Creative Genius 29 - Kim Krans - Finding Your Way in the Wild Unknowns of Creativity
Kim Krans is a visionary artist, author, and creator of The New York Times Bestseller The Wild Unknown Tarot. She joins us to discuss the magic of tarot, the collapse of 'The Artist' archetype in current culture and society, and the importance of showing up to support our own inner artists as the most important thing we can do to heal the world.
There is an incredible guided mediation at the end (in the homework section) and Kim does a tarot reading in the interview for everyone listening. Don't miss this one!
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SHOW NOTES
Have you ever had a tarot reading and been bewildered by how the exact right cards for you in that moment showed up? Kim is an expert in tarot and gives us a beautiful history of the cards and a really cool explanation of why this happens, explaining the universal magic behind this phenomenon.
Kim Krans is a visionary artist, author, and creator of the New York Times bestseller The Wild Unknown Tarot and she joins us to discuss the magic of tarot and the importance of showing up to support our own inner artists.
Kim does a tarot reading for us - I had her pull a card for all of us (that means you) and her reading is absolutely poetry to listen to - I can almost 100% guarantee that you will feel like she is speaking directly to you. It will send shivers up your spine.
At one point she guides us through an amazing exercise with tangible instructions of how to contact the creative field and harmonize your being with that energy. I had never heard something so concrete to point to something so esoteric. It was amazing.
There is some beautiful homework at the end of this episode, a great little practice that if you really give yourself to, can be powerfully transformative in bringing you even closer to your own ocean of creativity.
A prolific creative influenced by range of mystical traditions, Kim has published three oracle decks and guidebooks, one memoir, an interactive journal, and five children’s books. Kim is also known for her work as a multi-media artist, filmmaker, and musician.
At 15 years old, Kim left her small family farm in Michigan after receiving a scholarship to Interlochen Arts Academy where she double majored in Creative Writing and Visual Arts. She later moved to NYC and received a BFA in drawing at The Cooper Union and an MFA at Hunter College. Most recently she received an MA in depth psychology and the humanities from Pacifica Graduate institute, where she studied alchemy, archetypes, shamanism, and other esoteric modalities as they appear in the arts.
Describing her approach to creativity, Kim stated, “I’m a shapeshifting, multidisciplinary artist who creates doorways to the imagination - to other realms. My job is to make the portals too beautiful to resist, so people slip through without realizing it. What I am truly interested in is the power of image, and the power of ritual, to transform the individual and the world.”
Kim is perhaps best known for her drawings in The Wild Unknown Tarot, which was first self-published in 2012 and later rose to become a NYT bestselling title, now translated into ten languages. Her occult-turned-mainstream drawings can be spotted on tarot cards, handbags, books, snowboards, celebrity social feeds, and tattoos across the globe.
Kim teaches events and workshops around the world that activate the forces of creativity and radical transformation through art, meditation, mysticism, and movement. She is currentlY working on her newest and final oracle deck and guidebook, which will be published with Chronicle Books in 2022. Kim is also adapting her graphic novel Blossoms and Bones—a story about addiction and recovery based on her personal experience—into a film script.
Additionally, Kim has recently returned to making music after a 10-year hiatus from her musical project Family Band, where she was the lead singer and songwriter on two albums and creative director of multiple music videos.
Kim currently lives in New York City.
"To be an artist is to be absolutely active in each passing moment of ones life, deciding, ‘where am i going to put my attention and how can that further service my role in the world to give?"
WHAT WE TALK ABOUT
-What is at the core of all the problems we face today and how stepping into our creativity is the path out of the mess we’ve made of the world.
-How cultivating & supporting the artist is so important right now because we need new solutions, we need beauty & hope.
-How answering creativity’s call is the most important thing we can do - and it can feel so meaningless - it is easy to think, ‘Why would I journal about my own life with everything going on in the world?”
-Kim shares her biggest learnings have been over the couse of 10 years bringing a big body of creative work into the world.
-Why we might want to approach our entire lives as though they were a work of art… (including rest) and how to begin to do this
-What is tarot, and why does it seem so magic? How its used and why it has been compelling and powerful for people over the centuries - and the true gift and magic of tarot
-She does a tarot reading for us - that is absolutely poetry to listen to - I can almost 100% guarantee that you will feel like she is speaking directly to you. It will send shivers up your spine
-Why we back away from the mega power place of creativity inside us - and how it is the most beautiful generative place to be
-She guides us through an amazing exercise, tangible instructions of how to contact the creative field in such a way that you can give any of your concerns to it and let them go and truly have a sense of trust that everything is going to be taken care of. I had never heard something so concrete to point to something so esoteric. It was amazing
-A wonderful little thing you can do on the days you are not sure, to prove that you really really matter.
Thank you to all my Patreon supporters Your support is so important. You are amazing humans. I love you so much! I made you a beautiful 30 minute guided meditation called’ Finding Stillness in the Midst of Chaos’ - it’s already in your patreon account!
And if becoming a Patreon isn’t right for you at the moment, but you still want this meditation, but you can treat yourself to a copy of it here
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