Making Art From the Heart of Service
on NINE NINE + the difference between an amateur versus a professional
What’s up, swimmers?! Today is September 9, 2024, aka NINE NINE (EIGHT)!
09/09 gives us a double dose of 9-Humanitarian energy, which rules endings, grief, letting go, moving on, wisdom, knowledge, learning, being in community, thinking of humanity, and more.
However, 09/09/2024 reduces to an overall eight day, which in conjunction with our 8-overall year of 2024, smacks us with some doubled 8-Embodied energy too!
In September 2024: Kill Your Darlings, which breaks down the numerological umbrella we’re standing under for the month, I shared some ideas for observing today’s repetitive mental and emotional vibes:
NINE NINE (EIGHT)
09/09/2024
9+9+2+0+2+4 = 26/8Take action towards your intellectual or mental pursuits. Ground into your desired results for this next chapter of life and work. Visualize yourself at the end of the process, holding the proverbial reward in your tired, but happy hands. Seek advice from those who have gone before. Read the words of your role model(s). Write your own bits of advice—the ones your past self would’ve learned from—from your current perspective. Connect with your community. Say hello to a neighbor. Listen to a TedTalk on a topic that interests you. Take a joyful nap.
But here, on NINE NINE (EIGHT), I’m also thinking about the nuances of being an amateur versus a professional, how we monetize creative pursuits, and how much easy it is to be a critic than the poor fool on the stage.
The phrase heart of service pops into my brain every Virgo season.
Service-oriented is one of those Virgo traits that shows up on every list of key qualities of the sign, invoking actions based in considering others, anticipating needs, and generously following through. And I believe this characteristic holds one of the core desire of creative work as well—to blend love and devotional efforts in order to offer something that’s enjoyable and supportive.
But mix in late-stage capitalism, which seeks to monetize every last burst of creative inspiration, and things get a whole lot messier.
I was raised by a Virgo parent who had an incredibly passionate stance on the difference between being an amateur versus a professional. Mainly, that being an amateur is a waste of time, whereas being a professional gives much-needed credibility to a creative path. Most major dictionaries have also adopted a similar point of view as my parent, and lead with definitions of amateur that involve (or rather, for the amateur, don’t involve) money, career, or professionalism. In On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King even said, “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”
Now, as someone who has studied many major art forms, and continues to seek a life as a writer, witch and weirdo, I have great respect for following ones passions professionally. I believe that creatives and witches alike deserve to be well-resourced and compensated for their work. However, when we put too many eggs in the professional basket, we can squeeze and stifle our creativity until it’s too weak to sustain us!
Perhaps to King’s chagrin, Elizabeth Gilbert shares in Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear that she keeps her creativity free by divorcing it from the need to bring her financial gain. “To yell at your creativity, saying ‘You must earn money for me!’ is sort of like yelling at a cat,” she says. “It has no idea what you’re talking about, and all you’re doing is scaring it away…”
Beyond money and career, the exaltation of the professional also completely erases the inherent value of being an amateur!
The etymology, the roots of the word itself, come from the late 18th century: from French, from Italian amatore, from Latin amator ‘lover’, from amare ‘to love’. To pursue passions as an amateur, means to do something for the love of it! To play for the sake of pleasure! To center enjoyment and service instead of financial gain. To make art simply for the sake of loving to make art!
When we focus too much on a profitable product—when we place the value of the market over the value of our own creative rhythms—we further usurp our joy out of an already arduous process.
Other definitions of amateur offer the nuance that the space between being an amateur and a professional is time spent learning, and even mastering, one’s craft. This is complex and fertile ground for sure, and I really appreciated Call Your Coven’s own
’s newsletter “on the new moon in virgo and being a beginner,” which affirms that it’s okay to not know, to still be in process with our works-in-progress, and to release the need to shortcut our way into expertise. Getting down on ourselves while we’re in the amateur phase is a surefire way to never see the professional side of things, and for those who really do want their art to resource them, that would be a real shame!Have you listened to Call Your Coven’s September Forecast yet? Check it out on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts! Don’t forget to rate and review!
Dearest swimmers, I don’t know the answers here. I don’t know how to free my art from my work from my bank account from my reputation from my legacy, and I definitely don’t know how to do any of that for anyone else.
But I do know how to divest from my parent’s point of view. I do know how to keep showing up to the page and how to step away when necessary. I do know how to connect with other creatives who are out here swimming in the same soup. Maybe that’s you? You’re not alone! And I do know how to ask numerology and tarot to help, which I can do for others, so come see me for a reading!
It’s so much easier to be the critic than the one on the stage. It’s so much easier to throw in the towel when the going gets tough. It’s so much easier to resign yourself to a more “normal” or “straightforward” path than whatever this silly artist thing is. But would it be more fulfilling? Only you can answer that.
WHATEVER YOU DO AND WHEREVER THIS FINDS YOU — KEEP GOING DON’T GIVE UP BEGIN AGAIN OFTEN REVISIT YOUR PROCESS AND YOUR PROGRESS NAME YOUR INNER CRITIC AND GIVE THEM BOUNDARIES CONNECT WITH OTHERS WHO ARE OUT THERE BEING AS BRAVE AS YOU ARE!