Today: Sending love and healing to my father-in-law, Chris, hosting a powerful conversation with my circles and Tanya Geisler and thinking about the power of including the arts in our lives!
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Price: $50
The practice of creating a dreamboard The Studio Way invites more of what you desire into your life while serving as a powerful tool of creative self-reflection. Dreaming in tandem with the phases of the moon helps us deepen our practice, learning the lessons of each moon and developing our Year of Dreams.
Over more than a decade of this practice, I have learned to make dreamboards that are not only manifestation magnets (which they are!) but also powerful reflecting pools. Creating a dreamboard with the full moon tunes you into your inner compass, focusing your herat on the true north of your dreams.
To support you in discovering the powerful practice of dreamboarding, I’ve created a series of workshops, rooted deeply in moon cycles, creativity and magic, rooted in my deep belief in dreams and in you.
For each cycle of the moon, the Year of Dreams series offers a workshop that will guide you through creating your dreamboard under the specific influence of the upcoming Full Moon (e.g. Full Snow Moon, Full Worm Moon, Full Pink Moon). Every monthly offering will include not only the moon-specific workshop but also the How to Make a Dreamboard the Studio Way lesson so that we are all creating in the same context and on the same sacred ground. Once you’ve registered for your workshop, you will have access to it for the lifetime of this offering at the studio. You can return again and again under this full moon to connect to your dreams.
That is the question we will be focusing on for this workshop. From the moment you register, that question will start to steep in your heart. Clues will begin to bubble as you gather your materials, holding the question in your heart. As you step into the creative process, you will start to engage with your dreams. When you enter the circle with the Full Moon, you will have the opportunity to discover the messages she has for you. In that moment, you will create a dreamboard that will become a manifestation magnet but that will also serve as a reflecting pool, helping you discover the dreams in your heart – and the parts of yourself – that want to emerge.
A Note About Timing: When you register, you’ll have immediate access to this program and everything you need to know in order to create your dreamboard for the Full Moon.
Price: $50
Years ago, sitting in my mom’s living room, hanging out with Mom and my sisters, cutting and gluing, dreaming, chatting, I had no idea that a life-changing practice had entered into my life.
Who would imagine that a simple, creative activity could open up the door to my dreams?
I know it will do the same for you!
Today: Juggling multiple projects has me facing overwhelm, working with finishing it off and getting excited about what’s emerging!
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Today: EStrategies for getting it all done plus the fun and frustration of journal exploration!
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Having a weekly “Art Day” practice is bringing so much joy to my life. Even setting up is fun for photos!
As I mentioned on StART: Creating As We Go, I had so much fun with a recent mixed media exercise that I wanted to try it on board. I braved the cold to get a 12 x 12 wood board to play with. One thing I learned quickly is it likes lots of glue! Next time I think I would gesso it first, even if I’m just collaging on top.
Once the board was collaged and ready to dry, I went back to the painting that inspired me, getting ready to build more definition into the flowers that I discovered on the page.
Sitting there it didn’t take long to realize the board was a fun backdrop for more glitter animal photography!
Even this Lion-in-Waiting wanted his moment on the stage.
I tried a few different techniques with this next stage of the painting. I feel like I should have four or five on the go so that I can be experimental with each of them. It’s fascinating (and a bit frustrating) to be in relationship with the work, discovering what it wants to be.
Today: Enjoying having a dedicated art day each week, learning from my pussy willow and thinking about intimacy, especially with our selves.
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As I work through my transformational tidy-up, going through everything I own, I definitely notice the truth in the old saying, “It gets worse before it gets better.” That certainly was the case when I did my Studio Refresh, both online and off (pictured above). Finding my way through the overwhelm has led to some beautiful results and reminded me of just how much I am capable of.
Overwhelm can show up in so many ways at so many junctures and it can shut us down. It’s like our circuits get flooded and we just kaput. How do we find our way through without pushing our way through, which so many of us have tried and so many of us have paid for.
On a practical level, overwhelm appears when there is a disconnect between what we feel needs to be done and the resources we have to meet the task(s) at hand. When the demands are greater than the time, money, energy or emotional capacity we have, we get overwhelmed.
One of the things that can be surprising and discouraging, even distressing, is when overwhelm shows up around something you love.
You’re invited to a party or out to dinner and you’re looking forward to it until the day or the hours before when suddenly you find yourself overcome with dread. What do I wear? What do I say? What do I do? How do I get there? What if I don’t know anyone? What if I don’t like anyone? What if they don’t like me?
Or you finally sit down to create some art and are hit by a wave of unexpected emotion. What the heck?! I thought this was going to be fun! Where are these tears coming from? I don’t know what to do or where to start! I’m finally creating and I hate what’s coming out of my fingertips!
When that happens, our natural protective instinct is to “Shut it down. Shut it all down!” (Think C3P0 stopping all the trash compactors!)
How do we respect the truth of where we are in this moment while moving towards what we love and desire? How do we deal with overwhelm?
As conscious creatives, we can actively respond to overwhelm. We can show up like actors doing improv, seeing what is offered up to us and responding lithely to what’s present.
The first thing to do is to stop. Just stop. Stop the autopilot. Stop the habitual response. Stop the whirling dervish. Let the world slow down for a minute.
There is time for you to take a moment, to feel your feet on the ground, to come back to yourself instead of being caught up in the tornado. Take a moment. Breathe.
Then move. Move away from what you’re doing, even if it’s just getting up out of your chair and walking down the hall and back. Changing your environment changes your perspective. Moving your body helps the built-up energy release and pass through you and that will help you function well and think clearly. Often just going for a quick walk can shift something, clear something, open something. There is magic in movement.
Next, sit down with a piece of paper and pour all of the chaos onto the page. Pour out everything that’s coming up, every idea that’s niggling at you, every to-do that’s asking for your attention. Let the page hold the work. You don’t have to hold it all. Once these things have their due on the page, they can stop nagging you for attention. They won’t be forgotten so they don’t need to keep reminding you that they’re there.
Now that you’re a bit more grounded and you’ve cleared your energy and your mind, come back to the task.
What’s the next step?
Maybe the next step is a baby step, something small and simple and easily achieved.
Maybe the next step is the one that’s stressing you the most. With it out of the way, you’ll be able to relax.
Maybe the next step is the one you have time for.
You don’t have to figure it all out. Just the next step.
Next (you know what I’m going to say, don’t you?), take the step.
It is a powerful grounding practice to end the cycle of overwhelm with an action, no matter how big or how small. It grounds you and builds your confidence when each interaction with the whirlwind of overwhelm ends with you moving forward.
I know you can do it.
There’s one more step in this dance with overwhelm: the pause. Take time to recuperate. Listen to a song you love. Spend 3 minutes looking out your window. Chat with a friend. Make a cup of tea. Yes, stop and smell the roses.
It’s a big deal to face the challenges in our creative lives and to do so with awareness and intention. Taking a few minutes to refill our well will give us more resources to draw on the next time our life demands something of us. Resting and recuperating is a part of the work.
