An essay questioning whether people should be defined by their past mistakes or their contributions, arguing for remembering both, restoring dignity to the forgotten, and judging others only as we ourselves would wish to be judged.
A practical guide offering several methods for discovering your unique purpose or mission — including free-flow writing, the four-way intersections exercise, skills assessments, and quiet meditative listening — with the reminder that your purpose will not resemble anyone else’s.
An abstract painting in shades of blue depicting a tiny self floating in the ocean as a great wave approaches, evoking the ambiguity of major, identity-altering change that is neither clearly good nor bad.
A cataloged master list of the roughly sixty most common challenges humans face across mental, emotional, physical, social, financial and whole-life categories, compiled from thousands of survey responses to show how universal and finite our struggles really are.
A teaching essay on why self-understanding matters even amid ordinary chores and human suffering, arguing that developing to later stages of understanding lets you shape your own reality, and starting with the question of what you truly want to feel.
A photograph capturing the artist’s shadow dancing during a music video for the song “Validation,” used to illustrate the concept of the shadow self, the alter ego, with the less confident real self performing as the shadow of the confident songstress.
An essay applying the eleven-stage model of personal development to society as a whole, tracing humanity’s collective movement from survival-focused early stages through ideological stages toward a future stage of shared peace and recognized truth.
A nerdy thought experiment linking physics and spirituality, arguing that the pervasive Higgs field, which gives rise to mass and the other forces, is the best physical candidate for the Tao or divine and possibly the mechanism behind manifestation.
A wire sculpture inspired by the artist’s chaos-flower paintings, designed to mount on a wall with its tendrils bent outward as if reaching toward passersby.
A practical, personal walkthrough of a belief-retraining process: identifying stressors, writing corrective perspectives for each, and distilling them into daily affirmations read for a month to replace limiting beliefs with healthier mindsets and behaviors.
A teaching piece on manifestation and purpose, arguing that struggle is a signal the universe is blocking something counter to your path, and that recognizing and trusting that resistance helps you make choices aligned with your true purpose.
![What Are We Throwing Away? [An Art Attack Collaboration]](https://kathryncolleen.com/studio/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/TrainStation-1080x675.jpg)
A reflection on a public art collaboration in Purcellville, Virginia, where painted yellow trash bags hung around town overnight posed a question about balancing economic progress against preserving history and small-town character.
![A Guide To The Lost Art Of The Protest [Non-Partisan]](https://kathryncolleen.com/studio/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/March_on_washington_Aug_28_1963.jpg)
A non-partisan guide to effective protest, contrasting ineffective modern demonstrations with a disciplined method: a single focused message naming a specific action and official, respectful conduct, and prepared talking points capable of actually moving legislation.
A personal progress update on the author’s project to learn nine languages simultaneously, sharing early wins, a word-across-languages memorization strategy, and playful first impressions of how each language reflects its underlying culture.
An art piece created to depict the artist’s own mind, its pockets of order and intellectual curiosity threatened by, or perhaps threatening, a tidal wave of obsessive distraction, capturing the felt experience of an autistic inner world.
A reflection on the spontaneous creation of the song “Oh I,” written and recorded in one uninhibited session as the artist sang out a low mood, presented with its chords, drum pattern and full lyrics.
A sensual song written for lovemaking, described by the artist as loopable ‘baby-making music’ about desire rekindling in the afterglow, presented with its chords, technique notes and full lyrics.
A gospel-blues original song, with full chords and lyrics, about the certain feeling that wonderful things are coming — written the morning of the author’s 2016 birthday — and about openly welcoming that unknown good as a return to one’s true self.
An upbeat original song, with chords and lyrics, about resilience through hardship — the idea that being rooted in the truth of your soul makes you unshakable, so you can defiantly weather any storm that life brings.
An original love song, with chords and lyrics, exploring the idea that home is a person rather than a place — the deep emotional need to return, morning and night, to the one whose gaze makes you feel at home.
An original song, with chords and lyrics, about longing for a simpler, freer life — the feeling on vacation, camping or in an RV of wanting to stay in a life without chasing money or things, where you can simply be yourself.
A deeply personal original song, with chords and lyrics, written in grief after the death of the author’s mentor and father-figure — about how those who guided us in life seem to remain with us, still guiding, after they are gone.
An original song, with chords and lyrics, using the metaphor of a river to explore living with the flow of life — weaving in yoga imagery of flow, pose and breath — and letting go of struggle to be carried where you need to be.
An original song, with chords and lyrics, reflecting on the beauty of youthful naivety — how the unscarred innocence of the young, though clueless, is a pure state that the older and more scarred can come to envy rather than mock.
An original song, with chords and lyrics, exploring the metaphor that falling in love is a kind of death — the shedding of an old self as new love awakens forgotten parts of us and feels like crossing from darkness into light.