Interview with:Thomas Mooneagle [thomasmooneagle]
PROFESSION
 | What is your profession? What is your title printed on your business card? My business card states that I am an Intuitive (i.e. a psychic), an artist (potter), and a Reiki Master. I also am an ordained minister in the Order of Melchizedek. |
| What did you study and why did you choose to study that field? I studied both psychology and art although not simultaneously. I chose psychology since people seemed to open up to me. Art I chose because I love creating. |
| What is expected of you in your job, and how do you accomplish it? Well I am expected to have all the answers. I do not have all the answers. I have the ones that my client needs answered nothing more or less. I am also expected to be calm, empathetic, and creative. The variety keeps me interested and grounded. |
| What links do you have on the Internet: website, blog, social networks? I have a youtube channel, a facebook page and blog (which I really should update). I am currently working on getting a business website for e-commerce of my skills. |
| Are you satisfied with the education that you received? No if I had it to do over again I would have gone a less formal route, or I would have had more confidence. |
| In which areas have you thought of building upon your education? Definitely branching out in different mediums, as well certifications in my intuitive services. I am always learning though and taking a workshop or class in something or other. |
| Do you usually attended seminars or coursework to advance your professional work or would you consider yourself a more self-taught person? I definitely do both. |
| How do you feel about speaking in front of an audience? What experience have you had in this arena? Well from teaching classes I have gotten used to speaking to small groups. Working at holistic events I have even addressed small seminar rooms. If I am comfortable with my material I am usually comfortable speaking about it in front of a group. This took some work, but I am much more relaxed about it these days. |
| Do you attend cocktail parties, presentations, fairs or conventions related to your profession? Yes I do my best to network in as many ways as possible. |
| Have you explored the social networks for professionals online? Are you member of any of them? I really haven't I am just now getting into my own website. |
| How are you different from others in your professional sector? I believe I am on the high end of the scale when it comes to integrity. I also approach things in a much looser way. I also tend to combine an equal amount of studying, theory, and experimentation. You would not think that was very odd in the psychic community, but to have all 3 in proportion is rare. |
| How is the Interent changing the way you work? Well it is making it possible for people all over the world to experience what I have to offer in my services. I love youtube. I probably spend too much time on it, but it has been very empowering to hear from someone on another continent who values what I am doing. |
| Do your hobbies aide in professional networking? Not currently no. |
| What are the things you least like about your job? Well it is not always a very well respected career path. |
| Besides your current profession, what other things would you have liked to have been? Believe it or not a biochemist at one time, also for a period of time I thought about being an architect. |
| What is the most important thing you have learned from experience? Be clear with people about what is expected for everyone. Practice having good boundaries. Don't take things personally. |
| When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up? I never knew I thought for a while a famous actor. Everyone seemed to love them. |
| Save some excpetions, do you believe professional and personal relationships should not be mixed? A sticky question I have in the past mixed them to varying degrees of disaster and blessing. I think that before personal and business get too mixed up a long period of acquaintance should be established. I don't share myself all at once anymore. |
| How do you handle customer complaints? Calmly they might be right. If they are I don't argue. If they are being unfair or predatory I still remain calm, but I do draw a line. Some people think the customer always being right means that they are entitled to free stuff. |
| Someone wants to ask for a pay rise and they ask you for advice in how to approach the matter with their boss. What do you tell them? As I am my own boss I just have to raise my rates so I am not a good person to ask. |
| What do you do to manage stress? Exercise |
| What are the most common mistakes clients make when they judge your work? They get tunnel vision or overly concerned in just one area. |
CREATIVITY
| How and why did you begin to be creative? My favorite toys as a child were blocks, legos, and my colored chalk and chalkboard. So I guess it began when I was very young. I always doodled (as opposed to sketching that came later). I love making things, it allows me to disconnect with any ideas I have about what is wrong in the world, in my family, or in myself and to just enjoy the simple act of bringing something into being. |
| Your mind is your work tool. How do you take care of it? Meditation and my spiritual practice help a great deal as well as regular exercise and time spent with people who appreciate my brand of insanity. |
| How do you avoid repeating yourself, or falling into formula? How do you stay fresh? Oh that is easy when I get bored with something it is time to change. I get more ideas really than I have the energy to follow up on. I try to maintain a sense of continuity in my work but also strive for evolution. It is organic. I think you can look at older work and newer work and see the seeds of ideas that became whole new forms, yet still see the origin present. Plus I might see something on a walk in the woods and know I want to incorporate it somehow. |
| Do you have a ritual like retiring to a lonely place from time to time to cleanse your mind? Oh yes there is a stretch of woods that is particularly soothing to me. Private time is hard to come by so just 20 minutes or so outside with noone barging in is quite restorative. |
| What cultural sources do you draw from the most? Hmm this one is tough. If you look at some of my 2 dimensional work I influenced by archetypal psychology as well as western alchemy and even anime. My clay work is simpler and mostly functional pieces with occasional forays into sculpture (which also is typically archetypal in nature). I suppose I draw from asian aesthetics more with my functional work. |
| Who have your teachers been? Michelle Coakes, Dan Anderson, Michael Sherrill, Angelica Pozo, Brian Ransom, Rand Heazlitt, Les Greeman would be the list of clay artists. However sometimes people outside my medium have taught me things that I bring into it people like Mary Carothers (photographer), Kevin Akers (Tai chi Grandmaster), Vicki Dietz (shaman), Barbara Bloecher (another shaman). That's the short list anyhow. |
| When you accept a job, how much value do you place on each of the following? Money, creative liberty, visibility, and to work with the best. Hmmm I like creative liberty I have yet to do collaborative art I would really like to though. Usually I work best with a theme and just a few guidelines. The price is easier to set after I figure out how much work something takes. |
| Have you ever had a job that was so stimulating that you could not get your mind off of it? Alas, no I have not. My mind is usually busy investigating several avenues not just in my creative work but in general. |
| "To give birth to ideas." Is this only an expression, or are there really parallels between giving birth and creativity? As I have not given birth (nor plan on giving birth since I am a man) it would be rather insensitive for me to claim it is. However it is an incredibley intimate experience when you create something that you've put not just your mind into but your heart and soul. Magic can and does happen with the process and synchronicity becomes a part of your world. |
| Does spirituality contribute to your creativity? Definitely I plumb dreams, visions, vague notions and epiphanies for garden space in my creative plots. |
| It is possible to fall in love with a bad idea simply because it is yours. How do you avoid this? Hmmm avoid not so much as abandon after the realization has dawned on me that I going the wrong way. |
| Must someone be the leader or boss in order for a creative team to function well? I'd have to imagine as I have not really worked on a creative team. Someone would have to organize I suppose, but I am not sure I want that job. |
| Declaration: With what person or business would you like to work? It would be fun to work with some photographers, videographers, and musicians to create a multimedia piece. |
| The armchair psychologist: Is creativity an act of rebellion for you? No I do it because I feel good, however I have used my creativity in rebellion before and a few practical jokes. That is the exception rather than the rule though. I create because it makes me feel good and like I have a purpose. |
| Do you work well under pressure? Yes and no. A deadline or planned goal can get me out of a slump, help me explore new ideas, and into a good working rhythm. Too much pressure and not enough time makes the creative juices dry up. Work is not always fun, but when it is never fun it ceases to be even work and turns into punishment. |
| How is an idea sold? Quality, confidence, and presentation. |
| What do you feel when, after two or three years, you see an idea of yours again? Nostalgic it can be like reliving the process (of course in memory you only relive the good parts). It can also be "Oh my God what was I thinking!" Sometimes I want to revisit the ideas and bring in my greater working knowledge to bear, but usually I am too swamped to retread ground. However I know there are themes that I will play with again, but they are still fermenting. |
| Ideas can come simultaneously to different people in different places with no connection to one another. How do you explain this phenomenon? The collective unconscious or maybe we come to certain mental and emotional places within our lives that make us ready to receive a certain idea. I am not the first to play with the themes I do and I may not even be the best. However if you gave 3 people the same tools, materials and theme their work would be different no matter how common the original idea. I guess the easiest answer is that we are all human (mostly) and that means we share similar experiences. We are born, grow up, fall in love the first time, get our hearts broken, lose loved ones, fall in love again (for those who didn't marry their first sweethearts), become ill, regain health, and face death (or not face it but die anyways). There are many spins you can put on that, but we are more alike than we are different. |
| You are as good as your last idea. Wouldn't you like to have a more secure type of work? I do and it drives me crazy and yet it gives me the foundation financially to experiment. I don't think I am cut out for secure kinds of work. |
HARMONY
| What is your specialty? How do you help people find harmony? I listen. I look for patterns. I cast runes, use the tarot, and commune with nature spirits. |
| Can you provide a link to a web site or blog where we can learn more about you? http://www.youtube.com/user/ThomasMooneagle
This is me doing outreach via youtube. |
| What were the circumstances that led you to choose the professional path you have chosen? I had battled depression for most of my adult life my struggle for balance led to my interest in the spiritual arts. |
| What is happiness, and the main obstacle to reaching it? Happiness or joy? Happiness is an idea more than something you attain. In my lexicon it is a surface feeling that comes and goes. Joy is different and it is a deep emotion and appreciation of all of life. Joy takes cultivating so the main obstacle is not taking the time to look within. |
| Do we think too much? Why is it so difficult to feel here and now? I don't know that we think too much or if we do it is just about the wrong things. Reflective thinking helps us examine our own motivations, strengths and where we need to grow. In our culture we seemed to be scared of feeling and when we do we are often punished. There is also a focus on the past and future rather than where we are. We are a culture of planners. |
| How do you deal with discouragement, despair, a sense of setback, etc.? I bitch about it for a while. Seriously who doesn't. Then I try to get out of my head. After that I can often approach things in a different way. |
| Are meditation and prayer cultural variants of the same thing? No meditation is listening and prayer is speaking. Both are needed if you wish to have a conversation with the Universe. |
| Is faith necessary for spirituality to work? No I think just a willingness to experiment and being patient are necessary. Faith comes after. |
| Is it necessary to have a teacher to find the way? Yes, but the idea of a teacher being one person or one role is not in my book. I learn things from different people sometimes they are my teacher in what not to do. Sometimes they are teaching something without doing anything than what they do naturally. Often they are unaware they are teaching me. I've never met any sort of guru that I completely rely upon, but I have had many amazing teachers. The best ones teach by example and inspiration. |
| Is it necessary to have a purpose to find meaning in life? It might be helpful. However just being you and enjoying it should be enough of a purpose for anyone. |
| Is it wise to believe in things that do not exist if it helps you to be happy? Sure why not, and how do you know they don't exist unless you already know everything? |
| How do you distinguish between spirituality and religion? Direct experience of the Divine vs. a coded formula for man/God interaction. I often joke that as a minister I am against religion. People often mistake religion for God. It is an attempt by man to codify and describe in finite terms that which is infinite. Nevertheless it can be a good starting point, it often however tends to confuse people and they think it is the ending point as well. |
| Is God an idea? Is God in the brain? If I knew this I would be on Oprah. God is a placeholder for something so large we can only describe certain actions that It takes. Such like creating the universe. Someone had to put all that matter where the big bang would hit it. |
| What is your concept of free will Vs destiny, fate, karma? Fate = I gotta do this
Destiny = I have to do this cause it feels so right
Karma = Ouch why are you hitting me |
| Give us a simple proof for the existence of the soul. Dreaming |
| What happens when you die? I have not tested this theory but in my current thought it is something like this. You leave the body behind it being dead and of no further use to you. You are met by someone you love and who loves you. I am planning on taking a vacation after I die. I don't think I will be talked into reincarnation for a bit. Now if you ask me about past lives I will say maybe or yes depending on my mood that day, but I always say this is the life that matters since I am living it now. |
| What is in a temple that isn't anywhere else? The idea that is temple. We think about the sacred in temple because that is why we built it. |
| Do you believe in the law of attraction: that we attract what we think about? I do |
| How does one maintain body-mind harmony? By listening to what the self needs. The body will tell you if it is hungry, tired, sick ect... and it will also tell you if the mind is abused by making you sick, fatigued, overweight, underweight, or in general pain. If we take the time to listen and then respond we can do it, and someday I will do just that. :-) |
| Do creativity and positive thinking slow aging? Oh yes I can see examples of this in family and in friends. |
| Is there a false face to positive thinking; an obsession about appearing happy that is not healthy? If you repress your feelings to appear positive then yes. You have to acknowledge and feel them otherwise you are spouting lies. |
| What is your short list of healthy habits? Eat real food
Sleep
Meditate
Move
Repeat |
| In what ways has your spiritual practice affected your creativity? It certainly gives it a boost. |
PHILOSOPHY
| What will your epitaph be? I am not in this grave, but flowers are still appreciated. |
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Thomas Mooneagle
Louisville-USA
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