. Not only the #WaterMossMagic stories that filled our cups in Ireland, but the stories we brought from our respective homes, from our past paths, and the stories we struggling to tell through the insecurities, the doubt, the societal barriers, and the other blockers that battle through on the daily. The history of Ireland is a fascinating one to be immersed in, one has left a powerful impression and that we’ll one day return to. I hope we were all inspired by the tales gifted to us by the orators throughout our Ireland time, nourishing us with the tales we need to craft the words that will one day nourish others.

For my novel, I had a chance craft key scenes for a chapter (about an actual ghost) which felt right for time in Ireland. In fact, the morning before my flight, I had a chance to talk to Laura Pegram from Kweli Journal about one of my earlier chapters, and she challenged me to explore infusing more aspects of speculative nature of the chapter I was crafting through the novel. So time during and after the retreat, I had a chance to further outline the chapter, interview and explore the ghastly character, and revisit aspects of my novel to examine and consider the ghosts that those who’ve been ghosted might be facing or enduring. It was the perfect place to craft in community with just the right writers. The goal of finishing this first draft of the novel while likely be achieved by the end of the year, especially with the MVICW retreat coming up in September. I’ll also be exploring a publishing program I got into while in Ireland and confirming (soon) participations and will share/follow-up where any support could be needed…

There’s so much more to this time together than can be captured in a blog, but I will thank our facilitators and our organizers and our hosts and our guides and alllllll the creatives behind this experience – it takes A LOT of intentionality to activate a space of this magical magnitude, and it was FELT. I’m so thankful for the peers I had in this cohort—I’m facilitating so frequently that when I get a chance to be in a cohort, I latch on with love, feeling hella lucky to experience something so unique with all of you.

ALSO, I am helluva excited to see what’s to come, now that this lovey cohort of wonderful writers have journeyed to our next destinations, with invisible tethers connecting us all together. The magic forged amongst us is never gone, it’s always changing and transforming, and I believe the ripple we all started with make some pretty major waves across various creative shores.