Evolving Identities

I was a filmmaker for 20 years. I identified strongly as one, including many festival rejections, scripts unproduced, and little money earned. Filmmaking was such fulfilling exercise for my brain when I was in flow. The characters, relationships, and worlds helped me to imagine parts of myself that I found beautiful and wanted to express without fully embodying. The co-creation with talented collaborators brought me so much aliveness and presence in connection. There was also the feeling of being part of something bigger while still self-expressing.

After 20 years of lifting different sized & shaped boulders up the same mountain, I looked inward to see what I really wanted from the effort. I noticed that my film ideas became about friends in groups doing stuff together, and I wanted to make films together with my friends. (𝙄 𝙢𝙖𝙮 𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙡𝙡.) The film seemed like an excuse for co-creating and going on group adventures. What if I didn’t need to raise a film budget - always the biggest hurdle for me - to be creative and go on adventures with friends? This is how my journey began with intentional communities, retreats, and facilitating workshops.

In my advanced years as a filmmaker, I started helping my friends produce their visions more. I particularly enjoy when a filmmaker friend wants to consult about a new film in its early writing stages, where I can help presence the core of her inspiration, and hold her in anything that’s in the way of her personal expression of the story. Having some distance from the process, I see the person beyond the project, and resonate with emotional challenges that can limit the creative process. The fire to create is a precious gift, and when a project is aligned it fuels its own fire.

If some part of this resonates with you, my dear artist friends, please use this as an excuse to get in touch (DM or link in bio). Let’s see what emerges from the flames.