Julie Tallard Johnson
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  • Home
  • Explore with Me
    • BOOKS!!
    • LIVE Retreats & Circles >
      • ​Come As You Are, Meditation & Writing Retreat
      • A Year of Transformation, Initiation & Manifestation: World into Word & Action
    • Online Courses >
      • Be The Cause of Your Life
    • Spiritual Mentoring
    • Writing >
      • Writer's Sherpa
      • The Initiated Writer™
    • Counseling & Spiritual Mentoring
  • About & Testimonials
  • Blog
  • Contact
    • Payments

Julie's Blog
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 World into Word & Action

Sometimes, Use Your Axe

4/20/2022

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Sometimes we must use our axe.  Every life has encounters with real villains. When we worry about being nice, not wanting to offend anyone, we often refuse the soul of our story. Too many writers put down their project because they are afraid to offend. (This silence by the way tends to perpetuate the harm). 

Be kind (to yourself and others) but stay in the fight.
Use your axe, write about evil doers or threats without holding back. 

Who are the villains in your life?  Write about that. 
What are you afraid to write?  Write about that. 
What do you think will happen if you write about "that"?   ​


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The Making of a Book

4/5/2022

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I have my ways to write a book. Now, working on my 12th and 13th book (oh my!), I rely on what has worked, while staying open to what might newly work. 

Even though No size (or religion) fits all, there are processes that encourage and invite us into an authentic creative process. A process that results in a book, if that is what you wish.  The many paths to fulfilling an intention (like completing a book) are strewn with obstacles. (The least of which is not resistance).  A mindful writer will notice the obstacles and keep writing. Transformational writing includes writing about the obstacles. Thus, transforming obstacles into the path.  In this transformational approach to our writing nothing is exempt from holding a metaphor, or story or meaning for our projects.  

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Walking Like a Poet

3/30/2022

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As I walk through Stewart Park, poetic verses stream through my mind. The elegant nature of life reveals itself in images, ideas and words. This poetic lens enthuses me with hope and forward momentum. How life in the woods lets go while it blossoms. How nature gathers itself only to fall apart. This cyclical invitation to gather together the seed with earth, the earth with sun, the sun with bark.  On this cusp of winter into spring, while the world struggles to be habitable, I walk as a poet. And wonder, what in me wants to gather together? I wonder what in my life is asking for release?

What is gathering together in you right now?  Write about that.
What is asking to be released? Write about that
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But

3/16/2022

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I understand but I don’t agree.
I agree but I don’t understand
I hate my job but I need the insurance.
I want to but I can’t.
I want to leave but I'm staying.
I want to stay but I'm leaving. 
I love this but it’s not real.
He was abusive but he loved me.
I like your refrigerator but I would never get one like that.

What might be the fuller more vulnerable story here, in any of these statements?   Write about that. (Borrow from your life or write a fiction piece).

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A Writer's Inbox

3/2/2022

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I get a weekly email from my bread guy. During COVID lock down Cress Springs Bakery delivered to homes in Mount Horeb and Madison. Every Tuesday he would send out a link to order goods. Along with updates on breads and delivery, he would share a poem.  More often than not I didn't know the poet. Always the poem resonated with me. During this winter her started up delivery again and in came the poems to my inbox. The one he sent out this week was Small Kindnesses. 

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Web of Life Meditation

2/23/2022

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Web of Life meditation is guided meditation that connects us to all the sources of support that surrounds us. By remembering and imagining and sensing we find ourselves in a vast web of support. Supported and nurtured by countless Beings. When ever we need to, we can reconnect with these vast webs of support that have always been here, and remain available to us simply by being mindful.
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Below the Frozen Ground

2/1/2022

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The Lit Path (Stewart Park)
At this time of year, below the frozen ground, seeds stir.  This is how everything starts, with this deep inner quivering toward life. Something interior in the seed's quiet dark life knows to awaken, to stir and shimmy. In a few months the stir will become a thrust through the protective shell, through the hard dark earth to sunlight. When we listen and are in sync enough with nature's seasons we too will feel this stirring inside and outside of us. Deep in the belly of our wounds and winters; deep in the darkness of our rich soulful soil is a seed.  This seed stirs for your attention.

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​The Bigness of Our Singular Acts

1/21/2022

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Goats at Jangle Natural Living
I met Jennifer Parker as a peer therapist about 15 years ago at Harmonia: Madison Center for Psychotherapy. Shortly after meeting Jennifer she joined a spiritual journaling class of mine. “Julie encouraged me to take my writing intention seriously and to ‘follow my calling,’ and to believe I had something to share.” ​

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Video Series - Living Your Truest Life

1/21/2022

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What brings the most serenity and happiness?  How we can discover and follow our truest path? 

​I invite you to explore what is possible with you by showing up for yourself.  Showing up to what you have found of value. 

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Writer as Scavenger

1/19/2022

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Twisted & Scavenged (from my walks with Lulu)

I sent a poem of mine to a friend from my life in the Twin Cities. She is a talented poet, artist and author of a fiction.

​She sent me a reply asking if I was going to "send it out."  And I wrote this poem in response: 
   



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      Welcome to
    Julie's Blog

    World into Word & Action (my new blog)
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    Read the past posts. 

    Author and counselor Julie Tallard Johnson
    I live in Mount Horeb WI where I walk (snow shoe in the winter) my dogs through Stewart Park or Military Trail, garden my corner lot, wear a mask in public (and a cape at night). I love to write & connect to writers and spiritual seekers. My book The Clue of the Red Thread is my latest of eleven, written in collaboration with Parker J Palmer and poet Rebecca Cecchini  The Clue of the Red Thread: Discovering Fearlessness & Compassion in uncertain times  came out in January, 2021 through Shanti Arts, Nine Rivers Imprint. 

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The Writer's Sherpa
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