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The Many Faces of My Garden
This Sagittarius Full Super Blood and Flower Moon Total Lunar Eclipse was a doozy and I’m still letting everything settle that has evolved leading up, on and after, as to what if anything I might share upcoming. I’m tuning in to receive that message, but in the mean time, a garden update and musing has been in the works and feels like the creation energy theme to focus on for now under the softer Spring energy of the “Flower” Moon. Later, I might focus more on the “Blood” Moon energy theme in an upcoming post so that we hit the contrasts.
So, here we go.
I’ve noticed that every time I set foot in my garden, I feel a little bit different than the day before. Like the clothes we wear, the colors, things, environment and people we surround ourselves with, and the energies and emotions we move through daily, I’ve seen how garden time shifts something within, draws something out, and a new person reflects back to me in the mirror thereafter.
This happens to me in Nature, period. AND when hanging out with Astrid or when I’m in a creative zone painting, drawing, writing, singing, sounding, and dancing. The places that reflect my nature in some way, bring out the colorful best in me.
I got the idea that while I started documenting the seasonal shifts my garden goes through this year that I would, this time, also include myself within the photo journaling to see what evolution takes place all around. I usually only post photos of the evolution of my plants and garden additions, but I wondered what I might see if I became part of the landscape. So, that’s what I did.
What I noticed when I went through the photos later, is that there is indeed something different that takes place when I spend time in my garden. It’s not just that I step out in an array of varying wardrobe that feels right for what I’m engaging in, but I saw a variance in parts of my essence that showed through as well. And those pieces of essence felt to reveal some of the more tender or deep parts of me.
What it said to me is that these moments I spend in the world of my garden are some of the truest times for me, just like when I’m exploring nature trails, communing with Astrid, sound channeling, creating, or gazing at the stars. I lose myself in the richness of holding and working with tender life essence in my hands and the grace of cultivating beauty from the very core of my being.
I’m sure if someone photographed me while I was doing any of these other activities that we’d see the various faces of my essence revealed, too.
But for now, we’ll focus on my garden, as it’s taken on more of a direct mirroring for me these days and so I’ve experienced a deepening in the connection I have with her.
If the garden is our metaphor for life, we begin to see her start to reflect our unique style in how we design her and we begin to see how we reflect the fundamental foundation we have to work with, of the land she embodies from the start.
We share a symbiotic relationship and I notice that the way I create with my garden is the way I create in my life, in general. Also, the type of yard and garden I have is a mirror of my spirit.
Everyone’s garden is different, just as their lives are and therefore each person decides what they want their garden to be – a vegetable garden, flower garden, rock garden, native garden….a variety of all.
You can learn a lot about a person based on observing their garden and yard, the types of things that they value most, or even how much a person cares for themselves and nurtures certain qualities or values in life by how they cultivate their garden.
You can also see how the person interacts with other variants that are out of their control in the garden and if they find a happy medium, work with the elements, fight the elements, or try to control them anyway. Are they stubborn, domineering, flexible, wild, cultivated, enjoy creating beauty, desire to revive the land, looking to grow all their needs or have specific intents, are tidy or relaxed, tight or flowing, are serious and fully devoted, or simply love an eased approach and enjoy things in balance?
All of this comes through when you view someone’s garden.
And like me, my garden has gone through its own interesting cycles while we’ve teetered back and forth between Winter and Spring. It’s also been going through changes while I navigate the collective landscape and move through the various heavy and challenging energies. I’ve found that I’m actually seeing my garden evolve the most right now, becoming more of what it was meant to be, although I wasn’t clear about that at the start. I just kept moving forward and she revealed herself to me along the way.
I made a promise to the faeries of the land before the house officially became ours, to care for and create what they wanted here and a natural alignment has evolved between us.
I see their joy in how all the animals and plants sing and I feel their approval in the delightful whispers within sparkles of rainbow lights and portal beams they show me.
I’m also understanding my garden better and my relationship to her and what I’d like that to be. AND, where I hadn’t really felt called to expand much before, I have very slowly branched out into other areas and started to work toward bigger visions I have without limiting what I can do, but still doing it within the framework of my personality and desire for balance, flow, ease, beauty, and abundance – one step at a time.
When I’m feeling an ebb, my garden, like our nature activities, is my medicine and shows me what it needs too.
When I’m not sure what to do next or how to do it, I am planting seeds to inspire intention.
When I’m feeling a flow, my garden is sprouting and flourishing.
When I’m challenged in how to create the new, I find myself envisioning bigger garden goals and taking steps toward them.
“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” ~ Audrey Hepburn
I’ve been capturing photos along the way to document the changes, as I love to see how nature evolves through the seasons of life. Everything is only in the very beginning stages of Spring, as things here in the high altitude mountains run later than average. So blossoms are only just barely starting to pop.
A favorite being these two twin blossom trees that grow together – one on each side of the fence merging in blooms at the top.
I’ve already shared some of the faery friend additions to the garden, including those that are solar lights to create twilight enchantment, but there are a few more new arrivals since, including some that found their way from Wonderland to the Enchanted Garden at the Forest Portal.
These include two glass butterflies, an Om gnome holding two crystal orbs, playful poppa and baby bunny gifted to me by magickal faery sis Laura for my birthday that was in my office until recently, a sweet blossom and bird solar gnome welcome host, two magickal “Dream” and “Love” stones, two Sun and Moon large garden stepping stones I’m using as Cosmic sentries opening a portal to the pathway, a butterfly bird house, a white rabbit from my parents and turtle and rabbit moss topiaries that I’ve all also had in my office until now.
I enjoy having an easy garden and living in the mountains I prefer to have plants that I don’t have to keep replanting. So, after experimentation, I mentally made note to have nearly all perennials with the occasional annuals for some veggie fun in the Garden Tower.
This intuitive nudge was later underscored when I lost my sweet basil plants to one of our surprise frosts several weeks back, even before the recent snow. Luckily I had harvested a bit from them, but they didn’t make it. I took it as the message to stick to as close to 100% perennials with the few, fun veggies that might speak to me that year – at least until I have a greenhouse.
That said, I have been slowly planting new perennial additions, as the store gets in plants that call me. The newbies have been added to the main garden, rock garden, side yard, and Garden Tower while all of my other perennials do their thing.
And do their thing they all have, as everything is just flourishing with joy and my Garden Tower herbs are enjoying the most abundant return yet even before starting to add some friends.
The only exception being two little tomato plants – Sun Gold tomatoes and Husky cherry red tomatoes.
Although I read that tomatoes are technically perennials, they grow as annuals here in the states so are known as “tender” perennials especially with our cold winters and frosts. They were hit hard by our unexpected snow storm and frost last Thursday through Saturday, but they made it! Even though I lost about half or two thirds of each plant, the other percentage stood strong and they are still going. Yay!
Speaking of my Garden Tower, I did get new worm friends for the compost and they’ve been chugging along doing their thing while I feed them all the good faery kitchen scraps they can munch on to their hearts’ content.
The perennial returns I have growing in the Garden Tower include lavender, sweet mint, Italian oregano, bee balm, peppermint, parsley, thyme, strawberries, and wild flower.
The perennial additions I’ve added so far include one purple sage, two rosemary, and one more each of peppermint and Italian oregano. I’m excited to add some more and fill up the tower as the right plants find me.
And for my rock garden the perfect plants did finally find me to add to the three I have already. I can’t remember the name of these previous three, but they create sweet little blue star flowers. Their new friends include three White Fancy Dead Nettle that will bloom in early to mid Summer and three Festuca Blue Fescue Grass that will bloom mid to late Summer. I’m looking to still add three more plants so that they’ll all fill in the area lovely.
For the side yard I decided to go wildflower crazy, seeing how amazing my garden is doing with the perennials returning there and how much the pollinators love them. You can see how thick and abundantly they are growing back this year. Weeeeeeeee!
They’re even bigger since taking this photo and the first orange blossoms have sprung!
So I bought a pound of seeds to add to a bunch of little packets and gifted seeds I was sent from a friend, and seeded the entire little side lawn and then threw the left overs in the beds out in the front yard.
I’m so excited that I already see tons of baby seedlings sprouting everywhere! Yay!
And if they do as well as the ones in my garden, I should have a blanket of wildflowers growing on both sides of the two guardian trees and more out front.
If all goes well, crazy wildflower faery will strike again next year, adding more!
The new additions also to the side yard are berry bushes, which I’m excited about. I planted seven new perennial berry bushes along the little rock terrace at the end of the lawn of wildflower seeds, and next to my mock orange bush.
The new berries include two blueberry, two raspberry, one evergreen huckleberry, one black elderberry, and one Rubus Snowbank Berry aka white blackberry. Some have already grown quite a bit and others were smaller starter plants, but all are doing really really well even after our surprise snow.
First I planted them, then I added wire tunnel hoops, and last I covered them with secured netting.
For now, while they grow, the simple netting structure helps protect them from the little forest creatures plucking the blossoms and berries to come. At first I didn’t have enough pegs, so I used rocks to keep it tight. I’ve since replaced them with pegs all around and just kept a few rocks for extra sturdiness.
As they grow, I’ll adjust the whole set up to make it larger. This is why I opted for easy, since I’ll have to change it over time. I also got a metal butterfly trellis next to the white blackberry bush for when it starts growing, as it likes to climb.
I did get some more perennial flowers too – three rose and one white foxglove, one fireball dahlia, three purple African daisy, and three Lavendula Stoechas aka Spanish Lavender.
I added two of the rose foxglove to my main garden and gave my parents the other rose and the one white foxglove.
The other seven new flowering plants I split between pots on the back deck and lining the walkway in the main garden.
Alongside all the fun new plants, I’ve enjoyed watching some of my favorites return, like the variety of daffodils out front, some new tulips, a few irises, and my blossom trees.
Of course, Nature planted her own beauties, too. So along with returns of my own labor I look forward to, there are always surprises that the wind or forest creatures blow and bring into the yard and garden, as well as the wild and free, like fields of yellow dandelions that I love.
I’m flower crazy in general and so come Fall I plan to put in tons more bulbs of many varieties, seed tons more wildflowers next Spring and continue adding what ever flowers speak to me when they show up at the store. I’m always in the mood for more foxglove and lavender, and am really wild about lilies.
Right now orange and purple seems to be the color therapy scheme and attire of the first round of blossoms to arrive at the Spring dance.
And hats galore seem to be part of my attire always these days, whether in the garden, sun bathing, or out hiking. To dress them up with additions like my garden that reflect my personality, some magickal hat pins have found their way into my life. You already saw this one – Forest Witch – that embodies one layer of my energy.
And these two reflect another layer of my energy.
Here’s a better detailed close-up of what is making me feel as I do in the photo above. A Cosmic Rabbit with Moon and stars dreaming in a bed of lilies and Brigid’s lamb with Celtic Triskelion, Sun at her forehead, and snowdrop flowers.
This weekend I’m hoping to get in the new plant babies awaiting, but due to an eclipse incident I’m needing to lay low and take it easy for a while. I’m sure some garden grounding will likely do me some good when I am able to get back to it.
These are all the newcomers excited to join the party.
I have two Aromatico Blue English Lavender, three French Lavender, two English Lavender, (can you tell I love lavender?), three dalmation purple Foxglove (never too much Foxglove for a faery), one Belleza dark pink Gaura, one Belleza white Gaura, five little Albion strawberry plants, one sweet pepper (tasty green bell), one Italian parsley, one cilantro, one large Sungold tomato, and drumroll……four sweet Lamb’s Ear! All of these except a couple veggies for the Garden Tower are perennials.
I’m SO excited about the Lamb’s Ear, as it’s one of, if not my favorite plant and I have missed mine so much.
I used to have one in Costa Mesa that I grew from a tiny cutting I brought home across the water wrapped in a wet paper towel in a baggy that a woman gave me on Catalina Island because I was complimenting her plant. It flourished into a hugely abundant and gorgeous plant, which I then had to leave behind when we jumped aboard the Magick Bus. We rented our house out and it ended up dying without me to care for it. I was so sad.
Since, I’ve always wanted another, but never found any and then these four – the only ones at the store – appeared. I had been thinking about how I might find some recently and there they were. I, of course, adopted them all.
I’ll continue filling in my Garden Tower as well and implement plans for the side yard, step-by-step. We may even be extending the fence to the side yard, which will give me tons more space to do fun things in eventually. The previous owners never fenced in the actual entire footprint of the land that is connected to our home, but we likely will. Whether this year or another, it’s in the plan, as well as creating a privacy fence on the other side between us and our one neighbor to replace the old cattle looking fence there that tends to have posts fall over with the snow.
For now, a good majority of the side yard is wild, which I do love. I’ve intuited ways to stay in that wild energy while weaving in some creativity and magick.
I have some really fun visions for things, but am taking time to breathe and only do what feels in flow and not taking on too much all at once. That’s been my go-to with things these last few months…more slow motion for balance and recalibration rest. The latter really being underscored since the Full Moon Eclipse.
So there’s a little inside look into the many faces of me and my garden.
Perhaps photos speak more volumes than words.
The relationship we share is similar to her being my inner child – a reflection of that tender part of my imagination, hopes, dreams, and joy.
The relationship between us is also reflective of her being the elder me – a reflection of the serene years of bigger picture wisdom where nothing else matters except weaving alchemy between my silvery crown to those Earthen roots to create harmony and grace of being in every moment of all cycles of expression.
We have become one.
On Wings of Ostara ~ Flying Through the Spring Equinox Gateway of Renewal
Although we still walk through patches of melting snow and ski upon fresh powdered sugar-laced grounds that surround us here in the high mountain altitudes of the Sierra Nevadas, the sunshine illuminates in warm vernal rays, the skies have begun to moisten the forests with cleansing rains mixed with whispers of Jack Frost’s lingering goodbyes, and the Earth is singing in green bursts of celebration.
There are still the morning dawns of ice diamonds upon branches, brisk chills in the Zephyr winds, and snow tracks from burrow to burrow of the snowshoe rabbits turned white. Yet muddy trails emerge for hopeful feet to journey upon lotus promised grounds.
“If there comes a little thaw,
Still the air is chill and raw,
Here and there a patch of snow,
Dirtier than the ground below,
Dribbles down a marshy flood;
Ankle-deep you stick in mud
In the meadows while you sing,
“This is Spring.”
~Christopher Pearce Cranch, A Spring Growl
As we step through the potent Spring Equinox Gateway, I am reminded that Nature reflects to us how to navigate the inner realms by way of surveying Her landscape as our own spiritual terrain.
Ostara is the Goddess of Spring who nurtures the innately rich land and keeps a loving eye on all the sprouting new life emerging from Winter’s blanket. This time of awakening from quiet preparation gets stirred by her fertile spell into inspired action.
She illuminates opportunity and the dawning of a new cycle, where possibility stirs in every new bud of life.
The sensual, soft, and magnetic aspects to the sacred feminine she embodies, also carry powerful creative forces like no other that can give and take away life through birth and rebirth.
This is the access point to the field of potential within the vortex of your heart.
There are many symbols that represent the generative powers of Spring – some of my favorite including the rabbit or hare, butterflies, blossoms, and The Cosmic Egg.
For Winter Solstice I was called to share with your heart, a visual spell from the essence of my spirit and once again I drop into the well of my heart’s depth to bring forth another of my spirit’s emanation. The creative energy of my signature frequency heeds the call to express herself as a form of transformative regeneration to join with the collective’s intentions to create a New Earth experience.
Through our creative energy, we each weave a thread of activation that unites the collective tapestry.
We each embody an energy signature and archetype by birth. My own, from onset of Earthly emergence this life, carries the numerology of the number three when my birthday is broken down simplistically. This is the energy signature of The Empress in Tarot ~ creative abundance and manifestation, unlimited fertile possibility, harmony, love, Earth Mother nurturing and growth, creating beauty, sensual comfort, stability, birthing of new beginnings that constantly recreate themselves, and wholeness from bigger picture Cosmos to smallest Earthly detail.
Synchronously, the qualities of Ostara are found in The Empress. And so it is no wonder I walk this Earth with a rabbit familiar and rabbits have been my soul companions for years – my first appearing when I was twelve years old. It’s also no coincidence that when I first, very consciously, began my spiritual journey and asked to receive the symbol of my life’s work, it came to me as the butterfly.
And ever since each of these first appearances in my life, both have been prolific in presence and uncanny experiences, not to mention have shown up in consistent, guiding ways.
So, when I received the message that I would be sharing another visual spell for this seasonal turn of the Wheel, it became clear I was to embody my birth essence in honor of Ostara and Spring.
My Venus in Aquarius has been speaking very loudly these days and partnered with my inner Empress, the creative expressions you see here are my answer to the Spring nudges, carrying a specific encoded message from heart to heart.
While Astrid would have lovingly danced with me, I decided to let her rest and support me from the comfort of her castle tower overlooking things from her dream state, as she’s already bravely taken on so much this Winter with our journeys. She instead helped choose the pieces to accompany me, including a golden rabbit as her stand-in.
I hope you enjoy this creative expression from my thread of the tapestry and here’s a Spring Equinox Prayer and Ostara Poem to accompany the journey as you flutter softly through our transitioning forest and garden here with me:
The dancing hare foretells the spring,
With fertility and new life this time does bring,
Gay Eostre dances on the earth,
As seeds and flowers come to birth.
Tulips and daffodils come into bloom,
And life sprouts from the Mother Earth’s womb,
Birds lay their eggs now and the light is growing,
Catkins and blossoms on the leaves are showing.
The sun reaches forth with his hand,
To the Maiden of flowers returns to the land,
Their dance brings new balance into our life,
Planting the seeds to overcome strife.
We grow with the flowers and the trees,
Winters gloom banished on a spring breeze.
The joy of new birth enters our hearts,
As we look forward to Beltane’s love.
May this portal of renewal activate your own rebirthing of creative expression, abundant potential, and harmonious, inspired action.
Unlimited Creative Potential ~ Upgrades & Imaginative Explosions
I was going to save this post for Whimsical Wednesdays, but there’s just so much energy abound and what feels like a super surge of wild and sometimes shocking unfolding is also feeling quite fertile with incredible possibility. I’ve oscillated between pulling back and then going full steam in the last few weeks. Big surges are flaring from all angles, especially the Cosmos and even from within Earth’s core – as above, so below – and it’s also come with a mixed bag of highs and lows, tragedies and celebrations, endings and beginnings – as is the natural cycles of all things.
In the midst of it all we’ve had a lot of very close-to-home news from others that’s included losses or traumatic and/or surprising events and health crises/diagnoses that all speak to huge life-transforming shifts happening on a grand scale. There’s a sense of a grand Earth recalibration taking place, which can very well even mean the human sadness of seeing many people and animals leaving while many others arrive, or the catalysts for life-priorities and values taking center stage with huge slaps in the face so that adjustments for greater alignment take precedence. Not all of it creating that warm fuzzy feeling one craves at the holiday season, but definitely creating deepening potential and supporting a new kind of enrichment through fuller embodied gratitude.
It all makes every single moment extra meaningful because it’s all you truly have. The Earth frequencies are shifting and so will we in the way that’s relative to our soul. While I sink deeper into my heart with all that is before me, I have also been readying for many beginnings and actively supporting them every step of the way.
One of those included supporting the huge vibrational shift for an incredible (wish there was an even more potent word to describe them) soul family group helping to raise the Earth frequency. This weekend concluded a really big journey for 16 amazing souls, as we came full circle with Reiki training today. A total of 18 took the journey with us through the first two levels, which began in August and concluded in December with 16 moving on to complete the third. It was a path I hadn’t planned on when embarking on 2020, but it became ever more clear why this came about, as we continued forward.
Our last class was today, and synchronously a snow storm started just a couple of hours before class began, enveloping me in a white wonderland as I connected with everyone online. The snow felt like a blanket of purity from which all things will emerge anew. It also put to rest the old cycles, as things transmute and reset onward.
I got to share a glimpse of it all with the group through my computer screen on Zoom and even Astrid shared herself and energy with everyone too.
The upgrades we each received by these high energy gatherings and activations has been so aligned with astrological events and this conclusion was no exception coming right at the threshold of tomorrow’s Sagittarius New Moon and Total Solar Eclipse. This includes a South Node Eclipse that supports clearing of all that old “stuff”. It was no wonder people felt extra zapped today, as alongside the intense energies everyone’s been processing and releasing, this, the upcoming Winter Solstice Great Conjunction, and overall high intensity month of Eclipses and two Full Moons truly have created more direct access doorways to harness and ignite.
The two concluding group classes fell on 12/12 and 12/13 and each day has reflected some magickal things including a rainbow portal showing up in the sky on the 12th after class, the snow enchantment showing up during the 13th’s class, Astrid’s presence in high gear for both, me teaching from my Wonderland creative space for the first time in our class series where the energy is highest in the house, amazing new openings for everyone, and even one attendee who shares my birthday – talk about reflective rebirthing.
And although I’ve been helping to facilitate things, I’ve definitely received my own huge upgrades over the course of our trainings and everything else this year.
This has trickled into reflections within my tangible personal experience to include a cell phone, computer, and office upgrade. In fact, there have been a huge amount of technical and electronic crazies over the course of this year, which made it obvious the cell and computer upgrades had to happen. But also it was the first year of using so much technology to include two different online platforms – Zoom and Google Meet – as well as other new technologies in our home and daily experiences.
I mentioned to our class today that although my energy does affect electronics (blow outs, crashes, strange happenings, setting off electric sparks, etc.), this seems to happen a lot more within my personal experience rather than when I’m doing important collective things like these classes or past interviews I’ve done. It feels to be an alignment with my Aquarius energies and that this kind of platform is very much in my frequency field as a supportive and even very beneficial way of connecting. So, in that way I am grateful, as others I know can’t use these means of connection all the time due to possible blow-outs and weird happenings mixing with their energies. We each have our aligned ways that are of highest benefit.
I feel supported now with a very powerful new cell phone and computer that feel like they’ll have greater longevity to weather the shifts upcoming and I also feel very nurtured and supported by the small upgrades I did in my shared creative space/office with Astrid.
That included what you see here – adding a second duplicate desk so I have a side-by-side sweeping wall of creative space. I’m still in process of organizing and configuring everything, but the photos give you an idea of the area that will get more clearing soon. I also got a new chair to replace my other desk chair, got rid of my reading chair, and made some other fine-tunings. The only thing that remains the same is Astrid always by my side – either at my feet (above photo) or supporting from behind (second below photo).
The second desk was a free one, as when I first purchased the one, it had arrived slightly damaged. The company sent me another, which also arrived slightly damaged. Each time was a completely free shipment and desk, because of their great customer service. Between the two damaged ones, we were able to create a second perfect desk by swapping broken and good drawers/parts to create one extra desk. It was stored in the garage until I got the inspiration to have both in my room and voila!
In the midst of these changes Astrid also received some upgrades with new floor mats throughout the room. I got her bigger mats with gorgeous bunny landscapes that create magickal portals for her to lay on and dream with me. I also got her a new door mat for under one of her beds where she likes to lay and look outside and another that lays under her food dishes and water bowl.
Each with a magickal scene, cozy, and supportive. But most of all, they create doorways to realms of enchantment and possibility where the rabbit collective is close at hand. She loves her new space and uses everything she has – that makes me happy.
She also loves having a nice sweeping area under my desks so that she can be right by my feet when I work – she actually sat the entire class (without moving) right up on my feet during the first day of Reiki 3 Master Teacher training last weekend when we had the entire group of 17 of us all together.
We’re definitely enjoying the new energy it’s all created, and for me, it feels more expansive and inspiring. I even have a work basket that keeps my daily projects, calendars, and so forth, all neatly together that’s labeled, of course, “The Magick Rabbit”.
I’ve also recently acquired a bunch of new, delicious and enchanted scented soy candles from a friend who creates them, which I burn daily as I work.
All of these space upgrades have really nurtured me into greater comfort and productivity. And from that, there’s been explosions of creative output in between the supportive work I’ve been doing. In between my full schedule and heavier-than-usual-workload, I’ve been taking small needed breaks to channel inspiration into little projects that speak to my heart and support little bursts of big creative expression.
Alongside commissioned art, I have been channeling fun ideas that call to me. These include the following you see here that are hitting The Magick Rabbit Etsy Shop tomorrow – the only new creations in quite a while, just in time for Christmas.
The first is the Uniquely You Divinely One ~ Magick Wooden Faery Chest adorned in snowflakes, genuine opals, and mirrored mini tiles. This is a hand-painted multi-media piece of useable art that you can use as a keepsake box, treasure chest, altar piece, storage for crystals, jewelry, or even as a Reiki box. There are eight genuine opals on it and a snowflake made of mini mirrored tiles. It’s completely painted, inside and out, and comes with a bed of natural lichen foraged from my forest backyard that you can keep as a bed to rest any of your special items on or remove.
A lovely Winter Solstice, Yuletide, or Christmas Gift, but also beautiful all year-round, as the message is timeless and a way to harness the magick messengers of the Winter Season.
Inspired by a painting I did years ago, titled the same, Uniquely You, Divinely One speaks to the value of your creative individuality within the collective and how each of us has our own signature frequency while still being unified as One. Each snowflake reflects the uniqueness that creates the tapestry of snow – every one having purpose and beauty, but together create harmony – like a symphony of notes. The power of one is great, but the power of teamwork is astronomical.
It is signed and titled on the bottom and the opals carry their own message. Opal is of the water element like the moon, it enhances cosmic consciousness, psychic and mystical insights, supports creativity and expressing your true self, brings loyalty, peace, self worth, faithfulness, illuminates for transformation, stone of love, gentleness, kindness to all relationships, encourages freedom and independence, soothes emotional body, clears and calms, nurtures hope, heals subconscious emotions, helps resolve past life challenges with compassion for self, supports dream time and alleviates nightmares, and release trauma, tension and stress.
The second is the creative explosion Wonderland is Alive Magick Portal that’s hand painted on a Basswood plaque with genuine crystals, stones, and mini mirrored tiles imbued all around and within the magickal doorway. This is an incredibly whimsical and creatively potent piece that was pure joy to channel and pure magick to step into.
Inspired by Alice in Wonderland and the journey Down the Rabbit Hole, you are invited to follow the White Rabbit through a new doorway of experience where your imagination and heart can create a new reality and infinite potentials. This enchanted piece can be used to ignite deeper levels of meditative possibility for manifestation of dreams and intents, as you allow all judgments and thoughts to be suspended. The mirrored tiles create that reflective energy for one to look within. And the seven genuine crystals and stones whirling around the rainbow portal, help to activate it all. The center has a teardrop Clear Quartz – the Master Healer – to amplify all energy and thought when entering this doorway. Other stones include, Amethyst, Amazonite, Green Jade, Orange Jade, Amethyst Lace Agate, and Picture Jasper.
Other symbolism includes bumblebee, butterfly, dragonfly, ladybug, dandelions, Amanita muscaria mushrooms (magick mushrooms), flowers, and hearts.
A way to invite your inner child to join you on an adventure of your choosing so you can merge the otherworld into your daily life. A manifestation tool and a reminder that you hold the power within.
It’s truly one of my most whimsical creations that merges simplicity with potency.
Talk about fun, fun, FUN!
I decided to list the new creations on Monday 12/14’s Total Solar Eclipse – that’s tomorrow – and they’ll go up in our Etsy Shop at 8:13 am PST, which is the maximum Eclipse time here in the South Lake Tahoe region. The New Moon will be at 8:17 am.
If either calls to you, the link to our shop is here: The Magick Rabbit
And speaking of Etsy, I just had to share this sweet unfolding alignment that creative energy and expression made possible. If you recall my painting, Dance of the Twin Flames, which did find its home a couple of years ago, then you might enjoy this along with me. Things like this happen “out of the blue” quite often and when they do I just feel so much gratitude.
An incredibly gifted sculptural jewelry artist in Scotland “stumbled” upon my painting online. She was just starting to put her own Etsy shop together of her creations and as part of her nature-inspired collection she made a set of twin seahorse earrings and wanted to ask if it would be possible to add my painting to her listing of the earrings that reflected them. The inspiration behind their creation mirrored my own with nearly exact channeling of the energies we worked with to bring them to life. She was so excited to have the seahorse spirit lead her to my painting that she felt to add it, along with my description, in accompaniment to her earring listing. I, of course, agreed and we discovered a magickal connection between us that of course the seahorses had been the portal for, and the rest of that story continues to unfold with beautiful soul family alignments from present to past life weave-ins. If you are interested in exploring her lovely nature and myth inspired work, her Etsy shop is 6elementsJewellery (Six Elements Jewellery).
This speaks to cocreative energies we tap into when we are authentic with our expression of it and support its need to be actively flowing. It also speaks to honoring those inner messages and your voice, as you never know where they may lead. And, it feels reflective of my current creative explosion of energies I’ve been feeling called to channel right now on this latest wave rolling through.
And speaking of cocreative energies, here’s a collaboration that unfolded between Nature, me and a sweet little bunny named Nova.
While on a hike recently, my eyes were drawn to the forest floor only to find a perfectly Nature-etched rabbit in a piece of wood. I immediately knew it was Nova, whom you’ve seen me post about before, and that it wanted to become a special little Christmas ornament. Little did I know at the time that Nova’s mom, KC, was going to have a big healing opening around celebrating Christmas, which was profound for her. After years of not being able to celebrate it for personal reasons, she was out early shopping to bring the Christmas spirit back into her child heart once again. This ornament became the perfect addition to her nature-themed Christmas tree and decorations. I painted one side of it in his image, as you can see, and left the other side completely natural because the rabbit was so distinct and gorgeous.
It feels to me to have the essence of the rabbit collective embodied in the wood sculpture that Nova is part of – reminding me of Watership Down’s El-ahrairah – Prince of the Rabbits – and that it is a reflection of spirit and body as one. I added wire wrapping to the top of the ear to create a loop for hanging.
And while on the topic of sweet bunnies, portals, and collaborations, you likely recall the Magick Portal Wood Plaque I created recently as one of my art commission projects. My muse was the dear Maribelle and after her mom received the portal, here is how Maribelle responded:
Maribelle was more than my muse for this. She was in fact the messenger of much healing energy, love, and activation that has unfolded more than I’m able to share here, for her mom, between she and I, and even a connection to a bunny dad who needed support.
Needless to say, the abundance of imagination I’ve been tapping into, upgraded energies I’ve been saying yes to, creative explosions I’ve embraced needing to come through in what ever form….have all been doorways of unlimited potential that continues to unfold and still has yet to reveal itself fully.
So, although my days have been full, I’ve been honoring and making time for what is under the surface whispering or knocking, as I later discover just how important those voices have proven to be and just how valuable energy is to honor, as it knows far greater than our limited ideas do…just why they’re needed.
Whimsical Wednesdays ~ The Artist’s Corner: The Inner Artist & Upcoming Flash Sale
Although we’re heading toward Memorial weekend, it has been a flashback to Winter here the last week and a half. It’s interesting to reflect on how Mother’s Day weekend was like Summer here and we were spending every day at the beach then, and the week leading up to it. Directly the next day temperatures dropped and we’ve experienced sporadic snow flurries, rain, and intermittent or full-on cloudy days. This morning we woke to six plus inches of new snow, as you can see in the photos, although it’s half melted already. It all disappears quite quickly, but I’ve even had to cover my Garden Tower for the last week because of below freezing temperatures at night.
We still have another week upcoming of colder weather with rain and clouds, but most of the snow may be halting after today other than some mixed flurries with some of the rain.
It’s all felt very mirroring of the inner landscapes – a time of pause, release, refresh, and percolating new that I’ve been feeling deeply. There’s been an odd, but good sense of things changing even though I can’t see what that looks like yet. It still feels to be headed in a positive direction, so currently it’s just about slowing down and taking care of the little things, paying attention to what’s popping up, investing deeper into intentions, and creating ever-more clarity.
Supposedly there’s one more week of this vortex-like bubble before we’re back to Spring vibes, but who knows as mountain life is so unpredictable, just like life!
I’ve been making use of this reset time and seeing how it is nurturing the inner artist.
The inner artist is the part of me/you that is also connected to your inner child. The inner artist might speak directly to your artistic talents and how they channel through in terms of a creative project, but the inner artist might also speak to the creative energy woven into the very fabric of life and how you harness that for living in general.
It’s that part of you that creates for the pure joy of creating.
It’s the part of you that finds peace in those moments of creative impetus flowing through.
It’s the part of your heart that knows what is most healing, transformational, and aligned with your spirit self.
It’s the part of you that longs to express itself, be honored, trusted, heard, reclaimed, nurtured, and supported.
It’s the part of you that knows.
So perhaps, while you may not be experiencing a literal Winter-in-Spring cycle, you might find that something is calling you inward nonetheless.
This might be a calling to acknowledge your strengths and gifts, create healthy and balanced boundaries that honor your needs, and time and space for what you desire. That includes releasing toxic people, things, ideas, and beliefs so that you can open to more expansiveness.
You may need to reacquaint yourself with the priorities and commitments that feel essential to you and then eliminate the things that take you away from that, don’t make good use of your time, and fundamentally avoid doing what clearly is your joy.
And if it’s not quite clear, then slow down and refresh, so you can hear that voice and create a restorative cocoon to nurture what stirs within.
Keeping your space organized and clear helps you to be more clear and focused.
They don’t call it Spring cleaning for nothin’!
I feel that only new things are wanting to be around and am making room for that new to come in, but also in general to create space for the new I’ve already embraced, to anchor. It feels good!
The inner artist of life seems to be inviting me to create from an ever-clearer energy and I’m feeling that redirection of alignment during these Wintery weeks.
How about you?
Although we may still have a wet and cold Memorial Day in our future, part of this refresh celebration is extending to our Etsy shop for an upcoming Flash Sale. YAY!
New inventory feels to be percolating to share over the coming months and so we’re making it easier to bring home things you love in our shop, in order to create space, by offering a 25% Off Flash Sale shop-wide that will begin this Sunday and conclude at the end of Monday’s Memorial Day.
This added to already slashed prices creates bringing sweetness home at steals.
More than anything we love making you smile and the reason for creating this shop was purely a heart-to-heart connection.
So keep an eye out in the shop for that here:
We’re so grateful to everyone who has brought home the inspiration and whimsy Astrid and I have been called to create and share with you to support your inner child and artist of life.
It’s moved us greatly to read all the sweet and touching reviews from those of you who have so generously shared those with us.
We so love and welcome any reviews from our friends, as it helps us to know what you love about our creations and your experience, so that we may continue to create in that vein.
I sense that we’re going to have another release upcoming of some sacred art – some of your most beloved – so stay tuned for that too.
In the meantime, if you’re on Instagram, head on over to my page to see the latest discovery released – perhaps one might call to your heart.
Here’s to your inner artist child!
Whimsical Wednesdays ~ The Artist’s Corner: Original Art Speaks Volumes & A Confession
This was going to just be a blog touching on the importance and value of art – something I often write about especially when I hear and see struggling artists, people unable to find a way to make a living with their artistic expression, people feeling their “art” not being taken seriously and just thrown aside as a hobby, or having a hard time to take leaps of faith with their creations because of such strong collective beliefs that have shaped their own.
This was percolating again when I was reading reviews of art that had been purchased in my Etsy shop and realizing how unless people come face-to-face with the experience of someone’s gift they have to share, that there can be a disconnect or devaluing that takes place. Of course, this can be connected to the feelings we have come to believe about ourselves, that are innocently conditioned.
Here is an example of just one review:
“Hi! Just wanted to let you know that I received your creations. I was a bit taken aback how stunningly beautiful they are in real life! The photos just don’t do them justice. In real life they are on a whole new level!!! I guess original art really has something so special that can’t be reproduced….”
That’s not to say that even when the art IS experienced, that someone appreciates its true value, but there’s definitely more understanding when something becomes tangible, they hear an artist share about their work in person, or when a person truly takes the time to “sit” with the work of art and receive from it.
It’s invaluable, to say the least. And this is why I support so many artisans over purchasing a lot of commercial items because there truly is a depth and richness to things made from the heart.
There tends to be a disconnect with the amount of energy, time, love, thoughtfulness, vulnerable soul-processing, and skill that creators imbue into everything they make. It’s why I love those one-of-a-kind and original pieces that bring me closer to the artist’s intentions.
That’s not to say you can’t receive from duplicates, prints, etc., as there is always an energy signature that will resound, but I love being that close to the seedling of creative impetus infused within the first birthing.
True, it will be more costly, so it’s not something I/we can always bring home, but when something really speaks to me, I don’t question the value placed on an item, as I know as an artist how much is poured into every creation that can never be measured in these terms.
I desire so much that more and more artists will get to flourish and share their gifts with the world.
I hope for the collective to tip the scales back in balance, so we honor, appreciate, and value the arts as we once did – the storytellers, mystics, artisans, visionaries, medicine people, astrologers, musicians, dancers, healers….were all revered.
I’m seeing a shift happen and people starting to thrive again in these regards, but there are still so many struggling and so much energy holding in opposition to these shifts that artists are working overtime to change.
And that brings me to what I uncovered, as I was sitting with all of this and some of my own past works-of-art.
It wasn’t about value per say, but it was about attachment and feeling another layer of etheric tethers (as I put it to a dear friend) releasing.
Although I do remember how many times in my past I had to explain myself and the pricing of my art – especially when it came to some of my first commissioned pieces.
Two incidents in particular come to mind: I literally had to write a long proposal finely detailing hours and work involved to an attorney once and also had to prepare information to the president of a company I was doing a mural for to back up my proposed fee. The first grueling effort succeeded and the latter got knocked down in half, but was still courageous of me to put it out there, especially since one of my greatest fears was verbally expressing myself and public speaking.
But what came to me recently has to do particularly with the In Lak’ech “Five” series I brought to life between 2006 and 2009. I chronicle some of it in this post: In the Spirit of In Lak’ech
Fire
When first I timidly put them out on my website, feeling very vulnerable in sharing such depth, I listed them at $11,000 each. Not a strange price at all in the art world given their size, time invested, and being four feet by four feet originals.
I also made prints available, figuring that the originals would likely not be going anywhere anytime soon and wanting people to receive from them still.
But what I notice now in looking back is that I don’t believe at my core that I wanted to let these originals go.
Even though my highest vision and intention was that perhaps they’d find a home in a healing center or someone’s personal sacred home space, they spoke to something very sacred within me that perhaps felt like a violation to give away, at the time.
I can’t really put a word to it.
Earth
They were indeed like babies I’d birthed, but had truly never been created for me, as the channeling aspect going into them removes me from personal ego.
Yet, it was when out of that channeling space that personal was being tethered.
I may be one to look far deeper into things than most like, want to, or perhaps are over with doing anymore – I get it because overall I’m in that space of peaceful “being” more so now – but within one there is still the other and while I prefer the simple, my innocent curiosity simultaneously can feel the bigger encompassed within that – both sides of the coin exist even if focused elsewhere. And sometimes even if I’m not in that space myself, I will explain things out for others to better understand the process that may be more seamless in experience for me now. I find that helps people to relate and find connective threads for themselves.
Air
So, how did this play out for me?
Well, it was a mix of that value of art I spoke of before AND personal attachment.
I remember once that someone very well-off (a millionaire in fact) where I was showing my work in their gallery space asked me about one of the Five and wanting to purchase it. I told him the price and he looked at me in a strange way. Not that he felt it wasn’t worth this, but my sense was he felt entitled as someone perhaps more worldly to take advantage of someone he deemed less than that. (Interestingly, a small theme included in some or one of these paintings.)
He proposed $1500 instead of the $11,000.
I, immediately said no, but did feel that weird grating inside mixed with everything around it all that I’m sure a lot of artists feel, including that flash of all the artists that have in fact accepted what ever they could get because they felt they had no choice, but there was something more too.
There were other incidents similar or went further to even just wanting me to give them to people starting up places they thought they’d add value to.
And then there were a few months where my art hung in a hair salon studio that brought together art events, where they told me that business boomed while my paintings were there and brought much intrigue and interest.
Water
So, yes, I dealt with the value thing and seeing how these paintings were being experienced, but as mentioned, more importantly these pieces in particular hold such a sacredness to me and depth that truly it wasn’t about the money, but I was feeling protective of something within myself.
I realize now that I had mixed feelings that were tethering me to the experiences held within the portal paintings on a super-subconscious level.
While I’ve worked so much in the past to free myself and integrate the healing of these times within my and the collective’s soul history, there is an underlying comfort resonance in holding them, or identifying with them – basically allowing them to define me in behind-the-scenes way. Perhaps even fueling a sense of purpose I felt that recently I’ve been letting go of. AND, perhaps even still holding onto a self-imposed collective burden I felt to bear in that old martyr role.
It’s that super-shadow work often spoken of where you can’t make mental sense of it and there are many layers to the onion of feelings to unmask and get to the seed of it all. Some of which is purely your own and some that is collectively conditioned.
And in so much clearing out and truest desire to move beyond the unseen tethers that may not even by own, this suddenly hit me that I need to release these paintings rather than store them away in the dark recesses – literally they’re stored in a dark area of the garage to keep them safe from the elements and such right now, as we didn’t have any place to put them in the house, with all of the other paintings on the walls.
That’s interesting to me to have such powerful creations “hanging around” in the background.
So, my original “detached and collective reasons” for creating them returned to me, which was for them to be “out there” doing their work, especially at such pivotal times as now.
Spirit
These originals are so potent that to have them stored away feels like an injustice, just as I don’t store crystals when I’ve moved – either taking them with me or moving them on to other guardians.
But I did end up having to store them when we lived in the Magick Bus RV for a year and a half. I remember setting them all up in the living room together before they were taken away. A friend came over who was picking up some things from me and ended up sitting with them for an hour taking them in and receiving rushes of energy, emotions, and visions. It was the first time they were all together like this in their original form and not prints, so it was profound for me to watch someone experience them as intended, but I obviously was still not realizing the attachment.
And to feel that subconscious tethering now reminds me to release fully from inner identifications to soul wounds/feelings over lifetimes. Not simply on mental or easy to find emotional levels.
That is the gift of these Five portals is to move energy and keep it moving – that’s why they are so alive. Working with them invokes an inner igniting to happen and can continue to work layers of their imprints in unearthing and beautiful ways.
Yet, the trick, as with anything is to flow and not get stuck in identification as defining and encapsulating.
It’s taken me all of these years to uncover the true gift within them.
And I am now able to truly release the paintings so they can be that experience for someone else.
I could keep them now, fully living in that freeing energy I’ve now discovered and harnessing it for endless renewal, but they were always meant for others.
The only way I would truly know their gifts is to have journeyed with them all of these years, so I’m grateful for the discovery – one that is very hard to put into words. I’m not sure I’ve explained it well here, but it was a huge shift that happened yesterday when I cracked the code within.
As the link I shared above about their process expresses, these paintings remind me of hieroglyphics mixed with sound coding and telepathy. A journey backwards and forwards in time and encompassing both my personal and a collective “history” spanning what I believe to be very pivotal timelinks carried within our very DNA.
While I process things differently these days and my life is more simplified, like these images that appear as snapshots, they are also encompassing of so much more.
These five pieces, except the last two that were combined in one year, took each a year to create on their 4 feet by 4 feet very detailed canvases. This in part due to my own processing, research, and discoveries, the collective timing, and travels I did to work with the energies at sacred sites across the globe.
I actually have a journal notebook I kept with all of the detailed research and coding I was discovering along the way and working out like a treasure map before starting to paint each of them.
They include encoded messages that are sound-woven and frequency-embedded for that transmutation.
These paintings were my interpretations and new perspectives of each element as seen through different astrological signs in their highest potential (Divine Male and Female aspects). They incorporate Mayan glyphs and act as integrative portals that bridge time and come through an ancient story that weaves Sumerian and Babylonian, Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Druid and Celtic Ireland, Atlantis and Lemuria, and the Cosmic Earth.
They are layered with energetic symbolism that can help shift things on a DNA level by simply viewing them – something I witnessed when I showed them a few times separately and some individuals would find themselves moved to sit and meditate with them. One time in particular stands out, seeing a young man with tears streaming down his face while sitting in front of Air.
And like Lee Harris spoke of in his last Energy Forecast for May about a new wave of people awakening to greater awareness than they have before in different ways and being more ready for conversations they weren’t open to in the past, I’m seeing how the original seed of intention in these paintings is more relevant now than when first created.
This has led me to truly release them to the world this time and whomever might feel called to them.
While that “value of art” thing is still very important I feel in helping to shift things collectively and bringing awareness and honor to the creative arts and even our relationship to nature because the arts connect us with the “nature within,” I am ready to let them go at huge discount simply because I feel the importance of their living out their purpose.
Like the mother must release their child at some point to live their life, I do the same and know I am no less or more because of their physical presence in my life.
I had thought about offering them each at $2000 instead of their original $11,000, and all five for $10,000 – less than one’s value, but I’m now going to open it to best offers so that they can truly go where they can do the work they were meant to and fulfill the vision I had of them as meditation pieces, either individually or as a collective story for integrative healing on deepest levels.
So, if one or all of them speak to any of you, please let me know of your desires and we’ll go from there.
I do have to reiterate that these are 4 feet by 4 feet, so I will have to ask that shipping be covered as well because they will take special packaging and shipping costs.
The five are shared throughout this post in the order they were created. I hope you enjoy viewing them again, as much as I’ve enjoyed resurrecting them in a new way.
And if they don’t find new homes, this whole process is still rich in the discoveries I’ve made that I know will domino-effect out through our collective connection.
UPDATE: The five paintings have found their new home with an amazing new guardian and keeper who is keeping all of them together and will be working with them as the sacred portals they were intended as. I’m so happy that they can stay as a unit, even though I was open to them finding homes where ever they were meant to be.
April Energy Update from Lee Harris: Unexpected Events, Creative Energy on a High and The Past Meeting the Future
Today is a blog outside of my series themes because it feels important to share. This month’s energy update really rings in for me from Lee and I imagine will for many of you as well. I’ve noticed in the last week or so this anxiety energy emerging alongside the peace I feel. It made me want to linger in the void and even literally stay on the plane in between our vacation destination of Miami, where we were the last week, and our home in Tahoe. West to East to West I traveled and experienced extremes in altitudes, weather, and energies. Literally feeling like traveling between pasts and futures and reviewing thoughts of each as well and having them meet. It had my head throbbing upon return, trying to integrate the fast shifts I felt happening and the energies my sensitivities were picking up.
The trip was unexpected, as we were supposed to have friends visit, but cancelled last minute. With vacation days already booked we felt the Universe was telling us it was “us” time to prepare for the new momentum, and so we stayed the course of self-nurturing. The trip took its own twists and turns, as we were originally set and booked for Cabo, but found out my passport had expired in December and Dave’s was lost. It land-locked us in – an odd feeling for me, as I’ve had a passport for as long as I can remember – and had us having to change plans literally the day before leaving upon discovery of this. Obviously big reason to have this happen, as it is so unusual.
We did end up having a big downtime of literally doing nothing much but beaching it, nature, nurturing, and good vegan food, which was more necessary than I realized.
Huge surges of creativity coming through, but that sense of whoa! and feeling it blast through so much and how powerfully shifting it will be, which had me on edge and paralyzed to not want to budge forward or backward. But interestingly, also completely at peace with it at the same time and knowing there’s nothing to be worried about. I’m taking the nurturing steps to support myself through it, as I can feel how important it is to keep moving forward and take things to the next level of completion on this spiral.
There will always be new spirals and each one will seem challenging, but life is ever-transforming and expanding. It’s part of growth.
Synchronously my knee injury – MCL tear – has gone through a very quick healing process because of this slowing down, self nurturing, and staying the course it put me on. At just 4 weeks I’m back to regular activities, which is highly unusual given the type of injury that takes normally quite a while to heal. It’s still mending, but is not causing challenges – simply mindfulness and steady, deliberate, forward momentum.
This week, while we were away, we focused a lot on ever-presence, gratitude, savoring, and meeting everything with love. Talking things out and finding ways to invite even more joy and peace in.
Interesting also that we were just 2 hours from Bimini, and if we’d had our passports would have ventured there for a day since Dave has never been. As I sat on the beach looking on on the Atlantic Ocean, I could feel that Atlantean energy from there and these waters was coming to me instead and there would be an upgrade with throat and higher heart energies rolling in on the waves and winds to assist that growth to move forward and repattern things and release from things.
So this anxiety felt to be individual in feeling at a precipice of huge change, but also how that repatterning is connected with the collective, as with sensitives, we know we pick up “others” as if our own stuff, alone.
I also noticed “shadow” themes resurfacing in a new layer of peeling back the onion. Big big shifts that will bring up a lot of discomfort and even perhaps ugly feeling or looking things temporarily, that speaks to not having to continue to dwell in those old feelings, but how we can revision the new. This involves finding peace with now and focusing that desire for change in recreating what we want to experience, rather than continuing to look back.
So yeah, the three themes Lee talks about were certainly coming up this week during reflecting and made me smile in hearing his reflective message.
Definitely a new shift forward is happening now and there are ways we can move through it with greater ease.
My sharing this is about how I have and am experiencing this in my own way, as demonstration of what Lee shares about here:
Whimsical Wednesdays ~ The Artist’s Corner: If You Don’t See What You’d Like in the World, Create it Yourself
We’re creative beings by default, regardless of whether you feel you have a creative bone in you or not. We all have creative potential to not only express through the creative forces at the root of our being, but to actively co-partner in remaking our shared world and collective experience. We each embody a unique expression of All That Is and are a part of the life cycles of birth and death transmuting into new forms over and over, just like the life and death of a star.
When we find ourselves unhappy or unsatisfied with what we see and experience around us in the outer world, we can look within at ways we can tap into our creative power to start reshaping the inner world of our experience. In this way, we start to experience shifts in domino-effect that have far-reaching benefit.
If you wish to see something “out there” try creating it “in here.”
This can be in larger ways like desiring to experience more compassion in the world, so you commit to walking in compassion as much as you can on a daily basis, starting with having compassion for yourself.
Or, it can be in smaller ways, like wishing you could find that perfect item that you envision, but no one carries, so you make it yourself.
In each case, and all of the myriad of other examples and possibilities in between these, you are using your creative energy to create something. You are taking initiative and action by harnessing the creative forces within you to find ways to bring about/birth from the impetus of an idea, inspiration, strong desire, or dream.
And this makes you powerful.
Yes, you are powerful.
You are co-creating life and the type of experience of life you want to have, regardless of what is out there or not.
I actively engage in both types of “creating,” choosing to be more of the things I want to experience in the world and creating little bits of magick my imagination and heart desire.
The latter is what I did recently with two little rabbit Faery gardens I created for me and Astrid.
And in doing so, not only did I create something I wanted, but wasn’t out there (at least that I knew of), but the energy carried within each creation has twofold reach in not only making my heart happy and creating sweet energy for Astrid and me, but in creating these mini worlds, I’m creating a space of potential – like a timeline or portal – that acts like creative visualization for manifestation. They help to draw in layers of meaning, possibilities, and integration into the “now” experience.
This is the new creation I just made yesterday for our Wonderland room.
It’s called Royal Cosmic Wedding: Union of Inner Harmony.
Just the title likely gives you a hint at the energy embodied here, speaking about that marriage of wholeness within the divine perfection that we already are. And if there is any imbalance or turmoil within these parts of ourselves, it unifies them in harmony and understanding.
It’s created atop a vintage white porcelain castle planter and is currently the centerpiece to our room sitting on the highest platform of Astrid’s butterfly sleigh that she sleeps under.
To further help you understand the symbolism within it, here is what I included in the creation:
There’s a black AND a white bunny, a unicorn, a bunny in a swing at top center, two bunnies holding the Faery Queen’s white gown, a crown I found and glued atop her head, puffy white cattail on the reeds that double as nature and stars, a green dragonfly on one of them, and there’s a little book on a silver plaque holder that says “Once upon a time” with words beginning a story and an image of a castle on it. All of the figures sit atop gold sparkly stepping stones like gold coins that light and support the way.
It and Once Upon A Time: The Rabbit Faery Queen are the two mini themed magick rabbit worlds I decided to create and keep for Astrid and me.
Bringing art and love together, to me is “creating life as a work of art” – my personal motto.
Art, to me, is a manifestation of love.
When we create something from ourselves, no matter what it is, it is an extension of the love within us expressing creatively and that reaches out to another’s heart, bringing us together.
Everyone’s creativity, because it comes from the source of harmonious love, has value.
And in exploring, discovering, and bringing forth our creative energy, we are celebrating the hidden gift of being alive.
~
Note: Although I cannot create another of the Royal Cosmic Wedding: Union of Inner Harmony, due to the one-of-a-kind vintage castle planter, I did make a second of Once Upon A Time: The Rabbit Faery Queen for our Etsy shop, The Magick Rabbit, that sold. I can make more of that one if someone’s interested.
I’ll be sharing 3 new mini rabbit Faery gardens either this or next week – the last ones I’m making, as I’ll be focusing on new creations for the shop to share over the next weeks and months.
More mini rabbit Faery gardens can be found here, along with the original magick rabbit paintings, prints, greeting cards, and journals:
Whimsical Wednesdays ~ The Artist’s Corner: You Are A Canvas To Paint From The Palette Of Your Heart
As I’m up to my Faery ears in creative fun here at the Forest Portal, Whimsical Wednesdays inspired me to share about a recent transformation I physically went through to keep in alignment with my own inner artist and soul signature expression. I’ve mentioned many times before how we can live “life as art” and that my own personal motto has been “creating life as a work of art.” This extends to all aspects of you and your experience, and I know that one of the ways that always feels to boost creative energies and inspiration for me, is when I change my way of adorning myself with different clothing choices, accessories, hairstyles, or even hair colors. The latter is what recently took place just last Thursday.
Aqua has always been my favorite color and I’ve often admired women who had aqua/teal colored hair. I just never wanted to go through the process of how you needed to get that at the time.
I actually didn’t have a plan to do this, it just happened spur of the moment. I briefly mentioned that it might be fun to do sometime and perhaps would do for my birthday. Then while I was at my hairstylist, we both got excited at my mentioning and a momentum kicked in high gear.
I walked out looking as you see in the above photo.
It was easy to do at this stage because I already have natural silver hair at top, and silver ribbons we’d been weaving in below to accentuate my wanting to go bolder and even more dramatic with embracing my silvering hair while my natural ones grow out.
I’m known to do things either big or not at all.
This provides the base to just add a color toner of my choice over these areas. It’s only semi permanent, as it fades out over continuous washings.
It was obvious to me, I was ready for this even bolder expression of my soul’s essence and having the light to darker shades of teal weaving through my brown hair makes it feel so natural to me.
For me, the aqua or teal has always represented the higher heart energy between the heart and throat – a place I feel has been more of the journey for me to expand and deepen into. Yet, it also is a color exuding a lot of creativity energy and expresses transparent, vulnerable, open communication between the heart and spoken word.
I feel much flow, joy, peace, balance, and wholeness in it.
Not to mention, it really exudes watery energy, which speaks to my Native Pisces nature and my inner mermaid or merfaery. 😉
It feels like another way I’ve embraced putting myself out there more, not being afraid to be seen, and not shying away from the parts of myself that at one time made me feel lonely, misunderstood, and different.
I’ve always felt “not of this world” and yet I’ve learned to be in it with much greater joy and peace while I’ve worked hard to merge the Earth and Cosmic parts of myself.
This new hair feels to be a visual reflection of that merging I’ve worked so hard on and the synergy I’ve been finally able to create in finding more harmony in being. It whispers of an ancient me and speaks of a future me, intertwined in the now.
And so, this new creative energy I have cascading throughout my hair, speaks to deeper embodiment for me, self love, and honoring of my creative soul.
It’s really cool to see how something so simple or perhaps silly to some, can truly speak volumes of someone’s journey and can make an energetic difference in the way you live each day in or out of alignment.
While I may do things more dramatically, even just simple changes make a world of difference.
I’ve definitely felt a shift with this new, but perhaps more “now me” and even reflections of this alignment I feel.
The first time I went out with it to an event, an older woman in her 70’s came over to me to tell me that between my hair and how I was dressed, I really looked to be very creative and artistic.
I thanked her and replied that I was in fact an artist, to which she smiled and said she could see that.
Perhaps it’s my way, as my tattoos have been, to display my heart on my sleeve and share who I really am even more transparently and unapologetically. Not to mention, is a way I share the process of my journey very openly.
Something that was very hard for me growing up and even made me cringe in the beginning stages of my adult life when I started to reveal more of myself and my artistic and spiritual work to the world.
I’ve noticed a huge creative spurt the last couple of days, too, as I’ve been in “mad” creation with the inspiration that has come for items I’ll be sharing soon in my new Etsy shop – new launch date TBA. In fact, just yesterday, I created 22 imaginative themed worlds of mini bunny Faery gardens. I have another 10 to go today, but alongside the new painting art and items, I’ve really outdone myself in output of creativity so quickly.
And I have so much more inside me to come, including great excitement (and even a bit of healthy nervousness) over returning to my book full time, which all feels interwoven like braids of hair.
I believe it has to do with my following the joy in my heart AND embracing who I really am – not being afraid to share with the world what moves through me.
This has been a very long and at times super hard journey, so I don’t want anyone thinking it came overnight and not without challenge. We have the tendency to only see what is before us now (which is great, as in focusing on the now), but tends to provide a false idea about people and that we each go through a process leading up to that now.
I mention this because, while I still work on things now, I want others to know that it is possible to move out of the place you find yourself in currently, if in fact you aren’t happy or are experiencing challenges. With commitment to you and your individual journey and process, you can create a different and more aligned experience to what you desire. Absolutely!
Growth of the spirit is a beautiful, although colored journey, and the only goal to achieve is the one you deem important to experience.
And speaking of spirit growth, many Native Americans believe hair to be a physical manifestation of the growth of the spirit and that it supports extrasensory perception, as well as connection to all things. They also believe hair to be like tentacles reaching out to take in energy and information much like whiskers on animals – makes me think of my bunny loves and their sensitivities to energies through their whiskers, ears, feet, nose, and inner vision despite being far-sighted and having a blind spot at the center.
I never thought of hair in the past as such until the last half dozen years or so, and every change I’ve made, including chopping it all and growing it out, has always reflected a turning point and shift in my life in big ways.
It really is something how the way we express our creative energy can affect things energetically.
And of course, not expressing it, has it’s own experiences as well.
Whether you feel creatively blocked or gushing with creative energy that wants a new outlet, you can do little or big things to help move it.
This could be in the form of things like playing more, as Monday’s blog shared, doodling on scratch paper, planting a garden, buying a new outfit, rearranging or redecorating your space or home, journaling and free-writing, singing, dancing, throwing paint on a blank canvas, molding some clay, spending time imagining and day-dreaming, walking in nature and seeing all of her beauty great and small, or even wearing your hair differently.
You, your life, is a blank canvas awaiting your creation. The palette of your heart is a vast and limitless space from which to choose how you want to express yourself and live your life. The only limit is choosing not to let those colors shine.
Whimsical Wednesdays ~ The Artist’s Corner: Being You More Creatively Will Help Create the World You Want to See
Welcome 2019. It is already the 2nd of the New Year, as I sit down to share this new blog post. Do you feel a shift in energy? I could sense something in the days leading up, and although each day is just that – another day – there does indeed feel to be a different air about things. At first I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but perhaps I don’t need to either.
Being that this #3 New Year collectively rings in greater creativity and innovative vision to bring forth through your personal vehicle of expression and embodiment, it may be that you are feeling a deep calling from within to make changes and live more from your heart than ever before.
I found it sweet that the day before New Year’s Eve, when we were hiking to the lake, I found a snowflake ornament hidden in the brush below this tree you see in the photo above. The tree is decorated year-round and I felt the discovery of this hidden sparkle of delight inviting me to hang a bit of magick this tree guardian would watch over that would reflect my unique creative expression in the divine collective – just as each snowflake is unique, but part of Source. It reminds me of a painting I did long ago titled, “Uniquely You, Divinely One.”
To me, this was also the message I was being shown in discovering the snowflake…that is what’s so important this year to truly shine our creative uniqueness in the world, as a way to empower the collective.
I looked around for some way to fasten the snowflake on the tree and Dave pointed out a small silvery white ribbon on a branch. So I threaded it through the snowflake and tied it on.
Perhaps this is the shift I was sensing. That things are truly focusing more on the micro, inherent in the macro. That what each of us chooses to express – no matter what it is – is what is going to shape the world the most. This being both the world – reality – you experience AND the reality for the collective as potential.
I know for me it’s been an increase in creative energy via new channels and forms and creating a lush reality around me that nurtures my heart and soul. I find the more I do this, the more I bring that level of peace, joy, and love out into the world more consistently and through each experience I encounter. AND the more I enjoy this temporary Earth home because I am embracing the potential it was meant to be.
This increase in creative energy came from inspiration I wasn’t sure I had in me anymore back three years ago – a time when I felt life on Earth no longer offered enough to keep me past the closure I’d come to.
And yet, just as the heart is vast and limitless, so too is our creative capacity. Creative reinvention found its way into my life again and I said, “yes” to it.
Are you ready this year to say “yes” to something in your heart?
Perhaps you might find at least one way in which you could express yourself in a new and currently more heart-full way?
Even if it’s just a new outfit, hairstyle, reorganizing or redecorating a room, starting a project, finding creative ways to spend more time or more meaningful time nurturing yourself, with loved ones, doing something you love, and/or, but quite importantly, out in nature connecting and receiving her gifts.
Currently I’m immersed in family visiting right now and having our niece here who is 6 1/2 years old truly always reflects to me the part of myself I value and nurture likely the most – my inner child.
It tickles me that she wants to spend so much time with me and I gather it is because of that part within each of us that meets in the heart…the little girl that loves magickal things.
It is this same part that is fueling my current creative projects – the focus full throttle now, after a lot of anchoring. I’ll be jumping back in after our family time comes to closure and can’t tell you how much energy I feel ready to pop.
I received word recently from my rabbit family that February 1st will be the launch of my new Etsy shop. It just so happens to be my beloved and departed rabbit, Nestor’s, birthday, as well as the magickal Imbolc of new beginnings, purification, and the light within blossoming.
And the more I keep channeling creative energy, the more I’m seeing and hearing of people all around me doing so many wonderful new things! It excites me greatly.
Some other big changes and arrivals have come all at the end of 2018 that perhaps I’ll share in another post, but for now I’m wishing everyone a wonderfully creative new spark in your life and that you find yourself feeling ready to nurture and cultivate more of what you love and desire, as well as intend for the world through your own actions.
Whimsical Wednesdays ~ The Artist’s Corner: My Artistic Journey Creating from the Heart
Today I thought I’d answer one of the questions I get asked a lot about my artistic journey. When did you start painting and what kind of training did you have?
It seems to me that we’re programmed to think that in order to be able to do something we must have gone through a certain kind of rigorous training and so we automatically ask these kinds of questions, as we relate seeing gifts in someone to a curriculum of schooling.
While this may be some peoples’ journeys, it isn’t everyone’s.
There are many people whose training has come “built-in” from their soul history.
There are some people who aren’t born with a filter and so they just “go for it” with expressing themselves and the creative energy that moves through them.
There are people who cultivate a passion they feel.
And there are people who are drawn to training more studiously because that feels right to them, they want to advance their techniques and expand with their breadth of work, and maybe even on some level feel it’s a way to establish value for their work, as society places such high worth on things like degrees, training, and names of schools we attend and get accepted into.
There’s no one way, or one right way. We each go on the journey that feels to provide exactly what we need.
For me, it was a strong aversion to training, classes, and schooling of any kind. So much so that I even turned down working at an art school to teach others to draw because it felt boxed-in, and since I didn’t feel right about it for myself, I just couldn’t see advocating that through my work to others. It was more about consistency for me. I had to go through that process though and interviewing, in order to confirm to me what I felt.
So what has my journey been like with art?
I have been drawing all of my life.
It was my favorite pastime.
My fondest memories are of summers sitting at the dining table with my French grandfather drawing after play time outside.
I received a lot of recognition for my drawing in elementary, middle, and high school, but never had any formal training. I naturally took to it without art class teachers’ help. In fact, most of what they said didn’t make much sense to me.
I was very good at reproducing things that I saw like a photocopy. That was my left brain, detail-oriented, perfectionist that could sit for hours working on two square inches of a piece to get every pencil or paint brush stroke exact.
It’s no surprise I was also extremely good at staying “inside” the lines of coloring books – another enjoyment I loved – along with things like creating Spirograph drawings (do you remember these?!).
Detail work is something I carry in me over lifetimes, but I’ve come to find is not my joy.
It’s a soul-ingrained pattern I’ve spent years undoing in this life.
Ironically, my childhood drawings I started doing on my own before this patterning circled back through is what I’ve returned to now. A reclaiming of my “essence,” but channeled through a fresh me.
As a child I was very good at creating simple images of what I saw in my mind’s eye of things I loved in nature all around me.
My favorite and best thing I could draw was, and remains to this day, animals.
I never felt drawn to taking classes outside of the ones we either had to, or had as electives, through high school.
For some reason I felt inclined to keep this part of my life raw in its nature and didn’t want to feel controlled by rights and wrongs. I wanted simply to bring forth my visions without boundaries. Having everything else in life feeling so controlled, this let me have one little sacred piece to myself where anything goes.
Interestingly, while I could draw people if I wanted, I just don’t really want to and it’s more effort.
What flows for me is nature, animals, magickal beings, and enchanting or cosmic visions.
While my work could easily be judged by art critics who have their own idea of what makes art “good,” for me I love the raw expression of what moves through someone’s heart.
That’s not to say I don’t appreciate the beauty of fine works of art. I am in awe of the masterpieces hanging in galleries and marvel at how incredibly they’re executed.
But I do love purity and innocence too, which is what my presence here on Earth is about. And I equally see the beauty within this type of creative expression and see them as fine works of art in their own right because, to me, art is something that not only captures a visual gift come to life, but truly moves you with emotion to experience something deep or even triggers the opening of your own heart with the images acting like keys.
Creative energy is unlimited and therefore there are many ways to bring forth artistic expression.
I say, if it feels joyful to your heart to create, then that’s art.
So, while I’ve cultivated my own form of artistic expression by listening to what moves me and implementing what I’ve integrated and worked on throughout my life, I believe we each have our own journey with this.
But I encourage anyone who feels the desire to draw, paint, or create in some way, to just do it!
There is value in expressing what you feel and if you feel it, I guarantee there is someone out there who needs just what you have to share.
What do you feel your artistic journey has been?
Sometimes we start out one way, but move into a different arena later.
Don’t be afraid to try something.
The value of art is not based on whether it hangs in a gallery or gets critical acclaim.
The value of art is in the expression.
Creativity yearns to be shared.
Tania Marie 