The Spiritual Artist Podcast

What if God is still creating, learning, and discovering alongside us?

In this episode of The Spiritual Artist Podcast, I welcome author and travel writer Lori Erickson to explore the mysterious relationship between creativity and the Divine.

Lori's latest book, Travels with the Muse: A Creative Pilgrimage, takes readers on a journey through sacred places, artistic traditions, and encounters with artists around the world. Along the way, she discovers that creativity may have less to do with mastery and more to do with attention, curiosity, and a willingness to begin.

Our...

What happens when life changes, the house grows quiet, and we find ourselves alone with who we really are?

In this episode of The Spiritual Artist Podcast, CJ Miller welcomes harpist, composer, author, and Episcopal priest April Stace for a heartfelt conversation about solitude, creativity, presence, and personal transformation.

Following a divorce and her only child leaving for college, April found herself living alone for the first time. What initially felt overwhelming gradually became an unexpected invitation to rediscover herself. Through music, journaling, gardening, and a solitary train journey across the country, she began exploring...

What if becoming a better artist isn't about taking more classes, mastering more techniques, or learning all the rules? What if the most important thing you can do is simply keep creating?

In this Spiritual Artist pep talk, CJMiller shares a realization that came to him while painting: creativity naturally evolves when we give ourselves permission to explore. Through the story of another artist's journey and his own experience of feeling creatively stuck, CJ explores how frustration, experimentation, and even boredom can lead to unexpected breakthroughs.

Discover why your creative voice emerges through practice, why...

Where does your creative voice come from—and how do you learn to trust it?

Playwright Drew Larimore joins CJ Miller for a conversation about intuition, spiritual guidance, and the mysterious process of bringing creative work into form. Drew shares how experiences with past-life regression helped him see writing as a thread running through his life and how he works with spiritual guides, meditation, and intuition as part of his creative practice.

CJ and Drew explore what it feels like to move beyond the analytical mind and into a more receptive creative state. They discuss th...

What if your artwork isn’t something to analyze or fix, but something that can help you recognize yourself? During a recent Spiritual Artist Retreat in Santa Fe, I took part in an exercise I usually facilitate for others: physically walking a shape I had discovered in nature. What happened surprised me. In the rigidity of a stone and the delicate lichen growing across its surface, I recognized something about the way I move through my own life—and I felt that recognition in my body before I could completely explain it with words.

In this episode, I ex...

As artists, it’s easy to let recognition, rejection, awards, and sales tell us whether our work is “good.” In this episode, I share a very recent experience with a juried art show—one that stirred up all those very human questions about being seen, being recognized, and wondering whether anyone really understands what we’re doing.

But Spirit had another lesson waiting for me.

Our work isn’t validated because it wins an award, and it isn’t validated because someone buys it. We create because something happens when we’re truly aligned with ourselves—when w...

While working on his painting this morning, CJ was inspired by a message and decided to share it with his listeners. CJ shares his experience with his tremor and how it has formed a relationship between him and his art. It is only by accepting all of yourself—including those things you may consider shortcomings—that you can expand your creative expression. We bring our complete selves to the creative process.

If you’ve been avoiding creativity because of some perceived limitation, consider how you might continue creating despite it—or perhaps even because of it. CJ has lear...

CJ explores the difference between deterministic computing, where instructions lead to defined outcomes, and probabilistic AI, which uses learned patterns to predict what is most likely to come next. And suddenly, AI begins to look surprisingly human.

How often do we do the same thing?

We bring our histories, assumptions, habits, and emotional patterns into a conversation and begin predicting what someone means before they have finished speaking. We formulate our response while the other person's mouth is still moving. Instead of responding to what is actually happening, we respond to...

In this episode, CJ Miller explores how the overwhelming flood of information in today's world is calling us into a new stage of human development: The Age of Listening.

Drawing from Paul Baker's Integration of Abilities, CJ traces the evolution of human communication—from the Storytelling Age, to the Gutenberg Age of books and external authority, to today's Information Age, where knowledge is abundant but discernment has become essential.

Rather than simply collecting more information, CJ suggests that our greatest challenge is learning to listen intentionally. True listening is not merely in...

In this fascinating conversation, I sit down with painter, teacher, and author Jordan Wolfson to explore painting as a practice of awareness. Jordan describes how, over the years, his sense of self has become more porous and less fixed, allowing him to respond more openly to both life and the creative process.

We discuss why some paintings feel profoundly alive while others, though technically accomplished, do not. Jordan shares insights drawn from artists like Cézanne, Monet, and especially Berthe Morisot, whose expressive mark-making helped shape modern painting in w...

I'm excited to announce the release of my new Spiritual Parable As a Daily Practice Companion Coloring Book! Created to accompany my book Spiritual Parable As a Daily Practice, this unique collection invites you to deepen your reflection through mindful coloring and creativity. Featuring original illustrations inspired by 25 spiritual storytellers, it's designed to slow you down, quiet the mind, and transform each parable into a personal, creative practice. Available on July 15. Thank you for supporting independent artists and authors!

Do you lead a spiritual group, book club, or creative community? If...

Have you ever wondered whether that quiet inner voice is genuine guidance... or simply your own hopes and fears talking?

In this fascinating conversation, CJ sits down with spiritual teacher and author Gary Temple Bodley and spiritual medium Christy Levy to explore one of life's biggest questions: How do we recognize authentic guidance?

Gary shares the remarkable story of how meditation led him into direct communication with a collective consciousness known as Joshua, eventually inspiring him to write four channeled books and launch the Joshua Live podcast. Christy describes...

What if you stopped believing you are the storm and remembered that you are the sky?

In this thoughtful conversation, CJ sits down with Pastor Greg "PG" Stamper to explore the spiritual journey beyond certainty, fear, and rigid beliefs. Raised in the Pentecostal tradition before finding a home in New Thought, PG shares how leaving familiar ground became an invitation into a larger understanding of consciousness, compassion, and transformation.

Together they explore meditation, neurodivergence, the surprising connection between science and spirituality, and why daily practices help us navigate life's changing weather rather than avoid it...

In this episode of The Spiritual Artist Podcast, CJ Miller speaks with coach and author Joey Lott about the actual nature of experience, the limits of the thinking mind, and the freedom that becomes possible when we stop trying to control every sensation, emotion, or moment of discomfort.

Joey shares his own journey as a long-time spiritual seeker who once believed peace would come through elevated states, spiritual practices, and finding the “right” answer. Over time, he discovered that true freedom did not come from escaping experience, but from becoming genuinely curious about what is actually happening in t...

Have you ever had a week where you questioned whether your work even mattered?

In this deeply personal episode, CJ Miller shares a raw recording captured just minutes after receiving a handwritten letter from a young artist on the West Coast who had read his book, The Spiritual Artist. The unexpected letter arrived during a week filled with doubt, uncertainty, and questions about purpose. What CJ discovered inside the envelope moved him to tears.

The letter speaks about creativity, surrender, solitude, spiritual identity, emotional sensitivity, and the longing to create from something deeper than recognition...

In this episode of The Spiritual Artist Podcast, CJ Miller sits down with writer, actor, and creator Lyn Alicia Henderson for a heartfelt conversation about Affirmative Prayer, intention, and the deeper power behind words. Together, they explore the idea that prayer does not have to belong to organized religion or rigid doctrine. At its core, prayer can simply be understood as a conscious declaration of truth, alignment, and connection. Lyn Alicia beautifully reframes prayer as something much closer to affirmations, intention-setting, and speaking from an awareness of the greater Creative Intelligence already moving through life.

Throughout the...

In this episode, CJ discusses his recent temper tantrum—what triggered it, how it unfolded, and what it revealed about anger and being human. What started as frustration over a faulty mop quickly turned into something bigger, exposing a deeper reaction that many of us try to avoid or suppress.

He explores the idea that emotions are energy in motion, and that anger, when acknowledged and allowed to move through the body, can actually clear space rather than create harm. 

CJ shares insights from past experiences with emotional release and reflects on how quickly we jud...

In this rich returning conversation, artist and former creative director Jason McDonald shares the lived spiritual practices that shape his creative process. From studying Buddhist philosophy and living alongside monks in India and Thailand to completing a three-month silent retreat, Jason describes an ongoing “excavation of self” that continues to deepen his sensitivity as an artist.

We explore how his work is guided by a felt relationship with what he calls the creative field of intelligence — a living energetic presence that can inform artistic decisions beyond planning or technique. Jason speaks about entering a listening state while workin...

What if the tension you carry every day is not random… but communication?

In this deeply personal episode, CJ shares his journey through unexplained physical pain and the surprising realization that the body holds its own intelligence — one that speaks not through words, but through sensation. After months of medical tests and treatments that offered little relief, he began to recognize a deeper pattern: chronic tension caused by living in a constant state of urgency.

This talk explores the powerful distinction between what CJ calls “run mode” and “rest mode.” In modern life — shaped by soci...

In this short, reflective episode, CJ shares a personal memory of traveling alone to Santa Fe during a stressful season of life and studying with his mentor, abstract painter Virginia Cobb. What remains most vivid is not a technique or critique, but a quiet moment on a patio — coffee in hand, mountains in the distance, and a teacher who asked for nothing but presence.

Through this story, CJ explores how the practice of simply meeting each moment has gradually reshaped his life. He reflects on learning to recognize the body’s signals, releasing the pressure of constant achi...

In this fascinating conversation, CJ Miller speaks with psychotherapist and author Deborah Sandella, creator of Regenerating Images in Memory (RIM) and author of Goodbye, Hurt & Pain—a powerful approach that helps people access emotional healing through imagination, intuition, and body awareness.

Dr. Deb explains why modern culture has become overly dependent on logic and problem-solving while neglecting the intuitive and emotional intelligence stored in the nervous system. Drawing on neuroscience research—including the work of trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk—she describes how deeply held experiences are often stored...

What if excellence doesn’t come from pressure, but from presence?

In this episode, CJ welcomes UK-based sculptor and former world champion archer Ian Edwards, a man who has lived at the highest levels of both elite sport and masterful craftsmanship. Ian has competed internationally for Great Britain and spent decades refining his artistic practice. And through both disciplines, he discovered a simple but transformative truth: performance rises naturally when the mind becomes quiet and the heart leads.

Ian shares how intense competition didn’t create anxiety for him. It created presence. As pressure increased, his...

Matthew West’s Imperfections reads like a lifetime inventory—the running list we keep of everything we wish we could fix, hide, or improve. The song names that familiar inner critic: the voice that keeps tally, weighs the good against the bad, and often decides we come up short.

CJ also reflects on his own experience living with a non-essential tremor and vision changes following LASIK surgery—conditions that once felt like limitations, but ultimately shaped a distinctive visual language in his art. What first appeared as obstacles became collaborators, influencing mark, movement, and perception in ways he cou...

In honor of National Caregivers Day on Friday the 20th, CJ welcomes author, speaker, and leadership consultant Glenna Hecht for a deeply human conversation about caregiving, presence, and active listening. After a distinguished career in Human Resources with organizations like Starbucks and Walt Disney World, Glenna faced a challenge she could not fix—her mother’s dementia. What began as frustration and attempts to control the uncontrollable became a profound shift: if she could not cure it, she could meet it with curiosity, compassion, and play.

Out of that surrender came a simple but powerful question: “How old ar...

In this special REWIND episode, CJ revisits his conversation with poet J.K. Kennedy and reflects on the idea that we all carry a clumsy beauty within us if we are willing to listen, orient, and follow Spirit.

CJ explores what it means to simply be with someone—whether they are creating, transitioning, or moving through a difficult season of life. Often, our greatest challenges carry unexpected gifts. When we stop pushing against what’s happening and instead ask, Why is this here? What can I learn from this? something begins to shift. The challenge may...

What if relief doesn’t come from fixing your thoughts, but from moving your body and putting words on the page? In this episode of The Spiritual Artist Podcast, CJ Miller sits down with poet Jodie Kennedy, an observer, mumbler, overthinker, and accidental creative writer from Elkhorn, Wisconsin. Jodie is the author of Clumsy Beauty, a debut poetry collection rooted in anxiety, attention, and the quiet work of noticing what it feels like to be alive.

Jodie shares how writing poetry helps her listen to herself again when anxiety pulls her into mental loops. For he...

REWIND: After a conversation with Rabbi Rami Shapiro, CJ reflects on why spiritual independence matters—especially for those burned by religion. Drawing from the Gospel of Thomas, mystic traditions, and insights echoed by Eckhart Tolle, CJ explores the difference between belief and realization, form and essence, doing and being. When presence becomes primary and effort softens, coherence emerges—and the Field of Creative Intelligence reveals itself.

Want to learn more about CJ Miller? Check out his Spiritual Artist Retreats, 1:1 Personal Coaching, and Speaking Engagements at www.spiritualartisttoday.com. His retr...

In this wide-ranging and deeply human conversation, CJ sits down with Rabbi Rami Shapiro—award-winning author of more than three dozen books, longtime contributor to Spirituality & Health Magazine, and co-founder of the One River and One Foot Judaism Foundations.

Together, they explore what it truly means to live as a spiritually independent person—not as an idea or belief system, but as a way of being in the world.

Rabbi Rami speaks candidly about 12-Step spirituality, surrender, and the illusion of control, offering a liberating reframe: we don’t surrender to a greater power—...

In this Rewind episode, CJ reflects on what stayed with him after his recent conversation with intuitive artist Cameron Cohen. While re-listening to the interview, he shares a new morning ritual of doodling and how it deepened his understanding of body-led intuition.

CJ explores key lessons from Cameron’s approach to energetic sensitivity and her ability to feel and register emotional information through the body. The episode weaves into CJ’s evolving somatic framework, asking simple but powerful questions: Where do you feel emotion in your body? What happens when you let it move instead of trying to f...

In this deeply embodied conversation, CJ is joined by Cameron Cohen, a Los Angeles–based intuitive artist known for her Manifestation Paintings—custom works created as living tools for clarity, alignment, and intention.

Together, they explore why words often fall short and how the body becomes our most reliable guide. Cameron shares how she listens for a full-body Yes through sensation—tingling, warmth, chills, and goosebumps—and how those signals guide both her life and her art. For her, the body is a receiving instrument, like a microphone tuned to Creative Intelligence.

Cameron walks CJ...

After the recent events in Venezuela, I noticed my mind looping and my body tightening. I’ve always considered empathy a strength—but every strength has a shadow side. When sensitivity turns into over-identification, it stops being a gift and becomes a burden.

In this video, I share a simple awareness framework: noticing thoughts, bodily sensations, and emotional tone—without becoming them. You are a drop of Spirit, not the whole ocean. You can care deeply without carrying the weight of the world. Coherent alignment comes from balance, not force—and when thinking, feeling, and emotion realign, clarity...

In this special podcast episode, CJ turns on the record button during one of his real counseling sessions with breathwork and Somatic Experiencing specialist Jonathan Schechter, offering listeners an intimate look into embodied healing in real time. Together, they explore how we’re often taught to view life—and healing—through a strictly material lens, while our medical system is far less equipped to address emotional states, stress, and the nervous system. Jonathan encourages listeners to become their own practitioners by cultivating curiosity and awareness, likening it to discovering new colors beyond a limited palette—and even noticing...

In this end-of-year episode, CJ reflects on the highlights and growth points that shaped his 2025. He speaks openly about “hitting the wall” when chronic pain entered his life, and how choosing to share his struggle created unexpected openings. By practicing presence instead of isolation, CJ found himself in deeper relationship with others.

He describes trying countless approaches to find relief—medications, exercise, physical therapy, breathwork and more. While nothing offered a quick fix, the experience “cracked him wide open,” and deepened his empathy. And it reminded him that living in a physical body brings challenges that aren’t always the...

Dallas-based painter Matt Kaplinsky captures the spirit of place through a warm, folksy impressionism that blends nature, memory, and imagination. A self-taught artist inspired by Matisse, Van Gogh, and Bonnard, Matt paints with curiosity and flow—allowing each brushstroke to reveal where Creative Intelligence wants to go next.

In this conversation, Matt and CJ explore how the path of least resistance guides both art and life. Matt shares how his work continually “veers off,” and instead of fighting it, he listens to the subtle energies leading him downstream. From vivid cowboy scenes to delicate garden still...

Today’s guest is Tina Jacobson, a lifelong artist and spiritual explorer from Australia whose creative journey weaves art, intuition, and healing. Raised on an animal-filled farm by creative parents, Tina has spent her life immersed in design, murals, and illustration. Her coloring books, including The Colorful Life Colouring Book, invite readers to reconnect with creativity as a gentle, spiritual practice rather than a task to complete.

Through years of self-discovery, Tina learned that healing begins by watching the mind. Once trapped in cycles of self-criticism and dark thoughts, she discovered that thoughts aren’t trut...

In this deeply moving episode, CJ Miller talks with Nancy Amlin Watson, a yoga instructor who turned to her mat after the devastating loss of her child and discovered that yoga was one of the only things that made her feel “maybe not better, but just a tiny little bit less shitty.”

A devoted practitioner for more than 25 years and a teacher for the past three, Nancy now helps others navigate life’s many forms of loss—whether through death, divorce, illness, job change, or even the loss of a beloved pet. Her interactive Yoga for Grief Workbook...

Jonathan Schecter is a breathwork specialist, integration coach, and founder of Blue Magic Alchemy, where he helps others explore non-ordinary states of consciousness and reconnect with what he calls the inner healer. Certified in multiple breathwork and mindfulness modalities—including Somatic Experiencing and Holotropic Breathwork—Jonathan combines nervous system regulation, evocative music, and creative expression such as mandala art to guide participants toward emotional release and spiritual insight. In our conversation, we discuss how the ego takes a back seat during these states, allowing Creative Intelligence to flow freely through breath, sound, and movement. Influenced by the Wim Hof Meth...

After a recent argument, I woke up with a deep ache in my chest—an emotional pain that felt stronger than the chronic pain I’ve been carrying in my hips. It reminded me how the body holds emotion, how tension can live in us for years if we don’t give it space to move.

That morning, I turned to painting. I played the saddest song I could find and let the emotion pour through my brush. Painting became my way to release. When we create from that raw place, creativity becomes a healing modality. It transm...

How to Trust the Voice of the Heart. The heart is the most powerful portal we have. When we open it, intuition becomes our guide, leading us toward love, freedom, and authentic self-expression.

In this episode, CJ Miller speaks with Natasha “Tash” Sumner, author of Accept Who You Are, whose journey from corporate burnout to spiritual coach is a story of courage and alignment. Natasha shares how she learned to step out of performance, drop the weight of people-pleasing, and instead live from the truth of her heart.

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We’re living in a time of radical resentment — where even when people or companies change, some voices still say, “I won’t forgive them even if they change their ways.” This posture leaves no room for growth, no chance for transformation.

In this episode, I reflect on how forgiveness is upheld across the world’s great faith traditions — from Christianity and Islam to Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Sikhism, the Bahá’í Faith, and Jainism — and how Shinto and Taoism teach us that forgiveness can also be understood as realignment and balance.

Forgiveness is not about excusing the h...