welcome to prism, you lovely lightbeam!

🌟 subscribe for a rainbow of beautiful truths + curated creations seen through the lens of a seasoned coach, licensed counselor, art therapist, author, thought-leader on midlife, and queer artist.

Welcome to this creative cauldron of beauty, queerness, authenticity, ritual, storytelling, and realigning to truth for the second act of life! Making meaningful connections through honest and playful expression is what I’m here to do — on this planet and on this Substack.

While prism has only been around since fall 2023, I’m an old-school blogger. I started my first internet blog in friggin’ 1998, before it was even called blogging. I called that first one (which lasted for 17 years!) “blab.” In 2009, I started a popular art blog called PaintCutPaste, which is no longer live on the internet, but can still be found all over Pinterest. I’ve essentially been expressing in this format my entire life… taking the world in, refracting it through my own prismatic lens, and projecting it out as a thoughtfully-curated, aesthetically-delicious rainbow. 🌈

a bit about prism

prism is a space where I share my writing, art, and photography to express what’s coloring my world, exploring themes like:

• the messy opportunities of midlife

• being queer and the experience of embracing the fullness of my sexuality later in life

• the creative process

• hexing the patriarchy

• relationships, intimacy, + connection of all flavors

• wellness of soul + of soma (+ NOT of trends and fads and guilt-ridden b.s.)

• the sacred + the profane

• and much more…

I’ve often been called a “resource queen,” so I’m also using this digital space to curate cool, quirky, useful, and interesting shit for you, such as: music, podcasts, books, movies, tv, poetry, quotes, comedy, snacks, and ways of decorating + expressing the self.

prism is an art project in itself. I hope it brings you a full spectrum of feels — including, but not limited to, feeling artistically inspired, deeply connected/met/seen, and entertained by the silly mess of our collective humanness.

a little about me

I’m Jen. My pronouns are she/her/hers.

Professionally: I’m a coach and guide, a Licensed Professional Counselor, a Nationally Registered Art Therapist, a best-selling + award-winning author and thought-leader on the midlife passage, and a master-level Reiki practitioner.

Personally: I’m a queer, 49-year-old, supremely sensitive, heart-on-my-sleeve, permeably soft, strong-hearted human being. Some of the descriptors I flirt with are that I’m an enneagram type 4, an INFJ on the Myers-briggs, and my astrology chart is pretty much all fire (Sag sun 🔥 Leo moon) with a hefty dose of Scorpio mixed in almost everywhere else - including rising and Venus. 🦂

After over two decades of midwifing hundreds of women through life’s major transitions, I experienced my own passage through a fiery midlife portal where I more fully stepped into my queer identity. In that time, I was inspired to write my first book, a teaching memoir titled Midlife Emergence: Free Your Inner Fire. Upon its publication in April 2023, Midlife Emergence reached #1 in several Amazon categories, including midlife management, divorce, LGBTQ+ memoirs, LGBTQ+ parenting and families, adulthood and aging, and self-help. It also earned first place in three non-fiction categories in the 2024 Bookfest Awards: LGBTQ+, personal memoirs, and transformational self-help. I’m a visual artist who self-published an intuitive watercolor oracle deck called the SoulSpace Oracle in 2016. I create custom pieces for collectors worldwide.

Here in Denver, Colorado, I can usually be found in my softest, comfiest sweatpants, making bottomless bowls of popcorn (with olive oil and nooch!) and snuggling on the couch with my teenager, my girlfriend, and my chatty twin cats, Jinx and Juju.

a few words about subscriptions

I love sharing my writing and art for free, and the reason I can do that is because of the ones of you who support my creations monetarily. THANK YOU.

While my Monday prism posts are free to all, paid subscribers to prism (just $7/month or $50/year) will receive the full juicy experience 🍊 — including: creative prism prompts every other weekend, special posts on the first of each month with my favorite curated seasonal goodies, monthly playlists, exclusive opportunities for live events and bonus content, access to full post archives, and the ability to be a part of the prism community. Premium patron subscribers ($123/year) receive all of the above plus a signed paperback copy of my book, Midlife Emergence, mailed to your doorstep. And my endless gratitude.

Each month, I redistribute a portion of my earnings from paid subscriptions to a different organization or mutual aid fund (to be named in each newsletter).

let’s connect

I’d love to connect with you! Here are some ways we can do that:

1. You can always email me here.

2. Learn more about my offerings (coaching, groups, workshop facilitation, publications, media appearances, artistic creations, etc.) by exploring my website, jenberlingo.com

3. You can buy my bestselling + award-winning book, Midlife Emergence, online anywhere books are sold or request it at your local, independent bookstore. It is available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook (read by me) via Amazon. Please be so kind as to leave your review on Amazon and Goodreads, as it helps out an independent author so very much! (Pesky algorithms affect the visibility of books, too. Who knew?!)

   

4. Follow me on social media:

• Instagram - I post here almost daily!

• Facebook - I’m only there for the groups…

• TikTok - I dabble verrrrry occasionally.

• LinkedIn - so profesh!