Community of Storytellers

Marvin Pittman, Sylvester Salcedo, Michelle Trieste, Adair Heitmann, Mitzy Sky. Photo credit: John Swing

I’m sharing a moment of gratitude for my storytelling community near and far. Storytellers have this way of getting to the heart of the matter and for being an inclusive band of renegades and angels. I am fortunate to have stumbled upon the art and act of visual storytelling — writing, creating visuals, and speaking the spoken word in front of live audiences.

As an artist and writer who specializes in personal narratives, visual storytelling is right up my alley. I appreciate my national storytelling exchange group via Zoom and the drafts they sat through, asked questions about, and provided constructive feedback on. The Bridgeport Art Trail Storytelling Exchange is phenomenal! Our local in-person We Rise Storytelling Collective is fun and risky and embracing. Thank you for encouraging me to tell my authentic stories in front of such an appreciative group! Then there is the national Artists Standing Strong Together that connects and weaves and advances the art of storytelling.

Recently, one of my stories “Art Saved My Life: Journey of a Lifetime” was selected for me to present in front of a live audience in a theatre alongside 12 other visual storytellers and the entire experience rocked my world. There is this vibe and connection between the PechaKucha Night Bridgeport storytellers that cut through any phoniness or pretense. The tellers shared their own true stories on the theme: Journeys: How Did We Get Here? Thank you City Lights Gallery and PechaKucha Night Bridgeport.

You can watch and listen to my 2022 PechaKucha presentation here. Please be advised it has adult content about healing and transformation.

Creativity and wellness message for today: Consider creating and sharing stories in the presence of others, it may just change your life!

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Book Launch Day!

I’ve waited six months for the publication date of the book I’m in! Today’s the day! I’m so excited to share the book with 35 other storytellers and to have my personal experience with whales be included.

Adair Heitmann on book launch day!

You can see and hear me reading a section of my story, page 133, “Overcoming Fear with Help From the Whales” on the video here.

The book is Animals: Personal Tales of Encounters with Spirit Animals by Dr. Steven Farmer, is published by Sacred Stories Publishing. Available from online booksellers worldwide and at https://bit.ly/cs_animals

Creativity and wellness message for today: Never give up on your dreams! Keep submitting! Keep having your deep and authentic experiences in life and with nature. Don’t let anyone try to take them away from you.

Creativity is the Mother of Reinvention

PechaKucha Night Bridgeport, CT. Photo credit: Arne Heitmann

Have you ever wanted to reinvent yourself? I’ve done it many times and I’ve lived to tell the tales!

I know first-hand what it’s like to outgrow your job and how the creative process isn’t always linear. I also know how art and writing and expressing myself have saved me time and time again. And how being in the creative flow makes me feel alive. Taking leaps and willingness to walk into the unknown are beacons in my life.

“Creativity is the Mother of Reinvention” is my visual storytelling about life continuously being about retooling and reinventing. I shared it at the PechaKucha Night Vol. 12 “Reinvention + Discovery” at the Bijou Theatre in Bridgeport, Connecticut as a part of the 13th annual Bridgeport Art Trail. It’s 6 minutes/40 seconds with 20 fast-paced inspiring slides. I welcome you to take a look and a listen!

https://www.pechakucha.com/presentations/creativity-is-the-mother-of-reinvention

Putting Your Best Face Forward

Do you think you don’t have time or creativity to market yourself? Think again! This week I learned three key tips during a Facebook Live workshop: Glow Up to Show Up by Gina Tassanelli at stylishlybranding.

1. It’s more about your audience then it is about you.
2. Offer a solution to a problem.
3. Put a little authentic pizzazz into it.

Thank you to the other amazing female entrepreneurs and innovators in the workshop and to #GlowUpToShowUp

Creativity & wellness message for today: Just show up and do it — keep it simple, add some style, and remember to smile.

Inspiration for 2020

Spontaneous Inspiration by (c) Adair Heitmann

“The magic in new beginnings is truly the most powerful of them all.”
―Josiyah Martin

Words to live by in 2020. Happy New Year everyone!

Creativity and wellness message for today: Allow serendipity to guide your way.

Allowing Hope to Enter

(c) Adair W. Heitmann

“You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.”
– Thomas Merton

Thomas Merton OCSO was an American Trappist monk, writer, theologian, mystic, poet, social activist, and scholar of comparative religion.

Creativity and wellness message for today: Be like the spring crocuses pushing through the damp soil — reach for the light and allow nature’s balance to unfold.

Hope

Shell by Adair Heitmann

“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.”

-Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things

Creativity and wellness message for today: Delight in hidden messages and the blessings of small things.

Sharing Your Stories

Jubilate @ UVA

The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. So when stories come to you, you must take good care of them, as well. Learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs your story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put our stories in each other’s memories. This is how people care for themselves.
-Barry Lopez

Creativity and wellness message for today: SYS

Transformation and Adventure

The Way It Is

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it, you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you can do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
– William Stafford

Creativity and wellness message for today: Let change purify you.

Happy Valentine’s Day

Photograph by Adair Heitmann (c)

Keep close to Nature’s heart . . . and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.
– John Muir