Listening to my intuition changed my life.
Don’t you think this world is full of marvelous, inexplicable things? Don’t you think the universe is full of miracles, waiting to be noticed? Don’t you think our stories and art and creativity hold medicine?
I do.
Sometime in my 40s I noticed a longing to return to what I knew effortlessly as a child—that this sky is teeming with conversations I can’t always hear. The wind to the clouds, the trees to the river, that cats to the moon. And the flowers. I knew the Universe was always whispering to me, but I had forgotten how to trust it. I wanted that back.
I wanted to feel my own magic again.I wanted to be as connected to the Universe as I was as an 11-year-old-girl—to feel the light from the stars flowing through my hands and heart. I wanted to get rid of whatever cultural-group thought-learned behavior-noise was holding me back and remember that the world is alive in ways beyond logic. That everything speaks if you tune in and listen. I wanted to drop all the shoulds my culture had taught me and learn to trust myself completely.
I knew that this was the key to creative flow, which for me is pure joy.
I spent the next ten years immersed in intuitive, mystical, yogic, and psychic studies. I developed creative practices to help me stay connected to my spirit, learned to tell the difference between intuition and overthinking, and to channel creative flow. Most of all, I learned how to ask for grace. Over and over again.
And to trust what I know--deep in my heart--over and over and over again.
This shifted everything. It led me to take care of my parents, draw cats, create from a more natural, open place, help other people do the same.
This is what I write about here. Trust. Grace. Finding magic in the mess that is family, life, and being a creative person and trying to make a living.
If you’re a caretaker—by love, by duty, by default, by caffeine—I’m with you. If you found me through my New York Times essay, Alzheimer’s Can Be a World of Endless Second Chances, welcome.
If you are: a sensitive intuitive, or someone who wants to be more intuitive, to trust themselves more, or someone who takes their imagination seriously, come sit by me!
If you’re a creative soul whose true loves are coffee, art, whales, animals, trees, making things—and you won’t stop even if the world says its impractical—definitely pull up a chair! Especially if you like cats.
Art reminds us that we are never just one thing. There is always another story, another possibility, another cat to draw or felt or make out of clay.
There is always something more to love or talk to, always a way to be more alive.
I know you have a deep knowing, too. I’d love to hear what it says. Maybe you are already listening. Maybe you want to listen more. Or maybe you simply want a little uplift in your day, or permission to feel all that you feel.
I hope you find that here. My wish is that this is a place where we can connect and find ways to prioritize soul-driven work. Who would you be if you led with your artistic soul—in everything, not just on the page, but in all your work, in the kitchen, or at the bar? Maybe you’re already doing this! Hurray!
Paid subscribers make my work possible
Your paid subscription helps support independent publishing.
It helps me take care of my Dad. (I am so grateful for this!)
Subscriptions at all levels are greatly appreciated! I love writing and connecting to you.
(These guys love you, too.)
All subscribers receive:
- Essays on family, helping my Dad manage Alzheimer’s, and doing my best to be graceful about it
- Occasional essays on accessing artistic flow and other fun creative practices
- Essays on small miracles and practical magic, including letters from my cat
-access to bi-weekly group meditations for peace (for now. This will probably become a paid offering in the future.)
—invitations to Tarot and Tea: where we hang out together on zoom, talk about our personal problems, tell stories. You bring a burning question—I will pull a card and give you an answer. (Tarot and Tea is free to paid subscribers, $25.00 for free subscribers.)
Bio:
I am a bestselling author of two books published by Simon and Schuster: Later, at the Bar, and Recipes for a Beautiful Life. Later at the Bar was a NYT bestselling, a New York Times Notable Book, and short-listed for the Story Prize. My memoir, Recipes for a Beautiful Life was a book of the month pick in The New York Times Motherlode, Redbook, and Bookriot. Live performances include The Moth Radio Hour, Tedex Asbury Park. Other pieces have appeared in national publications including The New York Times Book Review, O Magazine, Real Simple, Saveur, The Washington Post Magazine, Tin House, One Story, Ploughshares, Ecotone, The Best New American Voices and The Best American Travel Essays. My short fiction has been short-listed in Best American Short Stories. I worked as an editor and staff writer at Seventeen and CosmoGirl and was the co-creator and Executive Editor of the green-living magazine Fresh Dirt Ithaca.
I also have an Etsy shop, draw cats, read Tarot cards professionally, and am a practiced meditator with over twenty years of yoga and mystical studies. You can find out more about that on my website: www.rebeccabarry.net.
What readers say about my books:
Later, at the Bar:
“Read this book.” —Danielle Trussoni, The New York Times Book Review
“First-rate.”—Publisher’s Weekly
Recipes for a Beautiful Life:
“Recipes is anecdotal, funny, and telling, with the kinds of momentary glimpses of ordinary days that reflect something larger—and funny. Did I mention funny?” —K.J. Dell Antonia, New York Times Motherlode
“Rebecca Barry looks straight at her life and describes it—sometimes hilariously, sometimes movingly. Her generosity of spirit makes for an engaging, wise, and delightful read.” —Ian Frazier, author of Travels in Siberia and Cursing Mommy.
“Rebecca Barry writes about writing while balancing two children with her other arm. In the end this is a story of all of us who strive and settle while still managing to laugh, which is easy because Barry is sly and very, very funny.”—Julia Sweeney, author of If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Your Mother.
“This woman was me. Somehow, she had reached inside my heart and revealed myself to me, told my story far better than I ever could.”—Steph Auteri, BookRiot (and also author of the wonderful stack:
)“Dip in and dip out without missing a beat or the message: Contentment isn’t about getting everything..but finding magic in the mess.”—Redbook
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Writing Sprints: Take the fear out of the THE BLANK PAGE and make a first draft in 30 minutes
Some of our best work is done quickly, simply by diving into creative flow without thinking or planning. One of my favorite ways to do this is through a practice I call “writing sprints.”
In this generative workshop we write a piece using a series of consecutive prompts specifically designed to move a story along and help you create something cohesive, spontaneous, and fun.
By the end of the workshop you will have:
gotten your butt in the chair
written steadily for 30 minutes
made something awesome—a solid start to a new piece, a missing paragraph to an old one, or possibly even a finished piece. (I’ve seen it happen!)
found a new way to dive into your work that takes the dread out of THE BLANK PAGE
There is a powerful alchemy that comes along with this process—it allows us to access the intuitive magic that comes alive when we are creative without thinking. Every time I do one of these writes I end up with something that has more life to it than the pieces I plan and plot through carefully. The alchemy is even stronger when I write with other people and I can’t wait to make something wonderful with you!
Tarot and Tea
