Jenna Wadsworth McCarty: Recent Episodes
Jenna
This begins as a commitment to 21-days of meditative reflections with the intent to “Set Loose the Vision” held within each of us. It is time to step more fully into ourselves and shed the layers of resistance that hold us back.
Join the Facebook group “Set Loose the Vision” for journal prompts and process. https://www.facebook.com/groups/SetLooseTheVision/?ref=share
Jenna Wadsworth McCarty is a Healing Artist based in Southern California.
Introducing “Muse with Me,” a podcast lovingly hosted by Jenna Sophia Wadsworth. Here, we’ll explore the unexplored, the space between, re-weave the tattered fringes. This is an invitation to come learn to dance together within the No Man’s Land, reclaiming and restoring these well-defended, protected yet shared spaces.
For Independence Day, Free Your Voice; Sing Your Own Song. I sang mine. Here are two new expressions. Sung and played with all my love.
I found a piano waiting for me at a window today, another Fathers Day far away from my father. Two monarchs floated in and out of view as I played. I often think of nature making music as my fingers roam the keyboards, like wind swirling and water droplets cascading, leaves rustling, branches swaying… This piece I played for my dad.
September is Suicide Prevention Month, and I realize that I need to talk about suicide and the prevention of it in myself. So, here’s episode 2. Please, if you are struggling, keep trying again and again. Know that you are needed and wanted and loved deep deep inside.
To prevent suicide, we need to be able to talk about it. So, here’s a start to a conversation that needs to continue. If you or anyone you know needs support, please reach out for help. 988 is the National hotline for mental health.
In April 2022, I attended a conference as an exhibitor. It was my first conference in years, and I delighted in setting up my table and sharing conversations with everyone who came through. This was the remaking of my business, moving toward what I want it to be. I laid the table as a sacred act, with my beautiful Carnelian Mala draped in golden hands of gratitude as the finishing touch. During the lunch break, someone took the Mala, which was precious to me and the beautiful day caved in on my solar plexus like a gut punch, even as I attempted to relinquish that material item as a token that someone else must have needed more than me. The next day, I was still affected, struggling to release the grip on my diaphragm. Playing the piano helps me to release and transmute, so I found a piano to move thru the emotion trapped in my body. These three pieces are what came. First to release the thief, then to bless, and finally to recognize myself within them. The final piece is some of the most exquisite music that has flowed from me. I’m often shy to share these, as I don’t know that anyone else will appreciate them as I do. But who am I to hoard them for myself either? So, I relinquish them now, so as not to thieve these from you any longer. This music is not mine, but the thief’s. Welcome to it.
It’s been a while, so here’s a brief commentary and a song sung a cappella. If there are any inspired musicians out there who’d like to collaborate on instruments for this song, please reach out!
Recorded July 18, 2021 in the living room of the home I left in January of this same year. In order to be truly free and begin a new life, there’s a dying to to the old that must take place, and the soul must be released from what had tethered it in place. Be set free, oh my soul.
Recorded July 18, 2021 on the living room piano of the home that I left in January of this same year. Sometimes leaving is what is necessary, but that doesn’t mean it’s lightly done. There’s a weight to such decisions, a cost to such actions, and it’s worth grieving what is lost.
Last fall, I decided to allow myself to learn to play the piano. I took lessons as a child, but I could not get past my own limitations then, being so stuck in the trappings of perfectionism and shame for anything less than.
This time, I decided to learn thru what I call the chaos method. I began by allowing my fingers to find their way with the keys, feeling out how they wanted to run and play. Meanwhile, my ears and mind open to align with my fingers and the instrument. I stumble and make mistakes that turn into new discoveries.
About six months later, after sporadic practice dependent on access to a piano and the patience of my family to stand the process, this is my most recent expression. I find this play to be healing for myself in what cannot otherwise be expressed, both in the expression and the reflecting back as I listen.
I’m not sure if anyone else will find this beneficial, but it certainly is for me. The piano needs tuning, my fingers are still gaining their fluency and nimbleness, but even still I hear the beginning of something of beauty building.
This is a song called “Between the Lines,” a song of longing for the loved one who can no longer be reached. I wrote these lines in another time, but the song seems to be for now in a way I could never have imagined.
The instrumental music is composed and performed by Greg White, lyrics and vocals by me.
Between the Lines
I remember when I saw you there, You were staring out the window. You’d look for hours and hours, lost somewhere I could not follow.
Chorus: Where did you go? I’d give anything to know, so I could find you and bring you home. If I could see you one more time, I’d take your hand in mine, pull you close, breathe you in. If I could see you again.
Every day, I replay the scenes, wonder what was in between the silent lines trapped inside your mind.
(Chorus)
I want you to know— I miss you so, And I love you still.
This is the final day of this 21-day series of reflections and meditations relating to setting loose our visions for our lives within this world.
When craving the bloom, am I missing the other parts of life—the entire process? Today, we celebrate the dormancy where life forms.
What do we find when we look beneath the resistance that holds us back? Today, I share with you another part of my journey to delve beneath the resistance. It can feel scary, to be avoided, but underneath there is something quite beautiful waiting to be discovered.
Today, I share about one of my biggest dreams, and one of the obstacles I continually face as I strive to make it come true.
When there is no way to know for certain which way to go, the swirling chaos that has given pause can become the clue that guides us forward.
When you’ve grown tough and hard, it may be time for a love song to a Rock. Today’s focus is on seeing the adaptations and changes, celebrating each of them.
In the face of unbearable loss, how do we carry on? Join me today to breathe together and listen to a message that rises in the face of adversity, from within the calm of the storm.
“Gathered castoffs await attention...” today we look at the act of decomposition and how it parallels the work we are doing within ourselves. We gather up the waste and rot, turning it back into the soil of our souls, allowing it to be transformed.
In every great story, the hero begins with a destination. That goal is not often the final destination, but is what propels them to action. Today, we name our own destination on our own hero’s journey.
Yesterday, we began listening to the voices inside our own heads—the voices that so often hold us back from being who we are meant to be. Today, we begin to rewrite the message, find the antidote for our own hero’s journey.
How many voices can you hear inside your own head, so often holding you back? We pause today to get to know these voices a bit more intimately. Listen.
Sometimes we can feel pulled in opposite directions. How can we choose to move forward, into the fray, into action?
Some must go out, some must stay in, and the decision seems clear. Some must choose, the answer is less clear. Today, we look at the nuance, gather clarity of vision for what we each of us are called to be and do in this time.
When everything seems to be shifting all around, it’s time to feel the ground beneath us.
Sometimes, it feels like we’re not making any progress, until you look back and see how far you’ve come. Today we look back and see the change that has already occurred.
Moving toward our vision can feel especially hard when the vision is hazy, and when we’re constantly being pulled off-course. Today we begin to find our stride as we are drawn forward toward our vision.
This is Day 5 of Set Loose the Vision. Today we focus on how to begin making change, with examples from the body related to life change.
This is day 4 of a 21-day reflective and meditative process to bring change into being. Today, we feel into the resistance that holds us back and find a greater awareness surrounding that block to progress.
So often, in times of change, we become stuck, holding on for dear life. Now, instead of remaining frozen, we begin to take action, one step at a time.
In chaotic times, when the future is uncertain, we can find a vision for now. This is Day 2 of a 21-day meditative and reflective journey facilitated by Jenna Wadsworth McCarty. Consider joining our Facebook Group “Set Loose the Vision” if you’d like to participate in the group experience.
This is part one of a 21-day Meditation series to support each participant to Set Loose their own vision for their life, discovering and clearing the way to being who and how they want to be. We start today with a broad connection to where we are right now. After a brief introduction, there is a basic introduction to Chakra. The invitation to begin the meditation is right around minute 7.