Moon Play (SPECTRUM giveaway!)

Winter certainly seems to have a firm grip upon us - at least here in the Midwest. After subzero temperatures, snow arrived wrapping my world up in a lovely, but icy blanket of whiteness. All the more reason to stay hunkered down inside, my diffuser puffing out a steady steam of essential oils (ah, spearmint, lemon and rosemary wafting green freshness throughout my kitchen!) and a cup of tea ever by my side. 

I may be living in a monotone world, but inside there is colorful chaos as I finish up my deck of Alchemy Air Cards. I look around and realize I have 4 art journals going ... one for sketching practice (holding wonderful Scribble drawings inspired by the juicy online offering of the same name, Scribble Art)

another journal as a form of conversation with mama Nature (my response to the ideas presented in Reclaiming the Wise Woman by Sharon Blackie)

my ongoing Sketch Diary (stew pot of everything bubbling up in me), and my Moon Mandala practice. (Okay ... I am not including writing journals ... the composition book holding tarot explorations or my new The Moon Is My Calendar journal ... sigh ... I apparently have a little journal problem ... as do many of us ... )

Yesterday I had my yearly physical (you know, that one ... the quick check under the hood physical - eek!) and new to me were all the questions apparently screening me for depression. "Do you ever have days where you are not enthused to get out of bed?"  Goodness me, no! I can honestly say even on these frigid grey mornings when I wake up and realize I have a day ahead of me to immerse myself in creating, I bound out of bed.  (Okay, I shuffle towards the coffee pot and then I bound and bustle about) 

There is just so much to learn, so much to discover. I cling to my creative practice as a life raft to carry me through the challenging days (the low light days of winter, the days of confusion, the days and months after my mother's death) and I gleefully dive into my practice on those days when Life feels full and abundant. My creative practice keeps me anchored firmly in the center of this Wheel of Fortune, this Wheel of Life. And now I see Cowgirl reaching for her new journals immediately upon finishing her homework. She immerses herself in drawing dragons and the deep engagement, the transformation of her art, continue to astonish and inspire me. 

Art, my friends, is our medicine, our therapy, our prayers of gratitude and our songs of love and joy.  I truly believe it is part of our human (and divine) nature to create. The impulse is as common as a dandelion popping up in an empty field but the impact upon the spirit is akin to light passing through the stained glass of a Gothic cathedral. 

Transcendent. Transformational. Holy. Sacred. 

The best way I've found to experience the power and potential of creative action is to surround myself with others engaged in creative exploration. Ever a student, I find much I can learn and try on by taking courses, looking at books, watching videos and practicing practicing practicing. (Hence the justification for so many journals!)

I have some exciting news to share today: I am going to be a guest teacher in Spectrum 2016 this year - and I have 1 spot to give-away here at my blog as part of the Give-Away Blog-Hop! 

Spectrum 2016 online art & creativity workshops

Spectrum is an online Holistic-Creative workshop going on its third year, and organized by Hali Karla of Hali Karla Arts. Spectrum 2016 will be guided by 20 NEW featured teachers and more than 20 returning contributors offering a variety of workshops, inspiration and invitations - all intended to empower, nurture and celebrate your innate creative expression, healing journey, and personal development! 

That's over 40 workshops/lesson ideas to support and inspire endless days of creative and personal exploration.

There will be weekly inspiration and reflective activities related to mixed-media art-making and journaling, guidance on integrating your creative process and holistic awareness into your day-to-day life, and a variety of opportunities to connect, support and share with others in the growing Holistic-Creative online community.

The themes that will loosely guide the 2016 Spectrum experience are Forgiveness, Shifting Perspective, Navigating Uncertainty, Integration, Alchemy, Connecting with Nature, Honoring Body, Trusting Joy, and Expressing One’s Truth! You can expect a variety of perspectives on these - and so much more.

To learn more about the details, including all of the contributors and workshop offerings for this course CLICK RIGHT HERE. 

My previous Spectrum workshop - Mandala Moon Meditations will be made available again as a bonus offering for the 2016 journey, so if you missed it before, now is your chance OR you can re-visit it to see how it speaks to you in the coming year.  (Go HERE see examples of my monthly moon mandalas.)

Pre-registration for Spectrum 2016 officially opens on February 1, 2016 (and the program will begin on May 2). So be sure to bookmark this page (or link) - so that you can check back to see if you win the giveaway here or sign up just as soon as it goes on sale.

About the Give-Away:
 I have one spot for Spectrum 2016 to give-away to a lucky winner in our January blog-hop - but if you follow the blog-hop list below, you will have an even better chance of winning a spot by entering the other give-aways as well.

All of the new teachers are playing along - and quite a few of the returning contributors volunteered to join in the fun, too - so there are over 30 chances to win a free pass!


Thank you to everyone who participated! I so enjoyed reading your responses and your intentions for incorporating creative play into your daily life - so inspiring!

The name my Cowgirl pulled out of the hat (yes, I wrote out everyone's name who commented or emailed me and also added extra slips for sharing on social media!) is ...

Angela! "Creative play means freedom to make a mess, follow a wild idea, be present to the fun of color and texture. This year I plan on dusting off the art journals and letting myself loose on the page! Miss the vibrant feeling that arises from this kind of creative joy."

Pre-registration for Spectrum is now open!  As a thank you for all the enthusiasm and interest, Hali is offering a 3 day registration special! The regular price is already an *excellent* value at 98 USD, but if you sign up in the next three days,  between February 1-3, you can claim your pass for just $88 – so don’t miss out.


If you didn’t win a spot this time, and you are facing financial hardships, you may be eligible for the new Spectrum scholarship program this year.

The eligibility requirements and application open up today as well and can be found over at the Spectrum Registration page.  Head over there, make sure the program feels like a strong YES for you and if so, scroll all the way to the bottom. There you will find a green button that will lead you to the scholarship details. This will be open until the spaces are filled. They will go fast, so don't wait!


Spectrum 2016!

Just below is a list of the other teachers who are playing along in the Spectrum 2016 blog-hop, with the dates their give-away goes live - so be sure to visit their site and enter there, as well.

13 January: Hali Karla http://www.halikarla.com/blog/

14 January: Andrea Schroeder http://www.creativedreamincubator.com/blog                     
Angelique Arroyo http://schoolformedicinewomyn.com/

15 January:Bebe Butler http://www.bebebutler.com/Beth Morey http://www.sheofthewild.com/

16 January:    Briana Goetzen http://www.orangespiralarts.com/Carissa Paige http://carissapaige.blogspot.com/

17 January:    Cat Caracelo http://catcaracelo.com/ Catherine Anderson http://catherineandersonstudio.blogspot.com/

18 January:    Chris Zydel http://creativejuicesarts.com/Effy Wild http://effybird.com/

19 January:    Elloa Atkinson http://www.elloaatkinson.com/Grace Howes    http://www.redbarn-studios.com/

20 January:    Gretchen Miller http://www.gretchenmiller.wordpress.com/Kara LC Jones http://motherhenna.blogspot.com/

21 January:    Kelly Johnson http://www.wingswormsandwonder.com/Kitty Oppegard http://handoverheartstudios.blogspot.com/

22 January:    Kristal Norton http://kristalnorton.com/Lisa Hofmann http://dandelionseedsanddreams.blogspot.com/

23 January:    Lisa Wilson http://www.beingbreath.com/Lucy Pearce http://dreamingaloud.net/

24 January:    Malini Parker http://www.maliniparker.com/Meghan Genge http://www.meghangenge.com/

25 January:    Melissa Harris http://www.melissaharris.com/Michelle Turbide http://michelleturbidestudios.com/

26 January:    Petrea Hansen-Adamidis http://www.arttherapist.ca/blogRachael Rice http://rachaelrice.com/

27 January:    Robin Hallett http://www.robinhallett.com/Shelley Klammer http://intuitivecreativity.typepad.com/

28 January:    Suki Ciappara Ka'Pinao http://sukihealingarts.com/Tara Leaver http://taraleaver.com/

Enjoy the blog-hop, good luck on the give-aways, and I hope to see you in Spectrum in a few months!

Spectrum 2015 (giveaway!)

I am excited - and a wee bit daunted! -  to announce that I am part of an amazing array of instructors participating in collective offering known as Spectrum.  This is the love child of Hali Karla who has done an inspiring job of gathering a beautifully diverse and rich group of women dedicated to self discovery, healing and celebration through a variety of means including art, photography, meditation, sacred ceremony, and so much more. In Hali's words:

Spectrum is a collective of holistic-minded artists, healers and visionaries
that have come together to offer a unique online experience devoted to awakening, exploring, deepening & celebrating your innate wisdom and intuition through visual journaling and more.

When you sign up for Spectrum, you will be receiving access to 25 workshops offered by some of my favorite teachers, writers & artists including Jamie Ridler, Julie Daley, and Lisa Sonora Beam, to name just a few.  Content will be delivered in 4 installments of downloadable PDFs which means you can work at your own pace, dip in and out and revisit whenever you like! And you will want to revisit some of these beauties ... just take a gander and drool at the individual listings HERE.

My offering is Mandala Moon Meditations, my on-going practice for the past years of creating a mandala each month to investigate and celebrate the wisdom of that month's moon cycle and how I experience that energy manifesting in my own life and consciousness.  It has been an incredible vehicle for deepening my connection to Nature and to understanding my own inner cycles and rhythms. By understanding the impact of the seasons upon my own energy, I have been better able to utilize that energy, knowing when to flow, when to create, and when to rest and recuperate.  I am excited to deepen my own practice as I share my work with others.

The first journal (pdf with 6 workshop/lessons) will be sent out on May 1, 2015 with subsequent deliveries on June 15, September 1 and October 15, 1015.  Right now there is an early bird reduced registration price of $99 available until January 31.  After that, the price is $120.  That's less than $5 per workshop! 

I have one membership to gift and am offering it via a giveaway here and through Facebook.  Leave me a comment here (or on the corresponding Facebook Thread) and let me know what is your intention for self care in the coming year? What one-thing could you commit to right now to deepen your relationship with yourself, as an on-going act of befriending and honoring the sacred being that is you? 

I will draw a winner on January 20 (the new moon of course!) and announce on the 21st.

Good luck! 

Full disclosure: I am an affiliate of Spectrum, so when if you register after following the link here on my blog, I will be receiving a percentage of that registration fee.  

THE practice ... (finally, Friday)

Each month, I try to align myself with the cycles of the moon ... setting an intention for the coming month during the darkness of the new moon and then observing how the moon's passage to fullness amplifies or alters what it is I am needing to bring into my life.

This month, the lesson is pretty clear ... my mother passed away two days before the new moon (with its eclipse) ... so in this cycle, what each day demands of me is nothing short of complete and utter ...

Honoring the darkness ... which will, in time , allow me to appreciate and  celebrate the light.

 Happy Full Freeze, Beaver or Snake Moon.  Time to burrow underground and prepare.

lifted ...

A couple of weekends ago, I went away on retreat with some sisters I've been circling with during the past year. 

The journey itself felt like more than I was up to handling, but I knew that once I arrived, there would be deep nourishment available at many levels. Physically, the space was beautiful: restful and abundant in the sights ...

sounds (coyote calls, birdsong), and smells of nature mellowing into an early autumn.  

There was an abundance of food, laughter and soulful sharing, personal inquiry and reflection upon what has been and what I am ready to release, to shed as I balance my rhythms with those of mother nature.  Each of us shared what we were ready to release, to set down upon the altar.  We harvested what nature had shed, creating bundles to offer along with our prayers to the fire on an soon-to-be full harvest moon.

We ended our stay with an Inipi or Sweat Lodge ceremony held by Sweet Medicine Nation, a wisdom keeper and teacher honoring the sacred ways of her Lakota and Choctaw lineage. It was a sweat performed in the traditional ways: modest clothing (women worn long skirts); offerings of tobacco made to the fire tender and water pourer; four rounds inside the lodge with prayers and songs offered in each round. It was a fitting way to honor the work our group had been doing that weekend as the sweat ceremony itself is about purification and preparation for spiritual work.  Entering the lodge is likened to returning to the womb - the Womb - being cleansed and through the intense experience of the sweat, being re-birthed upon leaving.  

It was my first sweat lodge and I was nervous about the intensity of the heat and my ability to endure it.  Within minutes of being in the lodge a sweat covered my entire being.  By the end of the fourth round, I felt as if I was covered in amniotic fluid my clothing and skin slick and drenched. I had been advised to lie down, it being cooler nearer the ground and the edges of the lodge.  At times I lay curled on my side, singing along with the chants which seemed familiar even though the language was foreign to me. I cannot say I thought of anything. I was carried along by the words of Sweet Medicine, the songs, the energy of the group pulsating in the darkness.

I never doubted I could make it all four rounds (you can exit after any round) and by the end I felt emptied and cleansed.  I admit, I expected to feel something more ... what, I'm not sure. I suppose I expected to receive some insight, a piece of clarity or understanding to be released in all that sweat.

When the fourth round was complete, we each made our way to the exit.  There, the fire tender reached down to help each of us rise out and up from the darkness of the lodge into the bright sunlight of the midday.  Everyone lines up and you greet each person who had been in the lodge.  It was by the third person that I realized something was happening ... that I was feeling less and less in my body, that I was becoming rapidly and increasingly light headed.  I greeted a few more people and then declared - to whom, I cannot remember - "I've got to go down!"

I slowly sunk to the ground, folding myself into child's pose with my forehead resting upon my towel.  I felt as if I was clinging to the earth, attempting to hold on.  I was not aware of much else.  At one point someone - Sweet Medicine? - placed her hands upon my back and said "Oh, she is shaking."  I was unaware of anything but the earth supporting me.

Slowly the fear and the dizziness began to abate. I then noticed a pair of feet waiting by my left shoulder.  As I began to rise up, a hand came down to lift me.  Standing by me was one of the grandmothers, an elder who had attended the first two rounds of the sweat and then had sat outside with another participating in prayers and songs. She was a tall, beautifully strong and solid woman with liquid eyes and raven hair threaded with silver. She guided me up and then linking my arm with hers, walked me slowly and calmly out of the circle and towards the picnic area for the following feast.  The fire tender, Carl, greet us with water and as he poured it over my head she uttered "Ahh ... I can feel you shifting!"  I remember little else of what she said but tangible is the memory of her support, her strong assurance and comfort in caring for and guiding me. 

This was the gift of the sweat: becoming vulnerable, being open, being looked after, and tended to with compassion and great care.  Receiving is not my strong suit.  My greatest fears center upon being abandoned, unable to care for myself, and unable to cope.  But as writer and Zen priest Karen Maezen Miller has pointed out "Fear is a false barrier. It's nothing but a gaping hole you step through. On the other side, the teacher is waiting." (Paradise In Plain Sight)

Or in my case, a grandmother was ready to offer me a strong and supportive arm, reminding me I am never truly alone or helpless.  There is always support available to me.  I just have to open to it, tap into it, and meet it half way.  

 

In so many ways, I now see this truth manifesting in my life. Through so many channels, in many forms I am being looked after, I am being lifted up and received.

my year of mandalas

The following post is my contribution to The Mandala Blog Hop, a collective sharing of mandala love and goodness sponsored by the magically creative and inspiring artist/writer/teacher Andrea Schroeder of Creative Dream Incubator.  Andrea is launching her course The Mandala Journal on September 15.  To read more about her offering and to find links to other bloggers celebrating the mandala, just click HERE and down the mandala rabbit hole you will go!

A year ago, I began my mandala moon play ... 

It is a monthly practice in which I create a mandala exploring the seasonal/life lessons encompassed by each month's full moon. I like to explore the traditional and Native American names for each month's moon, taking into account how those seasonal and symbolic names shed light into my own human and spiritual journey. 

Initially, I began my practice by creating a group of fellow mandala makers. This container - and the six month commitment to creating it! - forced allowed me to root this practice into my routine.  It only recently occurred to me that as I am in the thick of perimenopause, I've lost connection to monthly rhythms (my moon cycle being regularly irregular now) but this practice has helped me stayed tethered to a consistent rhythm and pace. 

I wanted to strengthen my connection with Nature, to slow time down if you will by paying closer attention.  Paying attention to what is happening around me and within me, perhaps to notice the relationship between my inner and out worlds.

So starting with the Harvest Moon in September 2013, I began my journey: 

Harvest, Full Corn, Brown Bear Moon

My process varied month to month.  As the new moon approached, I would familiarize myself with the various names for that month's moon, noticing which one resonated with me at that time.  Sometimes I created the mandala at the beginning - on or around the new moon - and then would write my intentions or reflections for the coming month.

Other times, the mandala might appear, but the teachings of that month - the journaling portion of the process - become clearer to me around the full moon or even at the end of the cycle when the moon was waning, emptying as it prepared to begin the cycle anew.

Blood Moon

It was important for me to stay flexible and open in the process, witnessing how it wanted to flow.  As I've learned through much much practice, the time to be disciplined is when I need to show up - get butt in chair and draw, paint, create - and the time to be gentle is in allowing what arises in that session to manifest without judgment, releasing expectations as best I can.

Full Freeze, Beaver Moon

A year is a long time to commit to something (believe me, with 5 other year-long projects/practices under my belt, I've learned a lot about my way in this process!) and there are moments of pure magic, mixed in with the pure drudgery of doing something/making it happen. 

Cold Moon

But flipping through the work that spans all four seasons - Autumn through Summer - that is when the power of this process makes itself known. (I used a large, watercolor Moleskine journal to keep all of my mandalas in one place; I love having this Book of my own mandalas, my own journey.)

Wolf, Quiet, Earth Renewal Moon

Rest & Renewal; Cleansing Moon

Worm Moon

Budding Trees, Pink Moon

Full Flower, Frogs Return Moon

Strawberry, Deer Moon

Stag Moon

Ripe Berries, Sturgeon Moon

I admit, I was excited to think I've done it ... I've finished the year ... now I can stop! But looking through my journal, reading each month's intentions, the questions I posed myself, the nuggets of personal insight unearthed, it all makes me curious to see what next?

Each month is vivid, rich in re-membering all that has taken place.  I can't always appreciate the growth, lessons, integration until I have it piled up around me.  Now I have the opportunity to witness my unfolding within the images and the writing and such a gift I cannot so easily dismiss. During the year,my Mandala Moon journal is like a traveler's inn, a resting spot, a space to revive and refresh and regroup before trudging on.  With each completed mandala, my journal becomes like a collection of the songs shared by fireside, a mug of ale in my hand, lending color and light to the places of darkness. 

And so, this fellowship continues ...

Happy Mandala Making!

Thank you Andrea for inviting me. Don't forget to visit the other bloggers sharing their magical mandalas - full list can be found HERE.

If you are intrigued by the notion of a committed practice or if you have struggled with sustaining any kind of regular practice - be it creative, spiritual, or self care - I am offering The Gift of Practice my 6 week online course starting September 22. I love helping others re-frame what Practice means, what it looks like and how it can be a portal to inner growth, discovery and transformation. For more information hop over HERE.