Meet Meg Vellejos McCoy | Inter-spiritual community minister, artist, musician and teacher.

We had the good fortune of connecting with Meg Vellejos McCoy and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Meg, how does your business help the community?
I was asked recently what I wanted to leave as my legacy through my work, and the question brought me a surprising amount of discomfort. I don’t think I’ve realized how much my work has impacted others until recently, and I’m just now recognizing my desire to create larger social impact beside others in these dynamic times. In a way, I didn’t set out to generate social change when I started. I had conceived of my work as responding to a need that I was uniquely qualified and interested in meeting: companionship in the inner life wilderness. I have come to realize how much small acts, spiritual friendship and community and access to inner life really matter.

Some bits of my journey: I had been encouraged by some elders in my community to consider studying some alternative healing modalities in my early 20’s. Once attuned, folks started reaching out to me at all hours seeking support. At some point I recognized that I needed to get some additional training in how to hold space both ethically and in potency – and, I needed a formational process that gave me some inner structure and a sense of boundaries in doing emotional and spiritual work with people. This recognition lead me to apply for an interfaith seminary program in Portland, Maine called The Chaplaincy Institute of Maine and go through their two-year ordination process. Upon ordination I started seeing folks very part time while maintaining other jobs. After about 5 years, I realized that I had enough clients and trusted in myself enough to fully launch Inner Life Creations. It has been nearly 6 years of this beautiful, multi-faceted journey. Starting with 1:1 work, I then opened to sharing what I call Contemplative Art Approach classes and facilitating circle-work — and within the last three years have begun sharing formational trainings and collaborative apprenticeships in an effort to encourage the next generation of inter-spiritual leadership and peer companionship.

For a long time I worked more generally, simply creating spaces where people could explore their inner lives and feel into how to be with themselves and witnessed with eyes of love. A directional shift has been happening for a couple years now, and I’m turning towards work I call “Re-Wilding” and “Inner Life Alchemy,” both of which directly support connection with Earth and Ancestors and seeing our callings more vividly and seeing pathways to express them from a supported and fully intact stance.

My mind is continuing to wrap around how to be an entrepreneur, particularly in ways that honor my values and natural rhythms. I am not built for “the grind.” I am deliberate and contemplative and hyper creative. My practice is not one note, but rather seasonally responsive and kind of a living organism that responds to the needs of the community as I’m able to recognize them and create offerings within the scope of my abilities and training. The world I know is possible in my heart includes more peer companionship and business models that honor human and more-than-human alike, and my hope is to participate in the tides changing by sharing what I know through community and allowing the process to be visible to those who wish to view it.

The resulting impact is low and slow and often un-glamorous. Moving through the world with more awareness of who and how we REALLY, rather than moving all of our callings, wilderness and visions through the machine is a lotus slowly rising up and blooming from the mud.

Please tell us more about your work. We’d love to hear what sets you apart from others, what you are most proud of or excited about. How did you get to where you are today professionally. Was it easy? If not, how did you overcome the challenges? What are the lessons you’ve learned along the way. What do you want the world to know about you or your brand and story?
In art, and in life, I strive to reach into where magic and the Great Mystery dwell. I enjoy how the process of making art can bring definition to my own ineffable and confounding experiences, family history and heritage, the feminine, my sense of the Divine and holy curiosity. Some works are very quick and intimately sketched, while others are tended to for long periods of time. Characters may be deeply rooted in a landscape, or trip and fall into alternate experiences within the same painting — or they may just be travelling through. I love getting to know each character, even versions of myself through the act of painting.

I received my BFA in Printmaking from The Maine College of Art in 2005. A life long love of color, painting and making multiples through wild mark making brought me to explore print. Through making multiples and the alchemy of the process, I learned the practice of relinquishing the preciousness of my art. Print is inherently collaborative, and learning to create with and in front of others sparked in me a lot of what has now become my work as a teacher and spiritual cheerleader. Performance, installation and community based projects are also significant processes in my practice — continuing with the practice of relinquishing preciousness and highlighting expression of the things that cannot be said with ink or paint, but only through presence, collaboration and interaction. The desire for presence brings me to art – and – brings me to companion friends and strangers alike in my private practice, sometimes at the same time.

A big call in this life for me is daily practice, which I began exploring 24 years ago when I was 17 as a way to be more with myself and in the world. Within my ordination ceremony as my seminary training was wrapping up, I made my vows to be an Artmonk in the world. This declaration affirmed my passion for practice and the re-wiring of discipline to be generated from callings, desire and pleasure.

In December of 2015 I practiced making 30 faces in 30 days, and that launched me into my current exploration of painting every day. For 2740 days I “made a painting every day” — and now I’m following the call to simply paint everyday and to practice working on longer arc visitations with my inner life. Since shifting to working on (and subsequently selling larger works more frequently,) I’ve come to realize that I’m ready to lean way more into my creativity, art and vision. As a refresh and as a way of more clearly dedicating myself to this direction, I recently enrolled in a year long painting mastery program through the Milan Institute, and I’m rather excited to see where my larger works go through dedicating this time, energy and focus.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Well, I live remotely on the top a mountain in Eastern Washington state, and the best food we consistently have is the food I make.

Lately I’ve been into learning recipes relevant to my mixed Indigenous heritages, which includes Mexican. My favorite dish to make lately is Lime Soup, which has a few iterations. I like the version that has a more clear broth and I love extra strong lime flavoring.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There are so many folks who have woven into the potency of my journey!

I’d start with my mom, Elueʼwiet Moin, Crazy Bear for bringing me here and sticking with me for this journey and my second mother, Peg Saunders (Pug) who held me so tenderly in her love in my earliest years.

A shoutout to Fran, my godmother, who saw who I was through the vulnerable noise of my trauma and circumstance and offered me bits of her brilliant sight that I might see and form my own beautiful path to a life beyond the too-small-stories that tried to take a hold of me.

A shoutout to Zeile August Dougher who saw and believed in me and offered love and support in the direction of my most refined development.

A shoutout to elders Jackie Major and David Sanipass who arrived in my life with immense direction and mentorship and whom were integral to my recognition of not only my own soul’s work and journey, but to the progress and unfolding of the collective both seen and unseen.

A shoutout to my sister friends Stephanie River and Sara Southerland who have profoundly shared what they know as coaches in ways that have encouraged me to trust my own inner wisdom, ancestors and values while also moving into more wellness in my business and abundance in our current western context.

And finally, a shoutout to my husband Charley for being a most awesome co-pilot for this wild, colorful, love filled life that we’re building together.

Website: innerlifecreations.com

Instagram: inner_life_creations

Facebook: Inner Life Creations

Image Credits
Olive Theodore x2 Laura Greenwood Meisha Blackthorn Art photos by myself