🗺️ safety and freedom
safety and freedom is not either/or, but both/neither.
dear friends,
the more I think about the relationship between freedom and safety, the more I understand — at some deeper, embodied level — that one cannot truly exist without the other.
I wrote a bit around this topic in feeling safe in creative work & business. but, I find myself returning to this idea again and again — probably because the tension between freedom and safety — IS the tension between art & money. between following your dreams, and doing what you have to do to survive.
not only that, but also, this is tension between solitude and community. home and travel. belonging everywhere, and nowhere. I’m constantly aware of these opposing magnetic forces, and how I felt like a tiny steel ball, suspended momentarily in mid-air, in between. or like a bird, searching for landings I don’t need to plot an escape from.
dark bird presence — kening zhu
have you ever seen - or felt - the presence of dark birds flying at night? they are a flutter of black wings. nearly silent. almost like black butterflies. when I lived in rural japan during the first lockdown, I’d walk to the lake at night and sit by the docks, watching their shadows. sometimes the
scarcity baggage
or, perhaps it’s that I was born into three generations of a fearful family in 20th century China — where the security of a mundane family life — free from political prosecution, economic imprisonment, or hunger — was a luxury.
safety was a luxury, so who could even afford to think about personal freedom? this is the baggage I inherited, carried to the US, and have been sorting through, very slowly.
in choosing the path of an artist, I knew that I was choosing my own freedom. and yet, for many years, I felt like I was committing a betrayal.
a relationship like a womb & a prison
I was in a six year relationship that lasted between ages 18-24 — a relationship which felt like a womb. or, like a prison. I thought the problem with this relationship was that I never felt truly free — whatever that meant — so it must be that I was too safe. (is that possible?)
what followed in the rest of my twenties was I liberated myself — from the oppressiveness of that relationship, from my 9-5 job, from the expectations of my Ivy-League education, from the exorbitant expenses of NYC life, from the capitalist machinery thinking, from all the systems that felt like were suffocating my soul and individuality.
now, I can tell you from the other side — from a place in my life where I feel more true and myself than ever — what I’ve realized.
the problem with that relationship wasn’t that I didn’t feel free enough. the problem was that I didn’t feel safe enough. prison is not safe. and freedom, too, as I later realized, could become a prison.
safety and freedom is not a dichotomy; it cannot be measured in degrees or percentages. you can only ever completely and totally possess both, simultaneously, at the same time.
it’s not either/or, but both/neither.
~~~
🍄 this week: I wrote about creative energy as the mother of money, resumed my podcast in talking about the fear to be seen, made 11 sketches of my roadtrip, and share curations from the archives, including a 1 minute lesson on SEO.
🌸 my creative energy is the mother of money
reframing the hierarchy of creative energy versus money. on generative creativity, and how abundance comes from creative generosity. and I drew a family tree, and definitely channeled some Empress energy.
my creative energy is the mother of money — kening zhu
on generative creativity, generosity, and power
🎙️ no fear of being seen
on the practice of slowly un-hiding yourself, exploring the tension of feeling different, creating safe public zones, and turning your loving gaze inwards to see yourself.
no fear of being seen — kening zhu
the process of un-hiding yourself
🌊 11 visual memories of mediterranean turkey
I drew this visual distillation of each day of our roadtrip, complete with cut-out speech bubbles.
11 visual memories of mediterranean turkey — kening zhu
distilling each day into a visual memory
🔮 messages from the archives
~this week’s curations
why world-building is wealth-building
empowering your creative wealth (jan 2024)
why world building is wealth building — kening zhu
why world-building is the bridge between immaterial and material flow.
film analysis: nope (2022) by jordan peele
I’m sharing this post as a 1 minute lesson on SEO:
I wrote this the day after watching this movie — simply because I wanted to think-out-loud and had no one I could talk to, in English, about this film. I wrote it in an hour, and a year later, I realized that if you type in “nope analysis” into Google, I’m ranked on the first page.
what’s the SEO lesson here? instead of worrying about SEO strategy, be intentionally un-intentional, minimally strategic, and creatively prolific.
film analysis: nope (2022) by jordan peele — kening zhu
my digestions of Jordan Peele’s 2022 film, Nope — on alien-monster as metaphor, and a spectacle culture to kill us all
daily rituals for the psychic-creative immune system
a guide-to-self, from a period when I felt constantly overwhelmed, translucent, and floaty.
daily rituals for the psychic-creative immune system — kening zhu
how to cultivate an embodied sense of the creative self — through a framework of daily body and creative rituals
don’t be a writer, just write
from a very existential period, when I was sick of trying to perform my enoughness in order to deserve the title of “writer” or “artist” (oct 2019)
don't be a writer; just write — kening zhu
The greatest obstacle to writing is trying to become “a writer.” When you are truly embracing the act of writing, the process itself is the end.
📝 notes (what's rolling around my head)
offering = upleveling: as I’ve been completing the first rebirthed iteration of house on the webs, I return to web building work realizing that I’ve upleveled. perhaps the offerings we build — our courses and services — reflect not only where we have wisdom to share, but also where we want that wisdom to grow deep roots, and transform rapidly, and take on a new shape. perhaps in deciding what to work on this, the question is: where, in your work, do you desire to uplevel and transform?
craft-ernoons: as a child growing up the 90s and 2000s, when computers still needed dial-up modems, I spent many weekend afternoons flipping through a giant crafts book, and completing very ambitious paper craft projects, one by one. last weekend, while wandering through an art store in Istanbul, I was struck by the feeling of delight and nostalgia — and how perhaps what I need now is to get messy with paper and scissors and glue, and revive the feeling of childhood craft-ernoons, albeit with adult scissor skills. (that, and my iPad screen is conveniently half-functional).
five chapters of a workday: I’ve been noticing that a single day can be divided into 5 chapters — early AM, late AM, early PM, late PM, and evening, after dinner. each chapter of a day has a distinctly different quality to it, and activities that feel super in-flow vs stagnant. (and yes, this is definitely inspired also by living in a country where I hear the call-to-prayer, five times a day.)
🍄 inspiration log
read in a single day: Liars by Sarah Manguso this book made the mundane details of a couple’s relationship so deeply uncomfortable and painful that I couldn’t take my eyes off of it for a whole day, and felt residual man-oriented anger when I spent the evening with my partner K (who actually does most of the housework in our home).
painting a butterfly: I saw a butterfly this morning while walking Luna in the park — and felt suddenly seized with the urge to cut and paint a paper butterfly, with layers of detail and dimension to it.
tarot app: this week, in continuing to deal with cafe drama (aka, turkish male drama), my partner K has joined me in my daily tarot card pull. being the entrepreneurial tech-minded person he is, he proposed us designing a very minimalist tarot app together, where I would paint each card, by hand. I was as excited by this as I was by his sudden and very un-characteristic enthusiasm for tarot.
🪄 offerings & alchemy plans
fall plans: this morning, I started plotting my offerings and course calendar for the rest of 2024, and 2025. I’m hesitant to announce it because I might change my mind, but I’ll say that sometime in November/December, I’ll be announcing a very exciting new business endeavor I’m building with my partner, and…
winter plans: in December, I’ll do an either/or: (A) a series of 4-6 workshops about money energetics for creatives… OR, (B) re-opening and rebirthing visual play camp. I’m leaning towards the money workshops, but you can write me to nudge/invite me in one direction, or the other.
🌸 goodbye for now...
sending you two eggs from the village (gifted to us from our airbnb host). my mother thought these were stones.
from my solitude of a saturday afternoon, to yours ~
until soon,
🪼 kening
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🗺️ this is guidenotes 51, a weekly letter on creative alchemy & growing digital worlds.
🍃 find me on my podcast: botanical studies of internet magic.
🏔️ explore my course: house on the webs.
🪷 inquire about working with me: advising & creation services.
💧 send me a gift. water my world.