“In the Native American culture the turtle is the oldest symbol for Mother Earth, reminding us that we need to honour the earth.
All we have comes from the earth and we must take good care of the earth, to show our gratefulness.” -Ina Woolcott
Catherine Just creates visceral photographs. For me they are infused with the soul wether it is her soul or the soul of the client she is capturing. There is often a simplistic nature in the composition and yet a very complex story being told. I had seen her portraits of Danielle LePorte as well as Carrie-Anne Moss over the years and then more recently saw her work showing up as friends profile photographs. She seemed to pop up all over the place these last few months. She is a very dear and light filled soul and I am blessed to have her view on Process, Sacred, Intuition and Visual Poetry!
Hi there! Thanks so much for having me be a part of this interview series!
I’m Catherine Just and I’m the proud mama to my 6 year old son Max who happens to have Down syndrome. I’m a photographer, artist, mentor and entrepreneur. I consider myself a conceptual photographer. I teach classes online and lead workshops in my home. I also do creative portraiture for high profile clients who need to elevate their brand or product.
Lets start with the most fundamental question: What do you create? Why do you create?
It depends on the project. Right now I’m working on a series of self portraits that are all taken with either my iPhone or my sx-70 Polaroid camera that have to do with what’s going on underneath the surface of my personal life. My work has always been conceptual in nature. Meaning, I use this form of creativity as a way to dig down deep into the internal / emotional / sensory / intuitive realms and create something visual out of something that you can’t put words to. I try to give voice to something that’s there but not necessarily visible to the eye. I use metaphor, objects, symbolism, with images of myself with long exposures and blur in alternative environments to express these spaces that live in between words. (( or in-between worlds ))
If the project involves a speaker, author, high profile celebrity, we collaborate on ideas and I use the camera as a tool to connect with their soul. It’s not just a headshot or a pretty photo of someone. I want to really get at who they are from the inside out.
I read you say: “I’ll be creating some sort of visual poetry related to this extraordinary role of mine in his life.” Visual poetry. This art isn’t just a career it seems you are also a adventurer and a healer using this medium. Is this true? Can you elaborate on the personal growth and spiritual side of your art making?
Yes, I see my work as visual poetry. Getting inside of a situation and creating something with deeper meaning than just a description of it. I’ve been working in this way for the last 27 years. In the beginning, I was very insecure and had a difficult time socially. Photography was a way for me to express visually what was hard for me to express verbally. It was healing for me to process my relationships, my spirituality, the world around me through this medium of photography. I find that this work is a miracle for me. It saved me from my own dis-ease and as I continue with this work I love sharing this process with others as another tool for transformation in their own lives. I work both intuitively and with written out plans and find that once the art process starts, there are 3 of us involved. myself, my camera and something else that cannot be named really. Spirit maybe?
Whatever it is there is magic in the actual process of making the art. It’s an extraordinary process.
What would you say are the major inspirations for what you create?
My own personal life situations. Personal relationships. Connections. Loss. Deep emotional Pain or Joy. I got sober from a crystal meth addiction when I was 18 years old and the photography process started right after that. So living in the world without “leaving” is what inspires me to dive into the photography process. It’s where I go to figure things out, heal, grow, express, process, understand, take apart, dive in and not harm myself or anyone else in the process.
What does Sacred mean to you? What does it feel like, look like, Where is your sacred place?
Sacred is being present for the moments that matter. Being Sober is Sacred. Being fully IN my life without doing anything to check out or “take the edge off”. My life is sacred. Being with my son is sacred when I’m really present. Slowing down to notice how the light is wrapping itself around your life.
The camera can help me shift from my mind back to the present moment and into my heart.
Photography and any other creative process is sacred. Connection with the spiritual realms. Certain energy, Home, Family, Friends, Nature, Seasons, Process, Being awake, Waking up, Every moment of choice is sacred.
Intuition the mother of our hearts! How has your intuition led you here, Where you stand today? Where is it leading you? What is it whispering?
I haven’t been the type to have a master plan for my life. When I was using drugs I thought that being 30 years old equaled death. I’m heading towards 47 this year and I feel more alive and full of possibility than I did when I was younger. So I really don’t take my thoughts too seriously. Or at least I try not to. I go with my “gut” in any moment. I do have friends that I reach out to when I’m confused or suffering trying to make up my mind about something. And then in the end I just go with what feels right to me. Even if it ends up being the “wrong path” I definitely learn something from it and it informs my next steps in life so “wrong” is relative. My intuition is whispering to keep going with the personal project I’m working on, to apply for the grant that’s in my inbox, to learn as much as I can about photography and the fine art world. It’s whispering that all is well, keep going.
What supports your authentic self? Your true expression of yourself?
I don’t know of anything right now that doesn’t support my authentic self. I set myself up for success that way. I have very little tolerance for drama and in authentic people or situations so I steer clear. I value self preservation and set myself up for situations and relationships that nurture that. I honestly don’t stick around long if I sense something isn’t quite feeling right to me. Even if I can’t put my finger on it. It just doesn’t serve me or the other person if it’s not authentic.
My true expression of myself is always changing in every moment. My true expression of myself is always being revealed to me as I connect with my spiritual practice, kundalini yoga and meditation. The Toltec path helped me get much more clear on the areas where I was suffering and why I was suffering ( my thoughts and beliefs cause all of my suffering ) so doing that important work and detaching from those things that cause me to suffer provides me with ways to be more true. Creativity, Dancing with my son, snuggling with him, laughing, treating myself really well with healthy food. I don’t eat wheat, dairy or processed sugar and I notice a huge difference in how I can show up in the world. I don’t drink caffeine and that made a big difference as well to stop artificially activating energy reserves. Now I get high on natural things like green juice, great friendship, the process of creativity, loving my son, eating healthy, treating myself really well, being curious about life, exploring spiritual connection.
Lastly, tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
Right in this moment I plan to notice it, breathe deeply, celebrate my life and my son’s life. I plan to explore my creativity and share it with others. I plan to learn how to love myself even more deeply and love others as well. How to be a true friend. First to myself and then to everyone around me. My dream is to continue to raise my vibration and to help others expand as well. Love how the light hits your soul.
Right now Catherine Just is living on Instagram and would love people to follow her there and partake in the 30 day photo challenge she is doing for the Month of April for free see HERE.
She is also offering an online eCourse called “The Daily Miracle” which is a 30 day photo project that helps us return to seeing the sacred in our every day.
That’s the miracle. The shift that occurs when we look through the lens and wake up to this moment. It’s not always what we think it is. Find out more HERE!
As I have found many wonderful artists through Orly Avineri so too I found this gem Galia Alena! This little lady has a plethora of talents and she reels you in with her words, wisdom and images wether it be paint or photos. I have immensely enjoyed exploring her and her work and I am pretty confident you will too! She has so much to offer so let’s dive in together.
Galia Alena:I’m a visual poet working in just about any medium I can lay my hands on although I am a professionally trained photographer and a so called “self-taught” artist (of course there have been many teachers on that path). I’m in love with the creative process. I’m a beauty unveiler, light huntress, moment caresser and visionary poetess.
Ultimately, all of my work is about helping people peel back the layers to experience the intense beauty of each moment allowing access to both their intuitive wisdom and a deeper connection to spirit and self. (Because the beauty of this life cracks our hearts open and it is through the cracks that light can flow both in and out and connect us back to our divine selves)
That is what I do and I do it through photography, art, journaling and teaching.
I live in the insanely beautiful Blue Mountains, just shy of Sydney, with my family, our cat and all the winged ones who frequent our garden. Each day here is a wondrous delight of tiny miracles through either the glorious light or magical mists.
I would love to work with you, have a look around and see where you are called…
Lets start with the most fundamental question why do you create?
Hmmmmmm, I just have to, to make things, things of beauty, to be connected to those things of beauty, to manifest my soul, my heart, my desires, my being, to express, to swirl and dance with the universe, to take something and magically, alchemically, turn it into something else, to be part of it all. I have the magician as my birth card, some would say its my soul path to create and manifest things, I just know I have to. It’s a deep desire that drives the hand, heart and soul to work in unison and create.
The feminine figures that often show up in your work, do they have their own story?
Yes, we all have stories, especially women, we are all just stardust fallen into stories, so of course my feminine figures are made of stardust and stories. Sometimes real stories and sometimes mythical, always archetypical. Many of the stories come to me as seeds or images in my dreams and then reveal more and more of their stories as I spend time with them unveiling, exploring and getting to know them on the canvas. Their stories are my story and probably yours too, all of ours, of being human, of being feminine and of being divine.
I feel a certain spiritual aspect to what you create, does spirituality play a part in your art?
Mary Oliver said that “to notice is the first step to devotion” and for me my practice is very much about paying attention (to pay attention, this is how I pray), paying attention to the way the light moves through my day, how the shadows fall, the birdsong, the way the steam rises from my coffee, or the clouds hang low in my garden, a new thing growing, the way words are formed into magical beings and the whispers between the petals, all of it, I pay attention, I drink it in, it feeds me, it is sacred, all of it, so yes, everything is spiritual.
Do you have a sacred space?
My own sacred space is my home, with my babies, where I create and dream: sanctuary of trees; & the forests I walk through: cathedrals of trees.
What does sacred mean to you?
Sacred is that which connects us to our highest selves, to each other and to universal energy (by whatever name you wish to label it). It is what steps us into our Brightest, our potential beyond ego, beyond personality, beyond the individual, our connectedness, our oneness. It is a portal to our soul and beyond, it is what brings us into the fulness of the moment.
Anything, and possibly everything, is sacred if it allows us to remember.
Do you have any rituals?
Many rituals from morning coffee- letting the dreams slowly lift as I clasp my hands around a warm cup looking out the window at the day breaking through; to taking out the compost- recycling what we don’t need, nurturing the worms and earth, turning over the dirt, keeping it all flowing. I think anything can be a ritual if it is done with mindfulness, attention and intention. As I’m thinking about this question, I’m feeling that “practice” might be a more interesting idea to look at. All the things I do as ritual can be done fully present or not, I could walk through the motions of rituals without mindfulness, without intention, without presence and on one level they would still be ritual but not a deep and meaningful ritual. What is more important to me is “practice” and this is anything that I do to deepen my connection to presence, to source, to myself. My practice takes many forms but to name a few, hitting the mat, walking in nature, meeting myself on the page or the blank canvas. When I hit the mat I often have to gently remind myself “there is nowhere else I need to be, nothing else I need to be doing- just breathe” as the busyness of all I want to do calls to me I have to release it to the moment. By a walk in nature, I don’t mean that walk you do to burn off calories or tick the exercise box on your to do list, nor the walk to catch up on some podcast or audiobook (although I do love to take some soul-thinkers and poets with me on occasion), I’m talking about that walk that is just me and my breath, and the pulse and breath of nature.
What do you collect? Why?
The why is easy- I love things of beauty especially when they are layered in meaning and significance to me. The what, well… The main things I love to collect are “trinkets” from our travels and adventures, these are touchstones to memories and experience; art work from the hands and heart of people I know, these are touchstones to the people and the creative collective; stones, feathers, sticks, pods, seeds- these are touchstones to mama nature, to beauty and fragility, to the fact we are all just tiny stars.
What does your inner rhythm look like? Feel like?
It’s cyclic, its always been cyclic, between quiet reflection, observation, listening, seeking, germination and then a flurry of creativity, production, movement and then back to quiet. A continual spiralling, with always many cycles at any one time.For me balance is not a static point nor an ideal to try to achieve but an intersection as I oscillate trying to juggle a multifaceted life and being. The inner rhythm is always in movement, even when dormant and incubating it is moving slowly back to a time of creation. Always cycling it is these opposing points which keep each other balanced. I think this idea of balance holds so much freedom and permission. It allows life to be messy and fluid. It allows me to be unproductive and floss about with the fairies, when I need to because I know I’m going to circle back and have a bout of creative explosion and then that will naturally burn out and a time of introspection will begin. Knowing this allows me to relax into it more readily and not to try to force the rhythm. Even knowing this I still struggle with time but when I am doing my practice and practicing presence I am more likely to be able to keep the overall scales balanced and be sure not to linger too long in anyone phase.
What lights you up? What turns you on? What makes your heart quicken?
Snow- silent white magic,
Light- the dance of the day,
Shadows- where I can see clearly,
Creativity- the soul at play,
My babies- they are magical beings and infinite teachers.
How do you nourish your wellbeing on a typical day?
Notice, create, move/flow, love.
Lastly, tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
To stay open. No plan, just on path, noticing, course correcting, flowing, growing, unfolding my story and gifts:
becoming myself- we are not wounded, we are just unfinished…
THIS! Of the heart: Making an heirloom. >>>———————->(Watch this video.)
My daughter will soon get her moon time and I want to celebrate this auspicious occasion and welcome her into the beginning of her womanhood journey. As part of this I am putting together a Red Box with gifts and wisdom from her female tribe and I’ve decided to make her a very special and unique book, an heirloom, a keepsake, a treasure and a treasury of love from me. And so this course and this project was birthed.
If I received a book like this I would surely fall into a mess of magical tears! Don’t you want to gift your daughter one of these? Perhaps she is about to pass the threshold into womanhood or about to get married? This would be a stunning heirloom! Inquire and sign up HERE!
Oh and there is this: Journal Circle is a sacred and dedicated time just for YOU. A date with your creativity, allowing you to slow down, go deeper and listen to your own wisdom. To Meet Yourself on the Page. You can join a journal circle HERE, as well as discover much more about it and see Galia’s personal journal pages!
You can also come say hello on her website HERE or on Facebook HERE!
The color of Joy:
Jewel toned lovers,
Early morning greys on skin,
Bright sparkling laughter.
The sound of Joy:
Tribal beats,
Birds song,
Hand moving across paper.
The scent of Joy:
Citrus sheets,
Ginger tea,
Christmas,
Bonfires.
I stumbled upon the every love and wise books of Jennifer louden one day in a book store as I suspect a lot of people find Jen in this manner. I go to the same section in the book store first every time. I don’t know if it was a new publication of her’s at the time or simply the right time for me to take in her words. I believe it was the later. I soaked in her words and signed up for her emails because I craved her words. I think I still crave them! Here today is the breath taking Jennifer Louden.
Jennifer Louden is a personal growth pioneer who helped launch the self-care movement with her first book, The Woman’s Comfort Book. She’s the author of 7 additional books on well-being and whole living: The Couple’s Comfort Book, The Pregnant Woman’s Comfort Book, The Woman’s Retreat Book, Comfort Secrets for Busy Women (The Comfort Queen’s Guide to Life in hardcover), The Life Organizer, and A Year of Daily Joy. There are about million copies of her books in print in 9 languages.
Jennifer has spoken around the U.S., Canada and Europe, written a national magazine column for a Martha Stewart magazine, been profiled or quoted in dozens of major magazines, and appeared on hundreds of TV and radio shows, even on Oprah. Jennifer has been teaching retreats and leading workshops since 1992, and creating vibrant on-line communities and innovative learning experiences since 2000. She married her second husband at 50, and is the very proud mom of Lillian and very proud bonus mom to Aidan.
With your writing/art how do you live an integrated life? How can others?
When I was younger that question probably wouldn’t have made any sense to me at all. But now I would say that question is probably what shapes everything. I would use the word whole. How do I live a whole life? To me integrated and whole mean the same thing. Often I am feeling my way into self experience of a whole life. Rather than trying to think my way or plan my way into that experience. I think when I was younger I had a pie chart to balance all the appointments and things. Not that it wasn’t useful but for me it has become much more about what “feels” right, what “feels” possible. My mind has no limits as all of our minds have no limits. But our little human bodies do. To really respect our experience I practice what I call being in the gap.
A concrete example of this idea happened this morning, my niece and her family spontaneously came to visit for about an hour while on her spring break. I haven’t seen them in many, many years. I also knew I had been waiting months to get an appointment to see a dentist, this appointment was this morning cutting our visit short. So it was uncomfortable right? Because they could have stayed for 20 more minuets before they needed to leave for the ferry, but I needed to leave to take care of myself. Learning to be with and accept this discomfort is being in the gap. Welcome the discomfort. Know that my life isn’t this neat tidy thing, it never will be. Knowing that I am not doing anything wrong because of this, that is also apart of being in the gap.
It is mundane perhaps but learning to be in the gap is essential as a creative person. What you visualize or what you hear in your head often times looks different as it comes out. Learning to be in that gap with a lot of grace, mercy and curiosity then extending that to the whole of our lives experience. For me it looks like a lot of meeting, greeting, and welcoming what my thoughts and body sensations are. I like to think of my mind as a tennis ball machine, pop, pop, pop these thoughts and ideas fly out! It’s what it does. I don’t have to believe them or engage in all of them, I can relax in the gap.
A beautiful term came to me in yoga class this past winter. I heard it in my mind’s eye: “Grit without compassion is just grind.” Then I shortened it to “compassionate grit.” It’s this way of being so kind to ourselves like we would a dear friend but sticking with it. We stick with the art making. We stick with being in the gap.
How will you honor your moments today?
I honored the moment by looking into my nieces face whom I haven’t seen in fifteen years, taking in as much as I could in the hour and fifteen minutes we had together. I honor many of my moments with my beloved. My second love. Later in life love has a certain tenderness to it. There is so much honoring between us because we are so gleeful we found each other. In the morning the first thing we say to each other is I love you. There is the hugging and honoring even when my mind might be saying but you have a lot to do! Even my little dogs bring me into the present moment over and over again and I honor these creatures.
What does being BRAVE look like these days? What does it feel like?
I had a very rich experience in early spring at a meditation retreat that shifted things for me pretty profoundly for many weeks to follow. When I woke up on monday I had some anxiety and depression for the first time in months. I had been in a really good place before the retreat as well as many weeks following it. The meditation retreat showed me again what happiness looks like, wahhh this is amazing I thought. Then it shrunk and contracted quite a bit for me yesterday. So for me bravery meant not numbing out with sugar. It meant going to the meditation cushion anyway. It meant sharing those feelings with my husband. Being brave meant being honest as well as not ashamed or hiding there in that depressed place. Instead meeting it with honesty and continuing with my writing practice anyway.
Another example of bravery in my life right now is a writing project that is unlike anything I have ever work one previously. I think it might be sort of a memoir and there are many many pages spread across the floor at my feet right now. So being brave is not giving up on that project. It’s like the hydra monster seen in Heracles mythology, it’s got so many heads! What is this!? What am I doing? Saying no to the urge to make it tidy! Oh let’s just write a self help book, you can knock that out in no time! No… we’re not writing any more self help books, you did that and it was great but we’re so done!
What is pulling you forward? What is your motivation?
Is a great sense of devotion. Tapping into how life wants to live me. It’s still pretty tenuous for me. My modus operandi had been “make it so.” So grit your teeth! Get it done! Just being at the dentist my teeth were telling stories of all the years of teeth gritting. Trying to continually ask where does life want to live me? How can I be devoted to this pulse of life? Right now that feels really good.
Describe a time when you walked through the doors of passage?
So many times, in ways this is why I am writing this memoir. But I would say the most recent time was when falling in love with Bob my husband mere months after my first husband moved out. It was far too soon in terms of what I was ready for or what my daughter was ready for. That passage had many doors while we blended and created our family. The passage too of actually getting married, something we had sworn we were not going to do! You do that when your young, you don’t do that when your in your fifties! Then we were in Guatemala on a meditation retreat we broke silence and he asked me to marry him! WHAT!? Thats not apart of the plan! That was a HUGE passage for me, because I had to really choose; was I going to walk down the path that is so well worn of “I am not…” not really lovable… not truly seen… Or am I going to choose this other path of believing that he really did love me. It took me a week to say yes and when I finally did I yelled it across the hotel room!
Tell me about what you crave? What are you saying a big Holy YES to these days?
I crave this book as much as my heart pounds literally when I say this. I crave this deeper creative experience. Honestly what has been emerging in this work recently although I have always known it and yet not fully owned it is, a craving to lead woman into this same creative depth. That’s what I crave. The Holy YES is to that intersection between creative joy and spacious awareness.
How do you show up? Who are you becoming? or How do you rise up in your fullness?
I am becoming someone who doesn’t have to pretend. I would not have said years ago that I was someone who was pretending. If you had known me in my life then you would have thought now that’s somebody who speaks the truth. But there were many subtle ways in which I thought I needed to be somebody other than I was. Especially in my work, someone wiser or a better speller! I had such the impostor syndrome when I published my first book at 27 or 28. Even after so many years of teaching and speaking I would think how dare I be doing this!
What is so beautiful is when young wise woman claim their life experience for where they are. There is a humbleness in this claiming of what I know right now, right here! If you follow great thinkers they revise what they know and believe. We have this weird idea in our culture that your supposed to know it and stay the same. I love the Dalai Lama for he said “If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change. In my view, science and Buddhism share a search for the truth and for understanding reality. ” I believe as he does in this openness to learning.
How has your experience as an writer/artist changed you? How can or does this experience help others?
Being a writer has really made me who I am. I am one of those kinds of people who doesn’t know what I know until I write about. I don’t think I would be sane or perhaps even alive without writing. I certainly don’t think I would understand what it’s like to have this mind and this body if I wasn’t writing about it. And reading I can’t imagine a life without reading! On the meditation retreat we don’t read, that was the hardest thing for me! Being able to be in someones else’s mind is beyond precious to me.
I hope my writing can help normalize. That’s the first word that comes to mind. I hope I can normalize life experiences for others.
The second word that comes to mind is transmission. A transmission of what else is possible.
What would you like everyone to know?
Self-improvement is often rooted in self-violence.
Swami said “But the real you is already perfect, already strong.”
We can take a look at our rough places, and our neurosis and our dents from a place of our innate, untaintable goodness. We welcome, meet and greet these pieces of us, the broken bits, like we would family. Letting that love bring about the healing changes, the awareness and the growth in our creativity that we are hungry for. Instead of that hierarchal, coming from the outside, someone else has the answer. I wish I had those years back when I thought someone else had the answer or that I thought I even needed one.
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild precious life?
Love my people. Thats for sure. That feels very top of my list. This includes my mom, whom I am really proud to say I have learned to love her as she is on her way out with alzheimer’s.
Then what also feels important is to follow this urge, this yearning, this desire that right now leads into memoir writing and meditation. Following that urge to create and sharing that journey and depth with other woman is important.
*I see plenty of travel and fun and a lot of gratitude as well!
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