res·o·nance| ˈrezənəns | noun
1 the quality in a sound of being deep, full, and reverberating: the resonance of his voice. • the ability to evoke or suggest images, memories, and emotions: the concepts lose their emotional resonance.
2 Physics the reinforcement or prolongation of sound by reflection from a surface or by the synchronous vibration of a neighboring object.
3 the condition in which an electric circuit or device produces the largest possible response to an applied oscillating signal, especially when its inductive and its capacitative reactances are balanced.

I have been holding back.

All it takes is one quick scroll on Youtube, Instagram or Twitter to realize the number of voices on any one thing is endless. The number of vlogs, podcasts, blogs, essays, articles, series, tik-toks, memes, commentaries, and message boards on any topic is overwhelming at best.

I have found it alarming, overwhelming and, quite frankly, scared to be a voice that isn't adding anything but more noise to the cacophony.

To become part of the machine that doesn't make room for grace, compassion and courage.

Yet, now it's time to think differently. To think with a longer-lasting perspective.

Resonance.

To develop and evoke quality, depth and fullness in creation that echoes through life and work.
To practice the art of resonance is:
To fully express the fullness of thought and meaning behind a concept.
To seek collaborative hands to be the champions and refining behind the work.
To take in more than one angle of perspective on any one thing and be refined by all that surrounds a topic.

Onwards,

Amy Grace

res·o·nance| ˈrezənəns | noun
1 the quality in a sound of being deep, full, and reverberating: the resonance of his voice. • the ability to evoke or suggest images, memories, and emotions: the concepts lose their emotional resonance.

space | spās | noun
1 a continuous area or expanse which is free, available, or unoccupied
2 the dimensions of height, depth, and width within which all things exist and move
3 an interval of time (often used to suggest that the time is short considering what has happened or been achieved in it)
4 the portion of a text or document available or needed to write about a subject
5 the freedom and scope to live, think, and develop in a way that suits one

This year has sharpened me in ways I was not sure I was ready for or wanted.

For as brave and bold as some may believe me to be, I, too, can cave to the depths of doubt and weakness.

I realized this year that to claim space meant I needed to rise up and hold that space with the confidence I have. To not just fake or pretend but to truly and wholly own.

I was raised in parts but not in whole, on the value of humbleness and meekness within one's womanhood.

Yet something was nagging on me.

Something that brought me to tears when it kept raising it’s ugly head.

It happened simply and quietly when expressing myself around a dinner table.

It went something like this:

"I can give them something unique. I am a skilled storyteller and carry something others don't have. My previous training and way of seeing things make me excellent at what I do."

"You should watch how you say that. That sounds prideful, and it isn't Godly." was the reply.

"It's not prideful at all. If any of the men in this family sat here and said the same thing, I know for a fact they would be praised for their skills and intelligence. The same is true here. I know my skills, weaknesses, and where I need and want to grow. Both can be true." I responded.

It was a simple and symbolic yet crushing moment of realization.

The work was endless.

The struggle might be forever.

I spent months after this exchange navigating my self-doubt and wondering if anything would come of anything.

Yet during that time, I was learning what I was worth and what I was willing to do to make the effort I could make known.

I found that effort and work within a project of holding space for others.

This is my passion, and I have learned this more than any other this year.

I am meant to hold space for myself to do the heavy and essential work of holding space for others.

It won't stop here.

This word.

This theme.

It's a lifetime commitment.

Just because a new year comes and with it a new word,

Space will remain a word that I will hold and continue to strive for.

I pray as 2022 turns 2023 that, our pauses of reflections of the days behind us remind us of the sacred and beautiful art of being wholly and fully capable in our places.

None of it is a mistake.

Every single moment is here for the teaching.

The making and the breathing.

Thank you, 2022, for being the year that reminded me of the true intent behind the work.

Onwards,

Episode XII - a study on reflecting and creating.

Creative Field Notes is a series that studies the way creativity weaves itself throughout and communicates with all aspects of the natural rhythms of life.

Episode XI - a study on the illusive and beautiful creative flow.

Creative Field Notes is a series that studies the way creativity weaves itself throughout and communicates with all aspects of the natural rhythms of life.

Episode X - a study on the beauty and journey of imperfection.

Creative Field Notes is a series that studies the way creativity weaves itself throughout and communicates with all aspects of the natural rhythms of life.

MUSIC: Think of Me - Phantom of the Opera.

Sheet music played by Amy Grace was sight read and played for the first time in three years.

con·ver·sa·tion | ˌkänvərˈsāSHən |

noun

a talk, especially an informal one, between two or more people, in which news and ideas are exchanged: she picked up the phone and held a conversation in French | [mass noun] : the two men were deep in conversation.

Conversation is happening all around and within us.

What does that look like?

The exchange of news and ideas?

Social Media has given us the licence to sound off. To believe we are carrying a conversation when in truth, it is a sounding board of one.

How often are we genuinely crafting our words to create a dialogue that moves past the 'me vs. you?'

5 Simple ways we can create a safe space in a conversation:

1. Drop and remove any name-calling from referencing a person or group of persons. e.g. clowns, idiots, etc.

When we rely on a caricature of an individual or group, we strip 'others' of their humanity and their identity as living and breathing individuals on this earth.

2. Know your values and realize that others' values will never perfectly align with yours.

When we truly honour our values, it's much easier to relax into the idea that someone else may be different. We stop being so concerned with the differences, become more content with our choices, and get curious about what makes others who they are.

3. Get curious.

When divisive statements/topics arise, realize there is often so much more than the statement beneath what is said. Upbringing, age, culture, personal experiences, and generational wounds are the backing of many of these strong stances.

4. Recognize you cannot change minds.

Instead of trying to convince someone of something, stand by your values and perspective while expressing yourself. Often it's our own calm and unwavering convictions that speak louder than any debate ever could.

5. Never tolerate bullying/racism /hate etc.

Safe space cannot exist within the atmosphere of bullying, racism etc. When this occurs, shut it down, don't negotiate or tolerate it.

I am reminded of Maya Angelou's statements when a racist comment was said in her house during a party she was hosting.

"I'm convinced that the negative has power. It lives. And if you allow it to perch in your house, in your mind, in your life, it can take you over. So when the rude or cruel thing is said—the lambasting, the gay bashing, the hate—I say, "Take it all out of my house!" Those negative words climb into the woodwork and into the furniture, and the next thing you know, they'll be on my skin."

You do the courageous thing, a small one, and you like yourself. And then you do another two, three, and you like yourself better. And before you know it, you are able to say, "Excuse me, not in my house, you don't. You don't paint my walls with poison and vulgarity. You will not do it in my house. Out. Is this your purse? Thank you. Bye."

- Maya Angelou

As children, we naturally live by our values.

We live emotionally open, follow our passions, explore new ideas, and ultimately seek connection with those we love and care for.
We don't fight or argue this with ourselves.
We simply do.

Why is this so hard to do as we grow up?

Our true sense of self and our true values become intertwined with expectations, societal norms, financial constraints and ultimately 'fears'.
Fear of not being taken seriously, fear of rejection, fear of missing out, fear of losing our value.
Yet…

How much value can we genuinely hold if we are not living to the true values of our inner selves?

Begin broadly.

1. What do you value in life as a whole?

• Moving my body

• Spending time with loved ones

• Reading

• Nature

• Meaningful work

• Eating well (both for health & enjoyment)

  2. Categorize into daily, monthly, and seasonal values.

How do these values show up in your routine? Do you value reading every day or on the weekends? Do you want to be in nature once a week or just once a month? Do you have hobbies as values that may fit best into autumn? (Puzzles, dance class, baking?)

3. Expand.

Fill out your days, weeks, and seasonal categories. It helps to put all the possible values down and edit after. Often, we don’t know what we value or have as an expectation/routine for ourselves until we fully meditate on and see it all in front of us.
Other values could be: keeping up on chores, storytime with the kids, date nights, and getting to work on time.

4. Reflect and Edit

As you live out your daily/weekly values, edit along the way. See what's working and what isn't. Often we expect too much from ourselves and must be humble enough to realize we have bogged ourselves down with too many expectations, either from others or ourselves. Be realistic. How much can you fit in a day? How much can you honour during a week or month? And for what you value, you may find that you can move that value from a daily routine to something less often or vice versa. Enjoy learning about yourself along the way.

Maybe there is something you thought you valued that you don't. Perhaps you find that what you value during some parts of the year, you don't value other times. Maybe your values change depending on where you live, your job, etc. Be at peace with course correcting and making adjustments.

5. Lean into your values.

If you change them quarterly or monthly, let yourself enjoy the values you create and meditate on them daily.

*Some practical applications:
I keep a list of my daily, weekly, and seasonal (currently, it's Autumn) values in my notes app. I use it as a guide as I move throughout the day, week and month. I put a star beside the ones I have honoured, reminding me of the ones I have ignored or am realizing may not fit during this season of my life.

Episode IX - a study on the process of letter writing.

Creative Field Notes is a series that studies the way creativity weaves itself throughout and communicates with all aspects of the natural rhythms of life.

Dear Autumn,

I’ve been anticipating you.

There was something in the air recently… I knew you would come. That brisk note in the breeze. The urgent tug at my hair last week. The whispering rain that hit the window pain late last night.

Your calling card leaves me with goosebumps on my flesh and a shiver of excitement down my spine. I turned to look, and there you were.

Did you expect me to be this ready for you?

If they had told me that I would get this weak for you years ago, I wouldn’t have believed them.

I didn’t understand then how much glory and beauty there is in shedding what isn’t serving you.

I thought the blooming, the growing, and the standing tall and proud made the soul beautiful.

And now I see…

that I need you.

I need to be reminded of everything that has been of use. It doesn’t just fall to the ground to die; it becomes the fertilizer, the nutrients, the saving grace.

dearest Autumn, 
I promise you

• to write with raw honesty.

• to dance like the wind.

• to share through vulnerability.

• to notice what leaves and what remains.

• to pray for more grace and strength.

& if there is anything more for me to lose this season, I pray you will hold my hand as I go and show me the brilliance in the falling of the leaves.

Onwards,

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

Episode VIII - a reflection on creative hesitations.

Creative Field Notes is a series that studies the way creativity weaves itself throughout and communicates with all aspects of the natural rhythms of life.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A MacBook Pro laptop keyboard beside a white piece of paper with a pen on top and mug partially in view. On the piece of paper the word August is on the top. Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5 is written down the left hand side.

My work and the work of all creative entrepreneurs are mostly self-driven, which means we are the sole motor keeping the projects going.

What happens when you have outgrown the motor you have been using?

You start looking for a replacement.

Theme Weeks.

Sounds and looks simple, and it is.

Instead of packing my days with busy work that may get me to my next goal or accomplished task, I have begun practicing looking at the month ahead and giving each week a theme.

These themes often only consist of one to three words encapsulating an idea, project title, goal or medium (radio, film…etc.)

By attaching a theme to the week, I am telling myself exactly what that week is about.

Busy work and often distracting work like social media, emails, grants, pitches, etc., can distract oneself from the primary goal.

With this new way of looking at my work week, I can focus on the most important task I need to move forward in a broader sense.

For example:

August Week 1: “Radio Pitch.”

No one knows what that exactly means, but I do. I knew what I wanted to see happen, my goal, and the project, and it kept me on task until I had accomplished all I could get done related to the intent that week. (Once a draft/pitch is sent off, you are in the waiting game.)

This has brought a lot of clarity to my life.

It’s incredible how fast or slow a day can go when you dread the list staring back at you. After implementing this new way of doing things, I have time left for professional development, reading/watching, passion projects, or simply stopping the presses, lying on the floor and letting my cat and daughter crawl all over me. At the same time, I process my next right step.

I plan on continuing this method into Autumn, and I have a sneaky suspicion it is here to stay.

Until the next work productivity revelation,

Onwards.

Video of Amy & her seven-year-old daughter climbing the rocks at Peggys Cove, Nova Scotia.

Episode VII - A simple study on how becoming a mother alters a woman's life. Every decision, every movement is factoring in someone else.

Creative Field Notes is a series that studies the way creativity weaves itself throughout and communicates with all aspects of the natural rhythms of life.

I started 2022 out with the word Space as my One word. I have been carrying with me these words to go along with them:

How am I expanding into S P A C E today?

Expand into

Fill Up

Hold

Make

Create

S P A C E

I started the year feeling more empowered to make daring moves. To claim the space, I was seeing before me. It wasn't easy, it was scary, and I continued applying, pitching and finding little wins along the way.

Then I was hit.

Self-doubt.

You see,

Despite a deep belief in a calling that calls me to hold space for others, ask them deep and inspiring questions, capture them and find a way to showcase what I see about the world around me, I also recognize I came into all of this unconventionally.

It wasn't until I made my most daring and scary move thus far in my creative / documentary career yet at the end of May that I realized I was putting myself out there in a way that scared me.

And then S P A C E, meant a totally different thing.

Space became a challenge to remember how to hold space for me when no one else is around to hold me.

When the quiet rages, the lack of response, recognition, and relational interactions persist.

What does it look like to hold space for me?

It has led me back to me.

We believe that we hustle to success.

That we become millionaires from building something from the ground up and never stopping.

We believe that we are the makers of our own designs.

We forget that we are the souls that need our whole selves, not just portions we leave on the shelf because they are too weighty to carry.

I continue to strive to fill up, hold, make and create space that honours myself and those around me, and that may mean that I won't see the bigger picture until much later, but I will not become less of myself in the process. I will not shelf my healing until later, and I will not lose relationships that matter along the way.

I will honour the whole process, not just the portions that look like success. I will also honour the quiet and most mundane and lonely moments.

They all

equally

matter.

Episode VI - Reaching for child-like joy in the everyday.

Creative Field Notes is a series that studies the way creativity weaves itself throughout and communicates with all aspects of the natural rhythms of life.

Rushing and racing and running in circles
Moving so fast, I'm forgetting my purpose
Blur of the traffic is sending me spinning, getting nowhere

My head and my heart are colliding, chaotic
Pace of the world, I just wish I could stop it

- Emmy Rossum - Slow Me Down Lyrics

Since the beginning days of 2022, I have felt this build-up of unrest and concern. Something within was becoming at odds with the world around me. I have learned over the years that this often occurs before or during significant change.

The Summer of Slow is a meditation to remind me of my values in my personal and professional life.

What it looks like:

• Maintaining a strong AM / PM Routine (morning workout, breakfast, journals - bedtime routine etc.)

• Everything between the AM / PM routine is unscheduled (don’t freak out: appts, and contract deadlines still maintain a place in the calendar)

• A weekly beach day or evening

• Write a letter weekly (communicating with those I love slowly)

• Document mindfully (follow the inspirations and whims)

• Read for work & pleasure often.

• Visit the library often.

The world we live in is not a world that is geared to slow, yet the best and most provocative work I have been moved by so often has the story of years of thought and mindful work behind it.

I want to be that type of person.

The one who puts every ounce of insight thought, and curiosity into their work.
One can only do that at a mindful pace and from a place of intentional space.
Yet structure is where the work is honed, which is what I also seek to find in my Summer of Slow.

I seek to mine the gemstones of meditative thinking, processing, being and creating.

The underpinnings of what it means to slow the heartbeat to hear the world around me so that when I speak and move, I am doing it from a place of anchored confidence, compassion and intentions.

Onwards,

The noise of the world is getting me caught up
Chasing the clock and I wish I could stop it
Just need to breathe, somebody please
Slow me down

In BNV Media Studio | Halifax. N.S.

***Martina and I officially met when I featured her in a CBC Radio project earlier this year on creativity. Interviewing her was a joy and clearly left us with so much more to discuss. Sitting and joining her in her space was a joy.

Ep. 64 | Holding Space with Guest, Amy Grace

Writer, Producer and Director in tv and film, Amy Grace is here as our first guest this season on the podcast!

Amy has graced us with her presence this week in the studio and has shared some beautiful sentiments with us on holding space, discovering our path and understanding the many things that shape our journey, through our childhood experiences and creativity.

To connect further with Amy, check her out on Instagram at @byamygrace or at www.byamygrace.com

Life Out Loud Podcast — now available for download on @applepodcasts, @spotifypodcasts, @iheartradio, or wherever you download podcasts!

Produced by: @bnv.media

In BNV Studios.- Marinta Kelades & Amy Grace ‘22.

Over the past few years, I have been doing my best to maintain and invest in my own creative business.

As much as I would like to say I am on top of all that I own, use and have fallen into using, it’s simply not true.

The truth is, I am often either emergency replacing an item (aka my laptops) and rushing to update, set up and use than genuinely taking my time and learning what these items are capable of.

I also know that personality does play a part in this. I know a few creative-based individuals who obsess over a new tool/software and would spend all of their free time figuring them out until they have mastered them. Admittedly, that is not me. I need reasons for using something, a personal or professional project, to wrap my head around using something. Although this is how I genuinely learn best, it also does naturally, at times, leave gaps.

This year, I decided to change that and am working on learning in-depth each of my tools and software.

To stay accountable to this goal, I will be updating over time what I have learned.

Equipment

Blue Yeti Mic - Used for podcast recordings & various radio docs.
Zoom h4n Pro Audio Recorder - A recent birthday gift to support my audio documentaries
Canon EOS RP - For creative and documentary captures.
MacBook Pro 14 Inch - 2021 - For every single thing I do.

Software

Final Cut Pro - For editing any footage that I use.
Final Draft 12 - For screenwriting.
Celtx - For Audio script writing
Grammarly Editor - To catch everything I am too busy to catch. ****A Ukraine business.******
Audacity - For exporting and editing audio clips.

& with all of this said, I recognize that it is a huge privilege to have these items at my disposal, and I am determined to end 2022 with a greater grasp on how I can use them to their highest potential.

Episode IV - How one centres oneself when the practice of creativity is unclear.

Creative Field Notes is a series that studies the way creativity weaves itself throughout and communicates with all aspects of the natural rhythms of life.

Amy Grace, a writer and creative producer in Nova Scotia, is fascinated by the creative process. She speaks to Jeff Douglas about how some people are learning to be creative without letting "hustle culture" make them lose sight of the important things in their lives.

Listen here

Episode 3 - What a day of attempting creativity looks like for me. Often full of surprises.

Creative Field Notes is a series that studies the way creativity weaves itself throughout and communicates with all aspects of the natural rhythms of life.