The Expansionist Podcast
Shelly Shepherd and Heather Drake invite you to listen in on a continuing conversation about expanding spirituality, the Divine Feminine, and the transforming impact of living attuned to Wisdom, Spirit and Love.
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The Expansionist Podcast
Mystical Poetry Inspiring Sacred Expressions: Featuring Chelan Harkin
What if your words could break free from societal norms and connect souls on a deeper level? Together, we are exploring how renaming sorrow can become a direct path to divine connection. In our latest episode, we explore this and more with the extraordinary poet Chelan Harkin, whose upcoming book, "The Prophetess," is already making waves. Often compared to the legendary Rumi, Chelan's poetry resonates with profound emotional depth, offering readers a sense of being truly seen and understood. We journey through her early life, uncovering pivotal moments that shaped her poetic voice, and celebrate how her work evokes a sense of shelter and interconnectedness.
Prepare to be inspired as we discuss the transformative power of poetry, especially for women navigating the heavy burden of shame and societal expectations. Chelan opens up about her personal journey, revealing how embracing one's truth and vulnerability can lead to profound change. From sharing stories of overcoming insecurity to exploring the limitless essence of the soul through hypnotherapy, this episode paints a vivid picture of the divine feminine and the soul's joyful potential.
We’re not stopping there. You'll hear about the mystique of sacred poetry, particularly through the lens of women mystics, and its impact on breaking societal scripts. Chelan recounts the magic behind her poem "Say Wow," encouraging us to live in awe of everyday moments. With her new book "The Prophetess" set to launch this September, Chelan promises to offer readers an enriching exploration of life's most meaningful questions from a divine feminine perspective. Join us for this soul-stirring conversation and prepare to be moved.
Welcome to the Expansionist Podcast with Shelley Shepard and Heather Drake. In each episode, we dive deep into conversations that challenge conventional thinking, amplify diverse voices and foster a community grounded in wisdom, spirit and love.
Shelly Shepherd:Oh my goodness, heather, we have this amazing opportunity here with Shalann Harkin with us today in studio to podcast about the Prophetess new book coming forward in September. It's launching in September. So we're doing what Friends Do, which is promoting and celebrating and recognizing the genius that is within this person.
Shelly Shepherd:I was sharing a few days ago some of your poetry, shalane, about that you had sent out to all of us who had pre-ordered your book, and I was reading some of those to a friend and she's like, oh my gosh, this is a modern day roomie we have in our midst, and it was. It was such a, it was such a gift to to connect with you in that way. So thank you for for that opportunity to well, just to get something right out of your pen, right? So we are just so excited about this fourth book of yours that's coming in September and, heather, I know you want to welcome Shilan as well. So thank you for being here and we're excited about this show with you of yours that's coming in September and, heather, I know you want to welcome Shilan as well.
Heather Drake:So thank you for being here and we're excited about this show with you, yeah, and we're just even excited for your presence and how fun it is to actually meet the poet. We found your writings on Instagram and we shared them with each other. First, it was very exciting to go. Oh look, it's almost sounds like this language that I think is a very ancient language, the language of womanhood and of the earth and the mystics, and it feels like a new language that we're learning. But all of a sudden it sounded to us like somebody else who also spoke the language, and we're like it just resonates on such an emotional but very, very deep level, and so we are just thrilled to have this opportunity to talk with you today about the poetry that's moving our souls.
Chelan Harkin:Thank you for those words, Heather. That's so affirming and exciting to hear you say that. Thank you.
Heather Drake:Okay, one of my first ones that we were reading the other day when we were together is this one, and I'm sure that you have other favorites too Love is the great marketplace of prayer. Only the best deals are made here, and God is. Every vendor that was, I mean, that feels so expansive and so beautiful and so right at home for us. So thank you for, with your words, making like a new shelter for us or a new place to be. It was just incredible.
Chelan Harkin:Oh, thank you. Well, you asked before we started recording if I have any favorites and in that selection that I sent out, that one did have an extra like ooh, it was satisfying.
Shelly Shepherd:So I'm glad you read that one so maybe, as we move forward here in understanding the work that you have been about, we understand from the pre-show that you started this expression in you as a teenager in high school. Can you share a little bit about that as well and kind of for the listeners you know how that formed in you and how that evolved.
Heather Drake:Yeah, just tell us how you fell in love with poetry.
Chelan Harkin:Well, I'll start, actually earlier than I than I shared. So when I, when I came into the world interestingly I mean I kudos and credit to my mom she would often, before bed, she would just ask if I had any prayers to share for my heart and I would just go for it, like I had all this florid language and she would. Sometimes she would write them down. So I have a few like three-year-old Shalann prayers that were like so funny and awesome and cute and full of this intense poetic language. So, and then I also, I, um this is interesting I came into the world as soon as I could you know, comprehend and compute, um, being really aware of what I, what I have called a dimension of light, or we could call it a dimension of oneness, of interconnectedness, a dimension of absolute beauty and connection with source. That as a little one. And then I was extremely disturbed because I didn't find that realm of essence and profound interconnection to really come through in relationships. And so there was this I was puzzled and I was dedicated to sort of figuring out how we could connect together from that place, and it felt really essential to me to like recognize this, this out, this truth in our in our being and to celebrate the joy of that. And I had this sense that actually language words was the way.
Chelan Harkin:And so my sister, who's a lot older than I am, she had this SAT prep guide for for the, for those tests, and there's the, the, you know the vocab part. So when, as soon as I could read I was a pretty early reader I would just go in in her in the closet and like read her vocab list Cause I thought, oh, maybe if I get all the right words I'll be able to talk about this. It was like this, this place, this land and the soul, so um, and that was kind of funny. So at a really young age I had like a really big vocabulary but it was kind of misplaced and what I wasn't really able to do, what I wanted with that and um anyway, and then just fast forward, um at 21,.
Chelan Harkin:Um, there at 21, there was a profound sort of like cracking open experience where, like, the grace that comes through Mia's poetry started to just really flow much more satisfyingly express that truth. And something that, heather, that you shared, that so many who have read my poetry share, which is the deepest honor, is that there's this incredibly intimate resonance. It's like that's already in people, almost that then the words illuminate and that's what I've always wanted to be getting at. So it's anyway, this is the deepest honor to now have really, you know, discovered and shared, uh, this gift so that it can do its purpose and and support um others in that way well, you, you pulled me into like three different directions all at the same time.
Chelan Harkin:Yeah.
Shelly Shepherd:I'm going to go to you first before I ask another question Do you have something that you want to share?
Heather Drake:Well, I want to go to one other poem, if I can, because again it was one of those things that was beyond deeply resonating. It felt like, Again it was one of those things that was beyond deeply resonating. It felt like an invitation to come home to a space, and it was. These are your words. Did I share too much of God's wine last night? Was the taste of that ecstasy too bright? I woke today and felt your departure.
Chelan Harkin:Some don't know, this tavern allows you to stay. Oh, thank you, heather. You're actually you're referencing all the ones in this new collection that actually did kind of extra. Do it for me.
Heather Drake:Oh well, actually do it for the people that are reading it too. So well done. Whatever magic you tapped into there or whatever language of your soul that you were able to express is so beautiful. And for Shelly and I, one of the things that we are reminding ourselves and other women who are listening and not just women, because the brothers and the husbands and men are listening too, but particularly women going there is a deep vein of spirituality that we have found, that has been buried or has been forgotten sometimes in our womanhood, and then to reignite it or to illumine a space and go look, it's right there in you too, is so beautiful.
Heather Drake:And this idea that, instead of looking out for God to come into us, that we would be able to hear the presence that is already in us and be able to look inward for that light and that presence of God that is with us. But this idea that you propose that did you know you were allowed to stay in the presence? It doesn't have to be a coming and going. That was such a beautiful invitation to go. Yes, yes, we knew that we did At a very deep level we did, but somebody forgot to change the sign on the door. You don't have to be out of here by nine, so that was just really wow.
Chelan Harkin:Yeah, you said it, there has been a lot of I mean, I love so this is called the expansionist podcast and yeah, and it's really we are.
Chelan Harkin:I've been really thinking, experiencing a lot in myself, just the um, just the dynamics of, of shame as sort of a warden for our, our, our smallness and and shame I used to think of as, like the places that were just, you know, insecure, feel less than, but it also has to do with areas where we're just living our truth and we're kind of living outside of the very narrow margins of what we've been taught is normal and so um, uh, and, and so there's so much brightness and truth that lives outside of those margins and um, like, and for me, for example, in in coming forth with my poetry and finally publishing my book, which took me 12 years to even really consider doing um, I realized like it's because there's, there was so much shame that I needed to confront about um, expressing and being seen in this way.
Chelan Harkin:That was, that was different, um, and just so I think, yeah, I, women, we've internalized, we are, we're just so amazing, Women were so amazing, and then we'll have these like I mean, it's like a corset on the soul, uh, that we can only just share in this way and show up in this way and um, and so I think that's part of what's busting open and and then the beautiful tool of social media that just gives us so much exposure.
Chelan Harkin:Obviously it can go, we can go to unhealthy places with it, no reason whatever, but but we get, can get so many imprints of others that are busting out of these, these narrow models, and then that helps create new pathways of possibility for us and it helps normalize it and um and and take some of the shame of like I, I'm alone in this start to lessen that. And so I I think that I really feel and this is a lot about what the prophetess is about is it's encouraging and celebrating and and amplifying and illuminating this major tipping point that I really deeply feel is upon us and it's just going to keep accelerating of this expansion into more of the truth and the light that we are Well, you've mentioned a word a few times and I would like.
Shelly Shepherd:Well, there's two words the divine feminine is one, and then the soul. You've mentioned that a few times, and Heather and I were together last week honoring the feast of Mary Magdalene, and her whole focused attention on the good is within you kind of concepts, and so in that time together we were sharing your poetry and feel that poetry is a big part of the expansionist thought or expansionist way of being. Expansionist, uh, way of being, and for me last week that word soul uh kind of kept popping up in different ways. So could you talk to us a little bit about what you mean by soul and how, uh, this poetry has been revealed to your soul, and then what you want our souls, uh, to embrace as you write this to us?
Chelan Harkin:Well, I'll say this, I'll sort of respond to you in story form. So when I was 21, that's when poetry really majorly, majorly cracked open for me and became rather than even though there was always a strength that I had with it it was kind of forced and I was nervous and insecure and knee tight, shoulders furrowed brow. And then it took just the most expansive experience I've ever had, where it would just flow and pour and I would just write it down with excitement and absolute trust, as fast as it would come, without the need to edit it, and it was just other, it was so cool. And at that same year I discovered hypnotherapy and at that time when poetry cracked open in me, it was, that was the hardest time of my life. I was really, I had really worked since I was a little girl to just absolutely repress everything that was real and true and alive within me, because I couldn't handle feeling so outside of the models that had been presented to me, that the lack of belonging, and that was too much for my system. So I opted to just bury the pain of that and and all my light and all my everything, and that was was a lot of work, that was, and it was almost deadly, really it was. It was this, and I, some part of me, had just decided to bury, like, bury myself alive, really. And so I was living just this, shielded, like my relationship with everyone in the world and my relationship with myself and with source was just, it was so, so, so, um, brutally unsatisfying. And then, um, and then I, I was so fortunate it really the darkest time to the darkest hours before dawn, kind of thing to discover this extraordinary method of hypnotherapy which I assumed would work for maybe everyone else in the world, but that I was beyond repair. And so, in this experience, what it does is it puts the whole system in the most profound state of security and safety and peace, so the fight flight isn't activated.
Chelan Harkin:And what happened just in that first session was my, my consciousness, my awareness was able to break free of the constantly running narratives about, you know, just all this conditioned old, these old pain narratives that I was so caught in that that's to a large degree how I was identifying. I was identifying as just as that pain, and it was able to experience itself not just conceptually but actually really experience it as an eternally healthy and happy and whole essence eternally worthy of love and acceptance. And just the experience of it was as though it was an endless fountain of golden, joyful light. And and so there was that.
Chelan Harkin:That imprint was the most, it was maybe the most profound thing that's ever happened to me, and so I started to most primarily identify as that, and which doesn't mean that we don't have all the other stuff to still work with, but it, you know, our old conditioning and stuff doesn't completely go away. But then it's relativized, it's, it's relativized and, um, so anyway, I would, I would describe the soul as that, as this limitless font, this limitless fountain of creative, joyful energy, and there's sort of and there's intelligence in it and there's a sort of a frequency of light that that that we are and that is unique to each of us and that's filled with these certain gifts that you know at once bring us the most joy and most benefit to others when they're expressed. So that's my experience of soul. Thank you for that.
Shelly Shepherd:How beautiful All the imagery that you just put in our hands.
Heather Drake:Thank you, one of the things that Shelly and I have come to pay attention to in this part of our journey is embodied practices that actually allow us not to just live our life like only through our head or what thoughts we can actually put together in some kind of cognitive sentence, but for us to be able to say that we can trust our bodies and that we can trust the feelings that we're having and, granted, they do have to be sorted or they do have to be, you know, questioned in some way but to be able to say that there is hope and an expectation that our spirituality, that our time here together, that are, in fact, entire human experience, is not just to be a mental thought or an exercise, but it's to be something that could be savored, that can be paid attention to and actually can be nurtured.
Heather Drake:And one of the ways that Shelly and I have found these embodied experiences some of them have simply been gifts, but other times it has been through poetry, where we actually hear the words and then you can feel the light on your skin because of someone's words, or you can think about the taste of a glass of wine because someone has given you those words, and so it has for us been like an entryway or a portal, kind of into an imaginal realm. That, though, becomes a truly embodied experience, and I'm wondering if poetry has always been that for you, or if, from the side, because it seems like you're maybe not listening to as much poetry as you are creating it, and we're, at this point, listening to a lot of the poetry um, give us some information or some light on what that looks like to be on the other side of that poet.
Chelan Harkin:Oh, what a beautifully said Heather. Well, I love that you're touching on this, because I do feel like especially mystical poetry that almost more than the words, well, I feel like the words are more a vehicle of transmission of energetics, which is awesome, and there's mystery to that that I can't fully explain, but in its own, but it's almost like, um, as the poet, um, the sense I have is that that the energy that comes through in a poem's like creating itself through me, um, that then it's like it's almost, it's like it's almost able to be bottled and like it crystallizes in the poem, but then the energy can be shared and it and it definitely does activate and and and um open, uh, it impacts, it does impact us on the, on the, on the level of the body, and um and the consciousness, and awakens sort of the consciousness in the body, opens channels in us, and it also, like plants, these sort of wild enlivened seeds, that kind of get things moving. So it's contagious really, I feel, effective. Mystical poetry mystical poetry.
Heather Drake:um, that again that we're holding is the idea of, um, some of the women mystics who have been speaking so much to us and have been reminding us of things that we maybe knew in in other realms but that we have forgotten here, or that we have gotten some scripts as women, you know, this is where you can go no further. Instead of us saying you know, what has love given us permission to do, which is everything, to be everything, to savor everything and to be able to find these words, one of the things that I have found that happens with poetry, and particularly mystical poetry like this, is that it longs to be shared. I read it and I love it and I'm so inspired about it, but it always asks me to share it with somebody else, and so I think it becomes this beautiful circle of I've read it, I've heard it, I felt it. Now, how do I share this? And this feels so much like love to me in that it produces a generosity of spirit when I read these things or when I hear this type of poetry.
Chelan Harkin:Oh, that's beautiful. That's so cool to hear you say that, because that's certainly how it feels when it comes through me. It's almost it would be uncomfortable to not, If I were just to receive the energy and not write it down and share it. That would feel like a distortion of the intention.
Heather Drake:It wouldn't feel right we want to pause and take a moment and let you know how glad we are that you've joined us. If you're enjoying this podcast, consider sharing it with a friend, and if you found the conversation intriguing and want to know more about what we're learning or how you can join our online community, visit our website at expansionistheologycom. I had asked you earlier if you had a favorite, and I realized how terrible that was asking a creator where is your favorite, just like you wouldn't ask a mother who is your favorite. But are there ones that are like ringing more true to you at this moment, or ones that you're recognizing? Oh, this has a lot of resonance in it, or this is a grace that I'm walking in now. Would you read us something that you are loving at this moment? Thank you.
Chelan Harkin:Yes, and actually I mean, if I were to choose a favorite, it actually I think I actually maybe could. This one feels like a first love in a way, because this was the first poem that cracked through and poured in the way that. And then it never, that channel didn't close and um. But when this one came through it was one of the holiest experiences of my life. It just to, uh, I couldn't believe it. I was just sort of stunned and and this poem came on the heel. It came.
Chelan Harkin:I had, um, I committed to doing an experiment because I desperately needed a connection point of something authentic and real inside of me and then a way to express it. And I was really bound up in the shackles of perfectionism and so I needed to loosen that up. And so I set up an experiment for myself and the terms were that I would allow myself to write a bad poem every day for a month and I would give myself an hour, and then I would just share it, no matter what, because I just needed to practice getting out of judgment mind and so embracing my fear of things being bad rather than getting blocked up by it. And then, on the second day of that experiment, I think, because I was cultivating in part because I was cultivating in myself an environment of way much wider acceptance and embrace that just opened something up in a profoundly characteristically different way. So this is the first poem that came through like that and it's called Say Wow. And it's called Say Wow Each day before our surroundings become flat with familiarity and the shapes of our lives click into place, dimensionless and average as Tetris cubes, before hunger knocks from our bellies like a cantankerous old man, and the duties of the day stack up like dishes and the architecture of the day stack up like dishes.
Chelan Harkin:And the architecture of our basic needs, commissions all thought to construct the four-door sedan of safety Before gravity clings to our skin like a cumbersome parasite and the colored dust of dreams sweeps itself obscure in the vacuum of reason. Each morning, before we wrestle the world and our heart into the shape of our brain, look around and say wow, feed yourself, fire, scoop up the day entire like a planet-sized bouquet of marvel sent by the universe directly into your arms, and say wow, break yourself down into the basic components of primitive awe and let the crescendo of each moment carbonate every capillary and say wow, yes. Before our poems become calloused with revision. Let them shriek off the page of spontaneity and, before our metaphors get too regular, let the sun stay a conflagration of homing pigeons that fights through fire each day to find us wow, wow well, well, well, well done thank you, thank you so much.
Chelan Harkin:So that was 21 when that one burst through and and it was this experience of being interwoven with the genius that is grace, and and it moved, you know, and it coming through me and and kind of. You know, the same life force moves through all of us and it, and it expresses in in unique ways, it moves through me differently than it moves through the apple tree, and it and it expresses in in unique ways, it moves through me differently than it moves through the apple tree, and the genius that comes through the apple tree is the apple, and so, but, um, so it had this incredibly personal feel about it, but also this incredibly divine, divine feel, and, uh, it was the most beautiful experience and it's what made me really recognize the need to feel God in an embodied way, rather than just conceptualize and keep at arm's length.
Heather Drake:We've been just recently gifted and some of it not gifted, some of it we just prioritized um spending time together in nature and just in nature, in settings where you just say, wow, sometimes it is in the mountains, sometimes, you know, on the shores, but often it's just that idea of looking up and really allowing awe to open us to the world that is around us. And I so appreciated that invitation and again, not just in that poem, in many of your poems to be able to one of them you use the words the curvature of the Robin's breast, and I was thinking about this just because I was looking at a little brown bird the other day and it was just pay attention to the way that is. It's such a beautiful invitation into a savoring as opposed to just an autopilot, where we kind of find ourself all the time, and I was hoping that you'd say a little bit more about how you're seeing these things or how you're training yourself to savor and to notice, um, those things in nature that call us into more awe.
Chelan Harkin:Oh great, oh, what a good question, heather. Well, I find that there's a reason that we're not. I feel like the embodied realm is the realm of deeper satisfaction and savoring and connection with that awe actually, and there's a reason that we're not connected at that level. And there's a reason that we're not connected at that level and there's a reason that we're not all just open hearted, and that's because of pain, and our bodies have tremendous amount of extraordinary potential inside of them and that's where our pain is, the roots of our pain that's inherited, that is experienced, the roots of our pain that's inherited, that is, you know, experienced and and um, I feel also part of this tipping point, time, is that this is, I think, the first time in which this pain is being unpacked and the body, for so long in in many uh traditions, has been, has been thought of as like the seat of sin, because that's the pain unlooked at does. Does you know, sin is it's just the acting out of of pain, which is the acting out of separation that hasn't been brought back into the fold of oneness, and so it's a really big deal to be bringing consciousness into the body and I found that, as I resolve all this old pain that I both came in with and experienced, I become more sensitive to the truth, to the truth that is the beauty and the wonder and the awe and the astonishment of life.
Chelan Harkin:And the more I hold pain or don't go through the process of setting these bound energies, that is our embodied pain, setting those free, it's the degree to which I'm calloused to that. So my practice, and really one of my main prayers too, is just like asking to be fortified, to the, the psychological stability and security, to really then, um, uh, make the journey to, to be able to stay with these trapped energies. That's all. Our pain really is that the these trapped energies, and able to stay with them long enough to liberate them, which is to find innocence in them actually and worth and value, and then they start to share themselves again and start to give themselves, to love and become generative energies rather than just stuck. Yeah, so yeah, I find that this awe is, it's an outcome of that process, and it's always there. It's always there. It's just that we can be callous to it and a bit numbed from it. Beautiful.
Shelly Shepherd:In one of your recent poems that you shared with us, you said renaming your sorrow is a direct path to God, and so what I heard you just say is that maybe our sorrow, our trauma or our pain we haven't learned how to rename it. Could you speak to that a little bit? How do you rename your sorrow or your pain or your trauma and then expand, you know, be more expansive to God and to source and to this oneness or otherness that we all really long for?
Chelan Harkin:Well, I think it's important to say that it is really hard to do that in this society, that it's, it's, it is really hard to to do that in this society. We're so wired to belong and it's actually a, it's a survival need to feel like we're not too far outside of the pack, like like a fear, like I'm going to die if I'm too different, like it activates, like that's because, um, you know from way back when, if we weren't included in the village we would die. So it's scary to the system, it's really scary. And so I guess I say that because it's still quite counterculture to be able to embrace our struggles. You know, vulnerability, sharing these, our difficulties, or even admitting to having sorrow, is still in many cases extremely hard, and there's extreme, can be extreme shame, and then also, in many cases we do share our sorrow with someone and they just don't know how to handle it, and then that's another really hard thing. So I just want to say that it's, it's tricky, um, and I've been really fortunate, um to well, largely through the tool of hypnotherapy. It's been incredibly, uh, it's been a mainstay for me because it, um, it, it's, it's, it puts the mind in this state where it's just not as scared of itself, and so it can go looking.
Chelan Harkin:And I found, I mean I've been really intensely on this path of um, the path of sensitizing myself to, to, to truth and to to beauty, for about 15 years in a full on way, and um, and I, every time, I've been through countless journeys.
Chelan Harkin:You know the the thing, the emotions, the sorrows that we judge when we're not familiar with them. Once we're able to stay with them, there's always extraordinary beauty and innocence at the root, uh, and, and there's this extraordinary experience of, of reunion and then of being re-energized, re-vivified and re-inspired, um, as we set these energies free, and so something, yeah, that I really strive to do with my poetry and my platform is just to really create a new narrative that we're not actually, we're not our sorrows, we're their stewards, and it's okay, it makes sense that we have sorrows and it's incredibly brave to to go into them and just trying to, you know, infuse that new narrative and, I think, being around people who are doing their best to come from that place, who see this journey into our wholeness as an extraordinary act of bravery, rather than weird and an inconvenience and you're being so negative, talking about your, you know, like being around people who can help us redefine. That, I think, is really key.
Shelly Shepherd:Thank you. Thank you for that. I know we want to to say a few words about, about the new book that's coming in September, the Prophetess, and what would you want listeners to know about the book? Where can they find the book? Can you give us a little sneak peek of what we can expect in this connection with the divine feminine that you're, that you're shaping for us?
Chelan Harkin:Yeah, so, um, so the book, first of all, can be pre-ordered now on Amazon. Just type in Shalann Harkin, the prophetess up it comes and pre-orders are really important. I'll just make that note. I didn't really understand that. It just sort of positions the book for a really successful launch when it when it launches. So to do that now would be awesome.
Chelan Harkin:And so this book it is inspired by Khalil Gibran's book the Prophet, which was a global, globally beloved masterpiece, and that book it's 28 chapters, as is mine. So my book, the format is there's a parallel and it's all about life's most meaningful subjects in the human condition and human potential. And his book is so profound it's always been one of my all time favorites and, um, and I want to share, I think, mostly just the extraordinary way that I came to be the author of this book and it's quite something and it's I'll try to make it short, I know I can be kind of long-winded, but um, just that, in 2020, before before, uh, self-publishing this book, I had no connections in the marketing world or in the publishing world and I just decided to do a prayer experiment asking for marketing support specifically from Khalil Gibran. I just decided to talk to my favorite dead poets and ask them. And so I would go on these walks. And it was just a totally, almost goofy experiment. Khalil, gibran and Hafez and another beautiful author named Brian Doyle were my three main people.
Chelan Harkin:And and then, um, three weeks into this experiment, my all time favorite living poet, daniel Ladinsky, reached out to me and invited me to coauthor a book with him. It turns it, uh, it turns out. He had written, uh, the foreword to the extended edition of the prophet, and um is the man who had, uh, who's done, all the renderings of hafez poetry that have made him a superstar to the western world. So it was just unbelievable. And um and me, coming from I, was complete, no name, complete, complete, utter, no connections at all. And then Daniel introduced me to the major, endorsed me phenomenally, to the major publishing houses of the world, and so then that just I just kept my prayers going with Khalil and Hafez and Brandoil, because they were very effective.
Chelan Harkin:And then, about a year and a half after that, I just put my kids to bed and just got slammed with this high voltage, irresistible inspiration that said, basically, it's time to write the Prophetess and you're the one to do it, and then all of this content just started pouring. In two months the book was completely written and then, uh, yeah, so it's just been an extraordinary, exquisite and profoundly like, prayerful and surreal and wild journey. And when I got this, uh, the book deal, it was exactly when I signed it. It was exactly 100 years, um, to the date that khalil jabran had published his book, and so that book is, the rights are with Penguin Random House, which I didn't stand a chance with them, but so Hay House was the one that I originally signed with, and as soon as I turned in my manuscript, hay House was bought by Penguin Random House. It's just unreal.
Chelan Harkin:And then a couple more things, and then I know we probably need to wind up, but, um, it turns out which I wasn't even aware of when this whole book was coming through me. After I was completely done, I was like, you know, I should reread the prophet, and, um, the whole last chapter is a prophecy of his return, and the last line of his book is a little while a moment upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me talking about his return. And then it also turns out that he was profoundly inspired by the Baha'i writings. I don't know if you are familiar with the Baha'i faith but I grew up in a Baha'i home, which is, you know, there aren't very many Baha'is out there, so it's weird at all that he was inspired by that and anyway.
Chelan Harkin:So it's just, it's been so mysterious and so beautiful and so the prophetess it's seen as sort of a contemporary continuation of that book that has that includes the themes that I would say kind of you could say could fall under the, the, the umbrella of the feminine resurrecting and um exonerating and even like coronating um themes of vulnerability and sensitivity and and shadows and and then joy, creative expression. Death is one of the chapter grief, suffering, intimacy, sin, religion. It's really addressing kind of old, important subjects from a new perspective and a new lens that serves, is meant to serve, our, the embrace of our wholeness and help us. It's intended sort of as an inspired passage to this new paradigm of embrace.
Shelly Shepherd:We'll just say wow. Well congratulations, yeah, and all of those things. That's really amazing.
Chelan Harkin:Yeah, thank you, it's beyond me.
Heather Drake:Well done, well done. Woman of of valor. That's amazing.
Shelly Shepherd:yeah, just to have that opportunity with the publishing industry and the support and all of that is like wow, it's something. It is the prophet and the prophetess are in your corner. That is very clear, um so thank you for sharing that piece with us. Uh, just now, that was beautiful insight into what you've been given.
Heather Drake:And I think what you told us is if somebody is thinking about buying Christmas presents this year maybe they want to celebrate Christmas and have presents this would be a great time for them. To preorder A book on Amazon is where you said that we should or one of the better places right now in the preorder time, it's better. And if you're, you know some people don't want to do that you said that we should uh, one of the better places right now in the pre-order time, it's better to pre-order and if you're, you know some people have a have don't want to do that, and so another place you can buy it is from my local bookstore, wacoma W-A-U-C-O-M-A.
Chelan Harkin:Wacoma bookstore is an alternative. Okay, but that's exactly what.
Chelan Harkin:I'm saying Buy it. And also there's an assumption, too, that if you're with a big publishing house, that the publishers are just these fairy godmothers that are doing all the marketing for you, and that's not true. So almost all the marketing is still on me, which is a lot. Listening to this just has connections or ideas or podcast ideas that would resonate with this story or are connected to newspapers or radio programs or what have you. Reach out to me and let's get this show on the road. I'm really asking for help, because this book, it, deserves a wide reach and I want it to have that and I need help so that too.
Heather Drake:So also kudos to you for being able to and boldly asking for help. It's a beautiful prayer, it's a beautiful invitation into the human family to be able to say this is where we extend our help and our light. And so where can people find you reliably and quickly if they want information or they want to purchase the book?
Chelan Harkin:Oh, great, well, if they want to purchase the book just, they can just go right to Amazon and do it that way. And then if you have any ideas and information and find me on Facebook and just send me a direct message, okay, Direct message through Facebook Right Beautiful.
Heather Drake:Thank you both.
Chelan Harkin:What a joy.
Shelly Shepherd:I have one. I have one piece to finish with this amazing poet that is in front of us right now. It's called the Climax from your Grace book. Was it Wild Grace, wild Grace? It's called Wild Grace. Yes, it says is the climax from the conjugal visit between the wildly divine and the achingly human in the bed chambers of the chest. Thank you for being here today, for penetrating our soul, our chest, our mind, our hearts, with this divine energy that you have in your soul. So appreciative of that, thank you.
Chelan Harkin:It was a real joy to be with you both. I'm really really grateful for this.
Heather Drake:It was our joy to have you listen to our conversation today. If you would like further information or for more content, visit us at expansionisttheologycom.