44 Shelley Thomas: artist, composer, spiritual coach

Shelley Thomas is an artist and CEO of The Mystical Creative LLC. She is a visionary composer-producer, photographer, astrologer, and Dream Fulfillment Coach. Through her multifaceted work, she creates exquisite custom music and photos for client visual media needs. As a coach, she helps people gain insight, clarity, and confidence, guiding them to heal and activate their potential. She uses modern technology alongside astrology, tarot, and her gift of intuition to assist people in realizing their goals and dreams.

She specializes in working with multi-passionate entrepreneurs to support bringing their dreams to life: whether through coaching, creating beautiful music for film + tv uniquely branded with her magical sonic signature, or delivering elegant portraits that capture the special spirit of each person.

Shelley has a B.F.A. in World Music from CalArts and an M.A. from Berklee College of Music in Interdisciplinary Music Studies, as well as numerous accolades, international tours and multiple Grammy-winning credentials. She is a world-class vocalist and musician who plays oud, percussion piano, and guitar.

She also draws upon a depth of intense life experiences including heartbreak, addiction, illness, trauma, creative blocks, depression, and anxiety. These blessings in disguise have given her immense empathy and wisdom to share in her work with others. She learned to heal through 7 years of sobriety, deep spiritual work, self-love, and the power of artistic alchemy.

Her purpose is to uplift and inspire people through her work, shattering limitations and empowering others through creative expression.

Listen to Shelley’s singles, including her spring '26 release of "Infinite Sea" and watch her music videos on her website.

Shelley Thomas
www.themysticalcreative.com

www.instagram.com/themysticalcreative

Kathie’s note:
One day during a one-hour or three-hour Caveday session (www.caveday.org), I looked at all the people on the Zoom screen and saw someone playing an instrument. Was that a lute? It was definitely of the string kingdom, guitar class, but I had no idea what genus.

It turned out to be Shelley playing her oud. But without any audio, wah.

She's super chill, always a calming presence. So enjoyed talking with her on this episode.

Writers Rotation intro/outro recorded at Dynamix Productions in Lexington, Kentucky.

Transcript

Shelley [00:00:00]:
I'm Shelley Thomas. I'm an artist, composer, producer and spiritual coach. Words are spells and writing is a wonderful tool for creative self-expression.

Kathie [00:00:09]:
Hi, welcome to the Writers Rotation podcast. I'm your host, Kathie Stamps. I love words and writing and people and talking. So I'm talking to people who write all kinds of things in different professions. It's a Writers Rotation. 


Kathie [00:00:27]:
Shelley!

Shelley [00:00:28]:
Hi, how are you?

Kathie [00:00:30]:
I love your business title, the Mystical Creative.

Shelley [00:00:35]:
So people can find me at the Mystical Creative on Instagram or my website, themysticalcreative.com

Kathie [00:00:40]:
You are a musician and composer, coach and entrepreneur. Astrology, photography, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Which one came first in your life?

Shelley [00:00:53]:
My life, I think music and singing. But I was always kind of sensitive to energy and interested in like the occult or the other side. Things that have to do with the metaphysical.

Kathie [00:01:06]:
Yes. I remember looking up the word occult one time. It just means hidden. Remember when all the bookstores had the occult section? And now it's like, I don't know. I like the word woo.

Shelley [00:01:18]:
Woo is good.

Kathie [00:01:20]:
I like the woo.

Shelley [00:01:21]:
Yeah, me too.

Kathie [00:01:22]:
What astrology house system do you use? Are you a whole sign or a Placidus?

Shelley [00:01:28]:
Placidus.

Kathie [00:01:29]:
And what about music? What instruments do you play?

Shelley [00:01:32]:
So I sing and I play the oud, which is a Middle Eastern instrument similar to a lute, but it's fretless. And I play percussion, like hand percussion and piano, guitar, and compose and produce my music.

Kathie [00:01:46]:
That's awesome. The piano is a string and a percussion instrument.

Shelley [00:01:49]:
Yes, it is actually.

Kathie [00:01:51]:
What is the Shelley Thomas story? What have you done over the years before now that you've made all of this into your business?

Shelley [00:01:57]:
Well, it's a long and winding journey through music and healing and emotional depth and sensitivity and mysticism. I received my undergrad from CalArts in world music performance and that's where I got into a lot of these different styles that I now blend into my genre called world chamber pop.

Kathie [00:02:19]:
Ooh.

Shelley [00:02:20]:
Okay, so that's blending Balkan, Arabic, pop, soul, African and classical music.

Kathie [00:02:26]:
Stop it. Okay, let's deep dive right there. Is it a combination, kind of sort of, of prewritten and newly written? New-to-you written?

Shelley [00:02:38]:
I compose my own original music. So it's new, but I draw from influences of all these styles because I studied and performed them for many years, 10 to 15 years.

Kathie [00:02:50]:
Yeah, that degree in music, what can you do with that? Oh, let's go get an advanced degree in music. 

Shelley [00:02:58]:
Yup. And then I went back for my master's with Berklee College of Music last year for interdisciplinary music studies. So that encompassed songwriting, film scoring, music business and music production.

Kathie [00:03:10]:
Now we're going to start making money with it.

Shelley [00:03:12]:
Yeah, exactly.

Kathie [00:03:14]:
That's very cool. So that was in California, but you're on the East Coast.

Shelley [00:03:18]:
I've been in New York, New Jersey area, most of my adult life.

Kathie [00:03:22]:
Do you read music and play by ear? Both, one or the other?

Shelley [00:03:26]:
Yes, both.

Kathie [00:03:28]:
I think that's rare. Don't you think that's rare? Or not?

Shelley [00:03:29]:
I mean, having gone to music school twice, it's not so rare. But maybe out there in the world it is.

Kathie [00:03:36]:
Can you tell what key a song is in when you hear it?

Shelley [00:03:40]:
So I do have like relative pitch where I can mostly identify a key based on a song that I was doing for a long time, or a song that's in my head, but not necessarily perfect pitch.

Kathie [00:03:52]:
I think it's fascinating that at the basketball arenas, when they go “air ball,” I think that's in the key of D. I think that's fascinating. So when you are composing, which one dp you write first, the lyrics or the music?

Shelley [00:04:07]:
Yeah. So the whole concept of the Mystical Creative is that I am channeling, and I believe that what I channel comes from the divine. So when I'm working with clients, I channel information about their lives. I'm clairsentient, so I can feel what people are feeling and help kind of unravel a story or a pattern. And when I'm composing music, I'm channeling a song that I believe, and a lot of artists believe, is already out there in the ether or in the universe. And I'm just finding the form. Kind of like Michelangelo chipping away at the marble.

Kathie [00:04:45]:
It was already in there.

Shelley [00:04:46]:
Yeah. So it's like my job to translate that and be a conduit, to get it down as clearly as possible and then to finish the work and get it out into the world.

Kathie [00:04:59]:
That is so cool. Can you turn it on and off?

Shelley [00:05:02]:
We can turn it off when we're stressed out.

Kathie [00:05:06]:
But can you say, okay, Thursday at 10:00, I need to compose this such and such.

Shelley [00:05:12]:
No, so I don't really work like that. I work much more intuition based. I know there's all different types of workflows. I do have a lot of discipline and drive, but it's more of a flow and intuition-based project based rather than like a set schedule every day with composing.

Kathie [00:05:27]:
Do you use planetary days, planetary hours?

Shelley [00:05:34]:
I don't necessarily use planetary hours because of the restrictions of my schedule. I have to use the hours that I have. But I do draw a chart for events, as well as people. So if I'm recording like a music video or a release of a song, I'll draw an event chart for that to look at the energy around that video shoot or that release and see some of the themes. It's very interesting.

Kathie [00:06:02]:
Yeah, I would say. What about how far out do you like things scheduled? Like what does your calendar look like now? Do you have just things for this week or for the rest of the year?

Shelley [00:06:12]:
There's things scattered throughout the year, like certain conferences I will be attending or, you know. But yeah, pretty much week and monthly basis. It's just kind of different all the time.

Kathie [00:06:28]:
Who is your ideal client? Types of clients.

Shelley [00:06:32]:
Men or women who are seeking a sense of purpose and spiritual growth, who want help and support on that and don't want to feel alone in their journey. Part of what I really enjoy doing with clients is holding space for them in a deep emotional way, where they don't have to explain who they are or prove anything, but I can just feel it and see it and witness it and hold it. And I think that alone can be very healing for people. Because a lot of times we go through our day-to-day life or work or corporate jobs with no one even noticing or stopping to ask how you really are. And it's so important to take that time to check in with yourself, how you are, how you're feeling, where do you want to go from here? What are your deepest desires, goals and dreams? So what really people who want to create movement on that, the Mystical Creative.

Kathie [00:07:27]:
Is that a fairly new endeavor? When did you come up with that name?

Shelley [00:07:32]:
Yes, so I came up with it in the fall of 2025. So it is a new merging of all of my services under one business umbrella basically. I've been doing astrology, I've been doing photography and music kind of under different names. And this is the unification of all my services.

Kathie [00:07:56]:
How did that come about? Did you have a session with yourself?

Shelley [00:07:59]:
Again, a channeled download. But it was after I did my album recording last year. I did an Indiegogo campaign. I raised almost $16k to record this album with nine musicians at Bunker Studio in Brooklyn. So that's what I'm working on releasing right now. It's called Dreamtime.

Shelley [00:08:19]:
So that was like a big project, and still is. But as soon as I finished the recording, it kind of cleared some space inside me where I was able to sit down about this crystallization of these ideas. And I did some brainstorming with different names and titles on paper, and then eventually this one stuck and I researched all the domains and the handles, and they were all available for me.

Kathie [00:08:42]:
That's wonderful. Does AI have any place in your world?

Shelley [00:08:48]:
Oh, God. AI is a very loaded topic. 

Kathie [00:08:53]:
It is a big topic because it sounds like it's a very one thing, but it's not one thing.

Shelley [00:09:01]:
It's like an entity or an energy that exists. One could even argue that it is natural because it's created by man. But I'm admittedly quite analog. I mean, I use technology a lot with music production or with spreadsheets or whatever, but I really value time offline and time off the phone and, like, not having phones at the dinner table or when I'm hanging out with friends, you know, being in the real world as much as possible and being connected to people one-on-one or in groups in the real world as much as possible.

Shelley [00:09:39]:
I think it's a very fine line we're walking with all this AI because it has the potential for good to make positive changes in the world and also destructive potential. And it's very complicated when you get into the music industry and royalties, streaming, and AI artists and unregulated laws and all this. But for my own work, you know, I would say I don't really. I don't use it for writing. I don't want it to write an email for me. I always want to do writing myself and working my brain cells, basically, and the neurons and the neural connections that come from working through a challenge. What it can be good for is, like, brainstorming ideas and getting a little more clarity on it. So I'll type things in for questions I have or if I don't feel like researching through 20 different websites on something. It's helpful for things like that. And also like streamlining.

Kathie [00:10:33]:
Yes, I agree it's a tool. It's another writing tool. But the pencil doesn't write for me. 

Shelley [00:10:42]:
Exactly. It should be a tool to enhance creativity, not to replace it.

Kathie [00:10:46]:
Yeah. What is your process for, say, songwriting? Pen, pencil, notebooks, computers> 

Shelley [00:10:56]:
Often voice memos first. I'll receive a download of a melodic line, melodic phrase, sometimes some lyrics, sometimes just one part of a vocal hook. But I'll put it in a voice memo and then sometimes it's a whole verse or a whole chorus or the song comes really quickly. And then I'll usually lay it down in Logic and put down a bass line and a kick drum or a drum beat and then figure out some piano chords. I have written with the oud first, and I've also written on piano or have certain parts come in, but it's usually with the voice memo first.

Kathie [00:11:35]:
What's your favorite piano brand?

Shelley [00:11:37]:
Brand? Well, I have an Arturia keyboard, so I like Arturia. Yeah, because they have a lot of cool software that comes with it.

Kathie [00:11:45]:
What about like the baby grands and the grands?

Shelley [00:11:48]:
Oh, actual pianos. Well, I mean, Yamahas are amazing. Bechstein is amazing. And Steinway. 

Kathie [00:11:56]:
Yes, the Steinway & Sons. What are you reading these days? Are you a reader? Do you like your fiction?

Shelley [00:12:02]:
Nonfiction, actually. I read mostly spiritual material or personal growth basically, or finance or entrepreneurship. I recently read The Artist’s Joy by Merideth Estevez.

Kathie [00:12:13]:
Are you an Artist’s Way fan also? Julia Cameron.

Shelley [00:12:16]:
Oh, absolutely. That's like a bible for artists.

Kathie [00:12:22]:
Yes. And do you journal?

Shelley [00:12:24]:
So I did journal as a teenager, like every single day for my teenage years. So I am a big writer, big journaler. I have some books inside me that I want to write, but I don't necessarily journal every day as like a practice.

Kathie [00:12:41]:
Okay. What about essays? Or blogs, blog posts, that kind of writing to just get it out there?

Shelley [00:12:48]:
Not really into blogs. I'm going to just focus on the book that I'm going to write and then songwriting. Like a lot of it goes into songs or short form social media content.

Kathie [00:12:59]:
How old were you when you wrote your first song? Can you go back to elementary school?

Shelley [00:13:03]:
Probably not elementary, but as a teenager I was definitely exploring chords. I would say around 14, 15.

Kathie [00:13:12]:
What did reading and writing look like in your childhood?

Shelley [00:13:15]:
I really love reading and I love writing. I always loved English as a subject. I'm a strong writer. My dad is also a writer. He's a playwright and an actor and a thespian person. And my mother was a pianist, who also loves writing and crossword puzzles and all that. So I'm grateful that I was raised with that degree of literacy. And you know, when I was young, one of my favorite memories from school was like a readathon.

Shelley [00:13:48]:
We had like sleepovers at my elementary school where I would go with my mom and then we would just read all night in the gymnasium. And I also loved Scholastic Book Fairs.

Kathie [00:14:00]:
So fun. What advice would you give someone about how to channel, how to express themselves easier, better, more authentically. What comes to mind.

Shelley [00:14:13]:
Self-expression requires confidence. That's what people need to practice. Confidence and resilience. Those are the number one and two qualities for success in our world. If you don't have confidence, if you don't believe in your abilities, your vision, your capability, how can you expect anyone else to believe in you or get on board? How can you move things forward? Your life is your own. You have to believe in what you're doing. You have to find that reason. 

Shelley [00:14:42]:
And resilience. We go through a lot of stuff in life. Pain, heartache, heartbreak, rejection. A lot of rejection in the creative industries. And it's easy to want to give up and say, my art doesn't matter. But it does. Not only your art, but your contribution to society, whether that's raising children or helping an elderly parent or whatever it is you're doing, it matters. So resilience is the ability to love yourself enough to pick up from that rejection and brush yourself off and keep moving. And that's how we keep the wheel turning.

Kathie [00:15:21]:
Yes. And the time that it takes is probably different for every single person.

Shelley [00:15:26]:
Oh, my gosh. Time is a huge thing in my life. Personally. I have an angular Saturn in my seventh house, which means that my relationship with Saturn is heightened in my chart. And Saturn is Chronos, the archetype of time. So, yeah, knowing that things just take time, good things take time. Everything worth doing takes time. And it usually takes more time than you think it's gonna take.

Kathie [00:15:56]:
Yes! Thank you so much for this time.

Shelley [00:16:01]:
Yes, it's my pleasure. 

Kathie [00:16:03]:
And sharing your wisdom and your art. 

Shelley [00:16:05]
Thank you for having me. Have a great day.

OUTRO [00:16:08]:
Thanks for listening to this episode of Writers Rotation like. And subscribe for more. And remember, writing is a marketable skill. Smiling is a remarkable skill.