Well…. It seems that after months of discouragement, I’ve finally gotten closer to achieving some post-grad professional goals of mine. So yeah, June and July were months of wErKkkKK and gRiNDDdddDD.
Stress and anxiety too, don’t get me wrong. But now that I’ve situated myself onto what seems to be semi-stable ground, I can return to my active blogging habits and give this creative outlet the attention it deserves.
After weeks of relentlessly pushing forward and getting an exclusive sneak peek into the long-term for the first time since graduating college, I realized that I have to do a better job at giving my emotional/mental/spiritual/physical health a higher priority.
So, rather than seeing my creativity as an easily renewable, money-making resource and treating my creative faculties like a sweatshop in all the chaos of job interviews, plummeting bank accounts, and glaring computer screens, I want to keep a firm hold on what fuels me spiritually. I want to hold onto what nourishes me on that mystical and spiritual realm that cannot be seen or named.
So naturally, I turned to Stevie Nicks for inspiration.
Okay, fine, fine– I’ll admit that I didn’t really know I was looking for anything when I heard that 1979 interview with her and Jim Ladd on YouTube late one night… 4am, to be exact. It was the night before a major job interview, and it was exactly what I needed to hear. I SERIOUSLY encourage every inspired creative to listen to it!
To put it crudely, Stevie has been through shit. A lot of it. As many of you may know, Fleetwood Mac fell victim to a ton of in-band drama. Band members Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood, Christina McVie, John McVie and Lindsey Buckingham were famously entangled in hardcore drugs, the pressures of stardom, and yeah, even each other (scandalous!), sparking disputes and love triangles that ended up inspiring the heartbreaking classics we’re familiar with today: Dreams, Gypsy, and Landslide, to name a few.
While listening to her interview, it became clear to me that in the heat of her chaotic, oftentimes vapid, creatively demanding lifestyle, Stevie had lost touch with her spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and physical health. She cared so deeply and boundlessly about creating magic for mass public consumption that she forgot about how badly she needed that magic herself. Young and inexperienced, she was dragged into the all-consuming world of rock stardom, drugs and drama, losing the ground on which she stood on. It’s awful being out of touch with yourself, as Stevie recounts in the interview linked above. She states that she couldn’t create anything for 3 years, so destroyed was she by the effects of cocaine use and exhaustion. 
[During the late 70s Fleetwood Mac] Was a huge moneymaking machine, with limos and jets and drugs and crazy people all around all the time. That’s why I really hated that time in my life, because the spiritual sort of went away. It has taken awhile to get it all back.
-Stevie Nicks
Frighteningly enough, Stevie had gotten to the point of her downward spiral where she seriously considered the romanticized prospect of dying young as a beautiful, mad, celebrated artist, “like Janis Joplin.” In the interview linked above, she remembers looking into the mirror and seeing her face staring back at her, dark-eyed and sallow-cheeked like a living corpse.
But it was magic that drew her back to a place of hope. The magic of the home, of family love, of true friendship. The magic of art, of creation. The magic of the “charmed hour.”
[On the definition of the “charmed hour”]… The best hour. The best of all your life….It always will remain in your memory and always ring through your dreams, and be there when any people hurt you or bring you down, or you suffer, maybe.
-Stevie Nicks, Jim Ladd Interview, 1979
Stevie mentions an experience she had running into a fan who the singer had deeply inspired with her songs. She also brings up in the interview that exact moment when she looked into the mirror and spoke to the girl within it, her “sister of the moon,” telling her that she wouldn’t let her die. Mystically enough, this very moment was the inspiration for Fleetwood Mac’s song, “Sisters of the Moon.” 
There is always magic to be summoned at any point. I love to live in a world of magic, but not a fake world of magic. We all really basically have a lot of magic….it’s only those of us that choose to accept it, that really understand it. It’s there for everyone. That’s the only thing that I feel that I am able to give to people and that’s why I know that they respond to me because I try to give them only their own magic…not mine, but theirs.
-Stevie Nicks, Jim Ladd Interview, 1979
Like Stevie, I’ve had moments where I gripped onto my own hand in both hope and desperation. I’ve had moments where I’ve ducked under my own sisterhood with myself for safety, and I know there will be many moments where I’ll have to do that time and time again. Her 1979 interview with Jim Ladd prompted me to think about where my magic came from, and I decided that I ultimately could never fail when I searched for magic in these places:
- Unconditional family love
- Real friendship
- The ocean
- Creative expression
A picture I took during one of my most mystical “charmed hours.” Datiles Beach in Culebra, Puerto Rico– my island home. Everything about this moment, these people, this ocean, and this adorable, crazy dog breathed magic into me.
I encourage you to make a list for yourself so you know where to draw that magic out when you need it the most. Post it in the comments, if you’d like to share! More than anything else, though, I encourage you to establish that bond of sisterhood with yourself– spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, physically– so you have your own “sister of the moon” with you wherever you go, no matter what life throws your way or what demands are placed upon you. Fostering that bond is what I’ll be working on during these promising (yet trying) times of transition, growth and change.
Natalia del Pilar 