Special Guest: Amy Steinberg is a singer, songwriter, comedian, playwright, and licensed New Thought minister based in Asheville, NC. With 9 studio albums and 5 one-woman shows to her credit, including MINISTAR: A Cosmic Soul Revival, she blends music, comedy, and spirituality into what she calls sacred creativity. She leads The Garden of Good, a weekly creative community on Zoom, and wrote the book Make Good: Cultivating Joy with Creativity. Amy’s Stuff: amysteinberg.net · About Amy · The Garden of Good About the Hosts Rev. Rainbow Weldon (they/them) is an ordained Centers for Spiritual Living minister and the founder and curator of the Queer Spirit Collective, an online community rooted in connection, authenticity, queer joy, and spirituality. They are passionate about helping folks transform self-doubt into a more joyful, creative, and authentic life. Follow them Rainbow Weldon James Masters (he/they) is a Kansas City artist working in watercolor, gouache, and ink, and a studio artist at Images Art Gallery. He runs the Pure Joy Snail Mail Club and writes the Inspired2Be Substack. Follow them at James Masters Transcript: Queer as Faith — Episode 3 Cleaned and edited for readability. Queer as Faith with Amy Steinberg — Written Version Rainbow Weldon: So, hello and welcome to Queer as Faith, the podcast, with your host, me, Reverend Rainbow, and... James Masters: James Masters. Rainbow: Yay! And our guest today is Amy Steinberg. Hey! Amy Steinberg: Are you going to make me cry like out the gate? Rainbow: Well, of course. Yes. Well, we are so excited. So the idea of this is to explore our identity and faith through a queer lens. And of course, Amy, you are a friend and a beloved fellow... And I always say one of the most creative people I know, you always inspire me and you’re always doing something. We were just talking about your one woman show and Ministar. And I was like, dang it, I missed it because you’re on to the next thing. It’s always like every few months, every year, whatever. You’re doing like three things at once. And then it’s like, as you were saying, like it comes up, it comes through you and you kind of have that process. Now it’s out in the world somehow, somewhere. But it seems like for you what’s more important is the drive to create for your own kind of healing process. So we’re going to be talking about creativity and spirituality, queering all of those things, sexuality, and the intersection of all of those through this queer spiritual lens. How about, Amy, just tell us a little bit about your story, your background, both as an artist or creative, and your spiritual journey. Amy: Well, my head started coming out on the toilet, and that is why I have a potty mouth. I was born in Boston. I grew up in Florida, and I was raised Jewish, and really big emphasis on the ish. Like, I did all the things, but... I never believed in God. In fact, God, I never didn’t believe in God. It was just a word, really. And then I found spirituality. I mean, if we want to talk about my spiritual path, the next thing that comes to mind is 12-step programs. Although that’s not true because in high school when I was smoking weed and I was pulling tarot cards and really into astrology, I’ve always been drawn to the esoteric and to... more than the eye can see, let’s say, you know? And then 12-stepping, I was really deep in that program of recovery, which recovery, the word recovery, right? Comes back to what we were talking about before about healing and revealing, right? Recovery intimates that I have something to recover, which is already there maybe, or I like that word, but I also feel like it’s limited and that’s what happened is I was drawn to New Thought. Because I was seeking. Part of the step work is find your God. Find what you believe. What do you have faith in? What can you have faith in? And things like I was writing before I came to New Thought or discovered New Thought were things like I am exactly where I need to be. And many other songs that were spiritual that I didn’t have like really a philosophy that connected to other than my own inner knowing. Like I hadn’t heard from Eric Butterworth or Ernest Holmes or any other thinker yet. I had just, it was inherent in me to believe that I’m right where I need to be. I’m unfolding perfectly. Like life is amazing. Wow. I’m in awe. I’m a person who’s always in awe. And that’s, so that’s where I am today is kind of, I like to retain the awe. Like I fall out of awe a lot and that’s the only word that I can kind of, because I feel like it’s not something I know or practice anymore. I think it’s something that I embody and I express. And so it’s different because I feel a little bit lost. Like I feel a little dizzy spiritually because for so long it’s about knowing, it’s about schooling, it’s about learning, it’s about quoting, it’s about, and then it stops being about that. It’s like all of a sudden it’s like, oh, what can I live? What can I express? How authentic can I be? That’s my latest question because, you know, I’ve gotten into standup comedy, which you can’t do standup comedy without being completely authentic. Rainbow: Right. Amy: So a lot of it’s pretty dark, right? Because we have dark thoughts. We have dark ideas. We, you know, we make fun of ourselves in our minds. So anyway. Rainbow: Keeping it real. Amy: That’s it. I could ramble on about myself literally forever. So somebody has to stop me. Like there needs to be a buzzer that goes off. James: Ding, ding, ding. So, well, and I love what you said. And we actually had started, you know, before we introduced, and this is the show and all of that, we were talking about the healing and creativity. And because you had specifically said, you know, you did this one woman show, Ministar, and it was a healing process for you. And then we got into this whole conversation before we, you know, before we were able to jump into the show. Amy: You know, I wanted to touch upon something that Rainbow said really quick. I’m sorry. Should I let you finish that thought? You’re on a thought. And I just, you had started with the whole, like, I missed Ministar, like you’re onto the next thing. And it was so interesting to, it has been interesting to accept that about myself. Like, because for instance, I go to this, when I started Ministar, I was like, oh, Broadway. Like I want it to be a Broadway show and I want it to be this big thing. And I want it to be, you know, which is interesting because it’s called Ministar. So really I’d have to change the title to Megastar to get it, right? Because in itself it was small. It was an idea about embodying the space that you’re at, not necessarily, you know, fame or anything like that. It was about wholeness, right? Integration. Anyway. Where was I? Oh, so coming to that place of realizing, wow, I want to do the next thing is a hard thing. I think too, I don’t think our society really supports the idea of like being a mini star. That’s not good enough. You’re not good enough if you’re doing, if you’re a mini star, you should be a mega star, right? There’s a lot of like this energy. So knowing, cause I’ve already had this idea for another show, which is called Over the Top, right? Because I’m always over the top, right? I’m always too much, over the top or whatever. And there’s so much real quick. I know I’m rambling, but I want to share this idea. Sometimes I’m in my own head. The idea of like, life is like riding a bike up a big, beautiful hill, right? And it’s this journey. It is. I think it’s this shape. It could be. It might be this. I don’t know. Everybody has a different shape. I think my life has been like this. And so I think when you get to about 50, you’re at the top. And that’s what Ministar was. It was like, oh, here I am. This is me. And now I’m going down. And it’s like, whee! I feel like this sense of like, remember when you rode a bike down the hill and you put your hands up and you just freedom of like, you are you and … Get full access to Queer Spirit Collective at queerspiritcollective.substack.com/subscribe
