A dreamer. A wanderer. A creator. A joy coach and mindfulness facilitator.
I'm Jillisa Hope Milner, and I want to create joy with you. Take photos and scribble words and paint and make messes with you. Let’s laugh and drink tea and play and meditate and dig into each precious moment of life together. Because life is so short, and it’s so very beautiful.
I’m a photographer of humans and our ever-astonishing world, an art maker, a nature-lover, and a smiling, wandering soul. My big questions in life?
How can I stay present?
How can I live a meaningful life aligned with my values?
How can I access joy and peace, regardless of what is happening around me and around the world?
For me, the answer to all of these is tied to mindfulness and creativity.
It started almost 15 years ago on my first trip to Tassajara Zen Center, the oldest Zen Buddhist monastery in the United States. I was visiting to attend a writing workshop with a side helping of sitting meditation, or zazen. I parked my rental car at the base of the hills and hopped into a giant Suburban driven by a monk who ferried me up the treacherous, dusty, 14-mile trail and through the gates of Tassajara. In the dry heat of that California valley, where it smelled of wildfire and lavender and freshly baked bread, I found the path I wanted to be on. A path that would inform my writing and photography and life in the years to come. A path of practicing mindfulness and joy.
Fast forward to today, and I’m now a lay-ordained Buddhist minister, or acharya, having studied for two years under Venerables Pannavati and Pannadipa at Heartwood Refuge in North Carolina. And although my path led me to dive deeper into Buddhism and the dharma, I’ve seen and experienced first-hand how mindfulness and meditation practices can help people’s lives, regardless of their personal spiritual or religious faith (or nonfaith!). So I also became a certified Workplace Mindfulness Facilitator through Mindful Leader, a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program. This means I’m certified to lead science- and evidence-based mindfulness practices for people from all backgrounds. Mindfulness can reduce stress, improve mental health, increase equanimity and our ability to remain steady—and even joyful—regardless of what life throws at us. It’s available to all of us, in every moment. And I want to show you how.
My number one mindfulness hack? Creativity. Creating new things—whether photographs or cyanotypes or gel prints or sestinas—is the best shortcut I’ve found to being fully and completely present with my wondrous, challenging, magnificent life. My creative pursuits started with writing—poetry was my first creative love, and I have a bachelor’s in English with a creative writing focus to show for it. But I’m insatiable when it comes to learning new things. I got a master’s in publishing. I took up photography. I play in my journal, dabbling in paint, sketches, collage, found poetry, and more. I’ve explored encaustic painting, linocuts, tin types, and monoprints. I’m obsessed with cyanotypes. And I always want to learn more.
I am also fortunate to work as a communications specialist for the Federal government, and my career has been filled with opportunities to create through writing, graphic design, podcast production, videography, photography, website design and maintenance, and more.
The one thing in common with all these forms of creative play? They all require me to pay attention. And when I’m paying attention, I am grateful for the achingly beautiful, interesting, wild, ugly, and amazing world around me. When I’m paying attention, I see how we are all connected, how we are all deserving of compassion and peace. When I’m paying attention, I remember what matters and I can access joy.
I won’t pretend that I live in a state of deep, unwavering joy all the time. I still feel all the feels: sadness and anger and loneliness and fear. But through meditation, mindfulness practices, curiosity, and many hours of creative play, I’ve had enough glimpses of that joy to know it’s there, to have confidence in the path to reach it.
I currently live in Williamsburg, Virginia, with my husband, Michael, and a lot of houseplants I’m trying not to kill. I’m always dreaming of more adventures. So let's talk mindfulness and art and joy. Let's learn and play. Let’s build lives that align with our core values and our passions. Let's walk down this path together and find our joy. Are you in, friend?
