May 20, 2015 | Art, Global, Healing, Love, Photography, Vignette
“Honoring your everyday Sacred through grounding, creating and living consciously.”
My Dear Soul,
This moment right here is Sacred. Your voice is Sacred. Your story is Sacred. Your one wild and precious life is Sacred!
Sacred is often very simple.
Making elaborate practices can be tiresome and often times means you won’t get around to doing them.
Sitting in the Sacred is all about honoring your life force, opening, listening and creating!
We will go on Spirit walks to connect with our luscious bodies and inner wisdom. We will forage and collect resources that will help illustrate our Sacred Stories.
We will practice the Art of asking and answering questions to open the well of our inner wisdom.
We will create Sacred Vignettes which will be our visual story telling of our everyday Sacred.
(One part Writing Course. One part Visual Story Telling. One part Vignette Exploration. All parts Connecting and honoring the Everyday Sacred!)
You want to know how this course was born?
Out of pure need.
In a time when I was walking through many inner and outward passages Sacred Vignettes emerged out of me.
I was hungry for real connection to life.
I craved emotional and spiritual clarity.
I lacked many resources I “thought” I needed, only to discover I had everything already in front of me.
It was born out of need. It began simple…
A little self awareness goes a long way.
A few minuets walk here, a few photos there… connecting the practice of question asking and answering.
I started small…
Day 1: Rooting into yourself.
Day 2: Your senses are your guides.
Day 3: Connections: all of them!
Day 4: Transform unrefined emotions and how this is presence.
Day 5: Desiring to speak your truth? Hear your inner voice?
Day 6: Awakening your inner wisdom.
Day 7: Integration and honoring everyday Sacred…
*Registration starts on June 1st! Sacred Vignettes begins July 1st when the full moon is high in the sky! Price Only 15.00!!!!
*One week of honoring your everyday Sacred.* Email sent to you including all content. Also commune with the Sacred Vignette community over in our Facebook group!
May 15, 2015 | Art, Global, Interview, Love, Photography
Once upon a time I wanted a tribe and I wanted to paint with this tribe. Flora Bowley was leading an incredible workshop just an hour from my home and so I looked it up. Alas I found Serendipity, I found Michelle. I love how one like soul leads to another. Although I didn’t end up going to that particular retreat (because they fill up so darn fast,) however I have since then appreciated the magic Michelle and her counterpart Jen create at Serendipity! There is magic brewing between them and I feel we can expect to see marvelous things coming our way. Today let’s chat with the ever lovely Michelle!
Michelle Madden Smith is a wayfinder and mama living on a barrier island that arcs gracefully out to sea in North Carolina. She is co-founder of Animyst where along with her business partner Jen Gray, she co-creates inspiring online workshops and soulful retreats with artists and makers. She is also the creator behind the premiere yoga studio and teacher training program at Outer Banks Yoga. She lives and loves with her filmmaker sweetheart Bryan and their toddling daughter Lyla Maryanna.
Why yoga, why art retreats? How are they connected for you? How has spirituality affected you and your work?
I seek evidence of the invisible.
That’s what it all boils down to for me. All of my passions and offerings to the world were born first from my own inner journey of seeking what it means to live, of how to have a meaningful life.
I don’t say that lightly. My dark night of the soul lasted for nearly a decade through my late teens and 20’s. I awoke from that period feeling as though I only had one choice. I had to learn how to be in this world and to give myself fully to the search for meaning.
This journey began with learning how to breathe, you know the kind of breath where time stops and it brings you fully into the moment. When things were good, I’d breathe. And when they weren’t, I’d breathe then too.
A few years later my yoga practice, and ultimately the studio, were born from a physical injury that occurred because I didn’t yet know how to hear my intuition and I was actively pretending to be someone I wasn’t. I was still learning how to be here, so I didn’t know how or who to “be” much of the time. Time on my mat helped me heal the lingering deeper psychological wounds that led me to this breaking point, as well as helped me begin to trust my body again.
As I grew stronger, it became clear that I needed to find my own creative voice and save myself from a lifelong feeling of isolation. I’m an only child, mostly introverted, my Mom and I moved all the time while I was growing up… and now I live on an island. First blogs, then art retreats and gatherings helped me discover my gifts, my tribe and my current life’s work of helping other women reconnect with their creative voices. This lead to the creation of Animyst and our retreats and online art workshops.
So first I found my breath, then my body, and then my creative voice….a serpentine path through the invisible realms. I’ve moved away from teaching yoga as my creative life grew, but spirituality is at the core of everything I do. It’s hard for me to separate my personal life from my work in the world. I’m lucky that I’ve been able to continually evolve over these years, listening to the subtle cues and tugs of my heart and following the paths blazed by beautiful guides, teachers and mentors. I am just so grateful to be here.
I read “Michelle encourage you to come home to the familiar environment of your body, yet expand your understanding of your own personal edges.”
There is a dichotomy in our culture of being mind-focused and disconnected from our bodies and yet completely focused on the body as an object rather than sacred space. My teachings lead students on an inquiry that ultimately brings them back to their first homes. Our bodies pick up more information than our conscious minds can process, by bringing people home they can begin to have a deeper dialogue with their physical selves and the world around them. By noticing the sensations they experience, or by noticing the energy of a space they can begin to open up to how powerful we really are, and begin to make change.
As for edges, we all have obstacles we come up against – insecurity, fear, a perceived lack – and these play out on the yoga mat just as in life. By nudging up against an edge on the mat – a physical or mental edge – and approaching both the experience of the body and the mind with curiosity and playfulness you can begin to learn how to move through those edges off the mat as well.
It’s all a practice, and it’s all connected.
How do you most like to celebrate your body?
Every way I can, but mostly it’s the simple pleasures like a slow Saturday morning yoga class or spontaneous dance parties in the living room with my baby or a long walk in the forest or along the sea. Delicious, nourishing food is important to me. I love the sweetness of allowing myself an extra five minutes in bed in the morning to stretch out fully. I love a good long drink of water. I love submerging completely in the ocean. I love placing my hands over my heart. I love deep eye contact with those I love. I love cuddling my baby skin on skin.
Do you have a sacred space? What does sacred mean to you?
I do have a physical sacred space in my home, but I believe sacred is what you create with your energy and intention. I create sacred space when I’m having a video chat meeting with my business partner, or meditating as I take my nightly shower before bed. But I’ve also carved out a space in my home that’s mine…my altars, my art, my work. It’s colorful and bright and messy and sacred.
Rituals can be a multitude of things what are a few of your tried and true rituals?
There are so many. I was recently told that I was a monk in a past life and that I loved that life because of it’s simple rituals – rise, prayer, meal, vespers.
I think my rituals serve to remind my body of its lightness and my soul of the earth.
They are simple things like tea in the morning with my love and my daughter, tidying up my space and lighting a candle as I sit down to do my daily work. Prayers of gratitude sprinkled throughout the hours, an altar to bring sacredness to a project or to help a friend.
For a long time I’ve had this crazy idea I call the “Good for You Project.” What if we could create a list of all the things we should do for ourselves to find bliss based on the many health, happiness and longevity studies that have been done. The good for your body things like eat an apple a day, eat 12 almonds a day, drink your weight in water, exercise for 20 minutes 3x a week or the social things like spend time with friends, stay off social media, have dinner together. But since that list would be insanely long, I imagine you’d spend your whole day just trying to do all these things!
So for now, I created a sheet called my “DAILY”. On it are those things that I’ve learned help me to be healthy and feel whole and fulfilled. I try to do as many as I can each day, without grasping…allowing them to happen naturally to become habits.
In some ways, these are my tiny offerings to a life well lived.
How do you nourish your wellbeing on a typical day?
My daughter turned one in January and it felt as though my body finally fully exhaled. Everything about the first years with a little one is about learning a new way of being, and well-being can take on a survival-like quality.
So lately it’s making sure I’m eating well enough and drinking enough water and taking my supplements so that I can nourish her. It’s getting outside in the sunshine, getting bodywork done, making time with my love and my friends, staying offline as much as possible. And sometimes nourishing my well-being means focusing entirely on a project in front of me and busting my ass to meet a deadline. I think balance is a dangerous myth, quite frankly. Rather I prefer to focus on what is beautifully, mindfully in front of me.
You also said:”Tuning-in, noticing and listening to the inherent wisdom of your own body.”What is your wisdom whispering to you today? What is it asking of you?
My word for the year is bhaktim – which is Sanskrit for “to devote.” I chose a verb because I needed a word that inspired action.
My wisdom is asking me to deepen my commitment, to devote myself, to the myriad ways I feed my soul, as that feeds my daughter’s soul, my love’s soul and the soul of the world.
And, it’s asking me to not put my life on hold because I have a baby, as that only provokes the martyr archetype to come up for me. Instead, it’s asking me to discover all the ways my life can expand to include her. And always, behind all of that, my wisdom whispers…lighten up.
Tell me how you rise up in fullness?
Walking in the forest. I feel as though I’m in a cathedral directly in communion with the sprit world.
What supports your authentic self? Your true expression of yourself?
Nature. Paint. Light.
Tell me about the love you give to yourself, to the world?
This sums it up for me: She walks in beauty. I imagine myself embodying this idea so fully I am completely saturated with it and it radiates out of me showering everything with feather-light glitter.
Lastly, tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
I want to become a living prayer.
I intend to keep chipping away at the ideas that prevent me from knowing I’m beloved and one with the earth, the sky, water, fire, intuition, humanity, the cosmos, and the spirit world. These are things like skepticism, palpable anxiety, self-doubt and fear. I want to be bold. I want to continue to learn and seek. I want to surprise myself.
I intend to be a model of health, wholeness and unconditional love for my daughter. I want her to feel confident, know she’s loved and have the courage to walk her own path.
And later, I intend to be a spirited old crone serving up easy laughter and cookies to Lyla, Bryan, our grandbabies and the tribe of beautiful spirits that we have gathered over the decades.
Want more of Michelle Madden Smith? I thought so!
You can visit her here at Animyst or here over on Facebook!
Take a class at Outer Banks Yoga or head over and take one of the online E-courses like Visual Quest with Pixie Lighthorse.
Join us again in 2015 for this 5-week Online Journey into the depths of Shamanic Painting with Pixie Lighthorse.
Creative living and spiritual practice represents all that is mysterious, alive and juicy in every one of us. This freeing process is release, it’s color and spirit in motion, it’s a deep embrace of What Is, and an intentional honoring of life itself. This class is a convergence of everything Pixie knows about spirit and art all rolled into one.
May 15, 2015 | Art, Global, Interview, Love, Photography
I met this insanely funny one while on retreat at Call of the Wild Soul in England. I don’t know how or why but somehow it seemed we ended up almost everywhere together. Between classes and dinners I spent a great deal of time laughing as well as seeing her develop as an artist. She is a magician with a sketch. In a moment she could draw a realistic figure. Boggling to my mind. Years later I saw her again this time in California and to my delight she is just as I remembered her. Talented and a real treat to be around! Im pretty jazzed for you to get to know her too.
Moyra Scott: I am a mixed media artist living in Brighton, UK. I also work in a studio in Suffolk on the East Coast. I work on canvas, board, paper and in my journal. I believe in creativity as a way of making life better and that every human has a need and desire to express themselves.
As well as creating my own work I run creative journaling sessions helping others to connect with their innate creative selves, expand their creative boundaries, become present and work with what is. I am not neat when i create, I am wild and messy. I am also a coach (helping people declutter their heads, get organised and get stuff done) and I am a qualified yoga teacher (500hr Yoga alliance certified)
“I work intuitively, I become deeply immersed in the process of creating my colourful, many layered ‘visual stories’.
I am drawn to the use of symbols (birds, cups, stars, ladders etc) to create dreamlike visual narratives.”
What does Intuitive mean to you? What does it feel like? Look like?
Intuitive means letting go of a specific idea of outcome and allowing that which is deep inside to surface. Its not a conscious controlled process, more one of getting out of my own way and connecting with the present moment, and working with what arises in front of me. I like to throw a little chance or random in there to jolt myself out of running old stories into new territory. Its like it only really works when I have no idea what I am doing but am responding in the moment with authenticity.
“When I work in my art journal, its transforms my day. It takes me away from myself and engages me in higher ways of thinking, richer, mythical, intellectually stimulating ideas, stories and worlds. It is deeply nourishing to my soul and is excites my heart and mind. It encourages me to build my desire and to express myself. This brings me into contact with my uniqueness, my insight, my truth. I love it.
What is your Truth saying? Where is it leading you?
My truth is saying that it is all about pure magical energy and connection between souls.
It is leading me to share my work both in terms of exhibiting, and teaching. Both are my work in the world.
A long time ago I read something about “the joy of the doing of the thing” its about joy, connection, being present and expressing who you are.
Tell me about your workshops? What is wild art journaling? What is it you want your students to take away?
I called it Wild Art Journaling because i wanted it to come from our “Wild Mind” – which is a phrase that I learned in a writing class. Its the notion that there is a part of our mind which is outside culture, its free and can free associate as it pleases. From this place, I believe comes our most truthful expression, and our most enjoyable creativity. I want my students to take away something they have created from somewhere they didn’t expect. I want them to let go of any idea of what they thought they might produce and realise it is all experimentation, all creative play, and none of it needs to be judged. I want them to leave having spent time in a part of their brain that is wildly free, wildly creative and full of inspiration, and return to their lives refreshed, inspired, seeing life anew, as if their soul has been nourished.
What are you bow down kiss the ground grateful for?
My son. Life itself. Music. Any time I get to spend being creative.
Tell me about the tools you use and how they are teachers for healing? What have you been learning from them personally?
For me, working creatively, playing creatively (same thing) is a place where I am free. If I am down, spending time there, immersing myself in expression, takes me out of that down place and I forget any troubles I have. I don’t know of any specific healing that happens other than, it is my happy place, and going there makes my life better. I cant quantify this, but I do believe that in expressing my thoughts, feelings, emotions out of me and onto the page or canvas, that I am helping myself to see it clearly and to understand myself better. Its not quite the same as writing as its a more visual dreamlike narrative. But it helps me feel better. I think also its like meditation. Its a place where the brain waves are different. Its deeply calming and very present. Worries and anxiety are not there, afterwards new creative connections can be made.
As Picasso once said (I may be paraphrasing here) it ‘washes away the dust of our every day lives’.
What are you saying YES to these days?
I am saying yes to what lights me up. Eating good food is always something I say yes to. But right now I am going through a big phases of decluttering and fixing stuff. I am clearing out the old, and unessential. I have this feeling of needing to find only the essential and focus on that. Its a shedding and a coming together. It feels very right and good. Definitely bringing me some lit up joy!
What do you want everyone to know?
That finding your creative expression is neccessary in life. Its not frivolous in the slightest.
It need not be visual art, it could be music, dance, writing, whatever it is for you. But, whatever it is for you – you need to find it.
That, and… Magic happens.
Art On Right By: Crim Bo Taken At The Journal Session WIP.
How are you nourishing your wellbeing today?
Today I had a coffee date with a good friend. Chap in to fix our broken oven, and I am having a really big clear out of my work room ( office / studio).
Food wise I am planning a large fritata with roasted butternut squash, mushroom and goats cheese, served with kale.
I am off sugar, and I have a daily dose of organic cider vinegar and raw honey every day.
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild precious life?
Ha! such a big question! SO MUCH!……. at the same time…. My quest is to be happy. To have what I think what I say and what I do be aligned. I am aiming to be happy, to rid myself of the unessential, live simply and well. To be as good a parent as I can be. To do what brings me joy. to share what brings me joy in the hope that I may help other people experience joy. To bring about pure magical energy and connection between souls. To do less, help people, and make friends. Eat delicious food in great company. I have a side project which is all about getting people to break bread together. Especially people who have not eaten together before.
Its part of building community which in turn is part of being happy, bringing people together and creating connection.
Connect with Moyra Scott on Facebook, Instagram or her head on over to her website for more details on what she is up to!
May 8, 2015 | Art, Global, Interview, Love, Photography
Photo bottom right by: Stacy De La Rosa
She is a wisdom walker.
A dear soul whom I can only imagine has the sweetest of spirit. One time I saw a photo Stacy De La Rosa took of Katie and I thought to myself I want to know her. Isn’t it funny how images can do that? Translate the soul for us! I shortly after saw some of Katie Kendrick’s beautiful journal pages and paintings, which I gasped over. I think she is wonderful and am delighted that I was able to speak with her and co-create this Interview today!
Katie Kendrick: Who am I, now that’s the question I ponder every day. When I follow my passion I learn more about who I am, what makes my heart beat faster and my enthusiasm do somersaults. I love to create and make things. I am a mixed artist, I live for color and line; texture makes me giddy with joy. Nature is my muse. I feel grateful every day to live on 7 acres with my husband and our pets in valley surrounded by forests with a river running through. We raised our two daughters here and now our 6 grandchildren come to walk/run the same trails and swim in the river. I have a deep affinity for trees, plants, stones, and water. I am drawn to simple honest beauty. I love all aspects of gardening and growing plants from the worms and other soil creatures to the bees and butterflies. I enjoy cooking, especially with fresh homegrown produce. I teach workshops both nationally and internationally on painting, visual journaling, and connecting to our creativity.
Lets start with why do you create? What do you create?
I create because I’m alive and full of questions: “what would happen if I did this?”, or “I can imagine these things in relationship to one another, I want to see ..” It’s like a call and response, the universe calls out to me, and I respond by creating something. That “something” changes constantly, informed by the reality of my life in the present moment. When fresh tomatoes are hanging plump and juicy in the garden, I’ll get an urge to make salsa. When I walk through the woods and find mosses lying on the trail, special stones on the beach, a piece of driftwood with teeth marks of our local beaver on the edges, the urge could come as wanting to create a faery house or playground to honor the nature spirits and faeries that live in our woods. The drive to create is strong and curious and moving about like a spark, lighting on one thing then another.
What would you say are the major inspirations for what you create?
When I am painting or create any kind of visual artwork, I am continually inspired by the nature all around me. Taking a walk in the woods, gathering stones along the river, sitting next to our huge grandmother cedar, all of these activities empty and fill me – empty me of the small “me” and put me into the vibrant stream of universal flow where all ideas and inspiration come from. My paintings don’t look like the woods and river where I spend so much of my time, but the time there allows me to go deep within myself and co-create with those higher influences – those influences that make every activity juicy and satisfying. My imagery doesn’t feel of this world, even to me, and yet it feels familiar and like “home” at the same time.
That is the reason I paint, it is a light as I make my way home – to the place that resonates deep within me, the one that is total and complete mystery yet feels deeply familiar.
Surrounding myself with other creatives is another magical way of keeping myself inspired and passionate about painting and the creative process. That is one of the reasons love teaching workshop is the group field we create together, the energy and inspiration exceeds the sum total of what we all bring because it’s easier to tap into the creative field when you have the momentum of others with the same intention.
Holding life’s questions keeps me inspired. The big ones that are always changing, I don’t know the answer to them but hold them close to my heart as I move through the day…
what does it look like to create with my whole heart?
What do I have to say today?
How do I express being in a body with a soul? What is my soul’s purpose?
You asked: Are you ready to take an artful journey?
This got me thinking, although I am sure you meant it literally for an art retreat, are you ready to take an artful journey?
Which is to ask what is your artful journey? What does it look like, feel like? Is it just in painting that you are artful or is it in the way you eat a mango? Describe your artful journey as you move through life!
Whatever I encounter on my journey, my goal and intention is to be present whole-heartedly. When I paint I want to be with the process – a question that I might hold would be “how does it feel to be one with the painting process”? I can put my attention on my fingers holding the brush, the roughness of the paper, the intensity of the color – there are so many paths to take, it’s up to me where to put my focus. From that place everything is unfolding and new, I am constantly surprised and delighted by the twists and turns of the process and the mystery of where it will end up. I feel that same way when I grow seedlings and nurture them, I don’t know exactly what each needs specificially but I show up whole-heartedly and ask, observe and learn.
Everything is a co-creation, a question and response.
Tell me how you rise up in fullness?
By saying YES every morning when I wake up, to all that the day will bring me, to decide yes before I know anything about the day. I say yes and trust I will have exactly what I need to meet every situation, to learn. Sometimes the yes is so loud that it shakes the roof. Other times, it is a quieter version. The important thing for me is that I say yes with my whole heart. As I learn and grow, my heart grows bigger and my capacity for fullness grows in proportion to my YES.
Photo top left by: Stacy De La Rosa
What supports your authentic self? Your true expression of yourself?
Following my passion is the truest support I can give my authentic self, for it is the only way I can know what it is that gives me joy. When I follow those urges, the ones that feel juicy and remarkable and exciting and scary, that is where I learn about who I am. When I can offer who I am to you, to the world, I am offering the truest gift I can offer, the only gift that the world needs. I practice living from that place, old habits die hard so it is a daily practice.
Tell me about the love you give to yourself, to the world?
I would answer this question in much the same way. The greatest love I can give the world, or myself is to be aware of the desire and passion that weaves through my body and my life, moment to moment, the movement that is my intuition. I’m learning to say yes only to what is in alignment with my intuitive knowing, and being brave enough to say no to the people and things that aren’t part of that vision.
Lastly, tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
I want to adventure, see the far-off corners of the world and the most intimate corners of my compost pile – to experience everthing to the fullest for as long as I have a body. I want to paint big, teach more abroad, paint a mural and do more collaborations with other artists. I want to be a bee priestess and love deeper than I can even imagine.
Katie has some amazing workshops coming up a 5 day workshop at Pacific NW Art School May 11 – 15, 2015, then a Workshop in San Miguel de Allende Mexico October 9 – 17, 2015
and lastly a 2 Day Painting workshop at Jenny Doh’s studio, Southern CA November 7-8, 2015
Have you seen Katie Kendrick’s book? Layered Impressions: A poetic approach to mixed media painting. You can buy it HERE.
You can sign up for her mailing list here (right side bar) to recieve notifications of upcoming workshops.
May 1, 2015 | Art, Global, Interview, Love, Photography, Post
I love that I quite literally stumbled upon Robin E. Sandomirsky. I hadn’t a clue in the world whom she was until Facebook suggested her as a friend. We had a load of the same super cool artsy friends so I looked into her courses/website. Not long after I took her and Alisha Sommers course liberated lines which I highly recommend! I have been discovering her ever since…
I am Robin E. Sandomirsky. I am A writer. I am a healer. I am home. I live in small town New England with my children and my four leggeds. I have been a story teller, worshipping at the altars of the word for as long as I can remember. Scribbled truths and half poems tracking me and guiding me down my lifelines. I have been a healer and teacher since I came of age. I will hold your hand and burn you through the spaces from here to there. If you are ready to come home, to fill whole, to rise up to your next elevation, then you are my people. We use the gentle pathways of deepest love and inherent velocity to achieve the simple impossible. We change your life. In this lifetime I have danced the darkness many times, but I am a holder and bringer of light. I don’t seek to present any perfection only what I know to be true. If you want to come home to your own sacred body, if you want to gift yourself the freedom of your being, if you want to touch that stuff you can feel under your skin and at the core of your core then you are ready to do this work.
I am a regular green smoothie drinking, lunch packing suburban mom. I am also a luminary explorer, a freedom igniter and a warrior blooded game changer. I live Truth. Velocity. Embodiment. I want to guide you home.
I offer luminary healing sessions – in person and long distance, small group in.body intensives – using physical practice, writing/creative exploration, and meditations to cultivate embodiment, and I am the co-creator of liberated lines – an Instagram based, quick & dirty, poetry and prose course. I also teach early childhood programs and yoga/movement classes.
I read you say: “Worshipping at the altars of the word for as long as I can remember.”
Oh how language is so so much more than words, tell me what language is to you? What it feels like? How it moves? How do you live in/through language?
Words and language have always, always been like the pathway from the edges to the centers and back again. Like ever moving ink stains ingrained on the underside of my skin. Like the particular structure of the fluids that course through my body. Like the map of my energy field and my emotional body. Words have led me astray and brought me back home, have cultivated and added to my depths and my evolution. Words swirl in my brain and bring me, like breath, into the full embodiment of this life right here in this exact moment. For me words are like magic. Even in the incarnations of imperfection and unable to get it quite right. Still they string together like a raft. Partly because they are all mine and partly because they spiral outwards from me like connection. Language is this thing that is never able to tell you the exact beating of my heart but still is the way I holler out across the vast expanse from here to there, “Hello, I love you.” Language becoming like a dance and dancing becoming like a song and each song being just exactly who we are in that one instant – before we glide into our next self in the next instant. You want to peek inside my soul – language will float you there and I will open my eyes and gaze through your heart riding on the wave of the language you gift back to me. Spoken, written, imagined, felt.
As a healer language is a part of what flows out of me like an offering. My work is multifaceted but there is always language involved – talking and sharing and expressing and learning through spoken word – through story and telling the truth of the lifted veils. For me this works like incantation and what is spoken in the name of healing weaves into the arrangements of the energetic, physical, and spiritual bodies as well. In this way, language becomes like the laying on of hands. A portal through which energy flows in mystical ways.
Language like the translator of the hollow bone, language like the dance of the shaman.
You said::“The deepest truest you that hums in the marrow of your bones, the cellular contractions of your heart, the flow of your cerebrospinal fluid. This is the body that can contain stillness within movement and silence within sound.”
How do you most like to honor your body?
I honor my body by being here with a beating heart and lungs that fill and empty with breath. Most days it is that simple. I live, here, in this body, so I honor her. We are the most intimate of lovers. I honor my body by wanting to know her. By coming to terms with the ways I have abandoned and disgraced her at times (she is never mad at me about this but always welcomes exactly what is). I honor my body by walking a path that strives towards embodiment. I honor my body by believing in her power, in her strength, in her functionality. I honor my body by coming home to her.
I honor my body through my physical practice when I am rocking it, through the food I lovingly prepare when I am lovingly preparing food, through dancing wildly in the kitchen with my littles when I am dancing wildly in the kitchen with my littles. I honor my body with massage, and touch, and love, and adornment. I honor my body by making egregious mistakes. Eating total crap. Drinking too much. Not getting enough sleep. Losing track of my meditation practice. Pushing myself too hard. Not being disciplined enough.
I honor my body through the art of practicing self-forgiveness – which she has taught me a thousand fold. She has never left my side even when my honoring her looks like a trail of bad decisions laced with whiskey and cookies.
So I place my hands on my heart again and feel the way it beat beats. Oh yes, and I breathe. I am alive still. I honor my body with this life and with the ways I release self loathing and dive back into what feels good. Movement feels good. Water feels good. Pleasure feels good. Seeking feels good. Breathing in and out and relaxing my face feels good. I honor my body with headstands and flying pigeons and walking the dog in the woods and steaming bowls of bone broth and gently wilted greens.
Wouldn’t it be lovely if there was a clear answer to this? If I could prescribe a track of body honoring that each person could follow and thus have the altar to body all sorted out? But I honor my body through relationship, through learning, through loving her as best I possibly can in any given moment. It is a constant state of wonder how she loves me back. Body blessing. I honor my body through my life.
We are together in the light and the darkness. All the way.
Tell me how you rise up in fullness?
I rise up in fullness through my work and my love. I find fullness as a mother. This has been true for me from the first moment and I accept it as a gift. That my children have healed my heart and soul in ways I could never ever have imagined just by the fact that they came here. That they have eyes I can gaze into and smiles that are filled with light. That I get to spend time with them and have the pleasure of being known by them and knowing them back. I accept this gift.
I rise up in fullness when I part the curtains and let myself soak in the rays of sunlight. Accepting warmth and being fed by the heat of the sun.
I rise up in fullness when I step out of the way and allow my body to explore being in space. In deliciousness. In being no shape anyone told me to be but instead listening in to what the cells know and trusting their guidance.
The kitchen has always been a place of magical realignment for me. I complete my own circles when I alchemize in my kitchen. When I let ingredients come together as they want to and as my mouth waters for them. When dough rises, when vinegar splashes and oil drizzles and herbs are diced or torn. When something is just beginning to soften in my favorite pot. When an egg is just right with crisp edges. When almost anything is roasting in bacon drippings.
And I rise up in fullness when I offer myself. As a teacher, healer and guide. This is when my cells burst with light. When I stop trying to hide what is and I trust in my own path, my voice, my heart, my getting out of the way to be something more than what my ego has offer. My fullness comes out boldly in these roles. In unexpected and cleansing and settling ways. Each time I am of service in some form of healing I am vastly healed. My work is my pathway to evolution and expansion. What is more full than that?
What supports the true expression of your authentic self?
My people. My friends, my family, my four leggeds – the people who listen to, hold, touch and love me. My connection to the divine universe. Ever present even when completely forgotten. The universe supports me. The great mother in all her glory. Birds in flight, a soft breeze, deer cutting across the trail right in front of me, thunder and rain, crocuses…the great mother reminds me of my own resonance and being.
What is your mantra, your words to live by?
“I am free to…”
I had this life changing realization some time ago that I was boxing myself in even in moments when I was trying to help myself. “I need to…” being a mantra of “I am not already doing enough.” So even the revelations I had about things that might have felt really good were already being twisted energetically into failure. “I need to be kinder to myself,” felt to me like it carried, “I am not kind enough to myself.” See, failure.
But, “I am free to be kind to myself.” Ahh, this felt like something I could relax into. Like a release of tension not an accumulation of tension. “I am free to experience daily practice.” Now my daily practice is a gift I am free to receive not something I have to check off my list. So, whenever possible I try to remember to language my hopes, dreams, and desires in combination with freedom.
Freedom is my mantra in life.
Currently I am working a 43 day practice that includes chanting mantra and there I am working with Aham Amritam. As I was taught, this mantra translates to, “I am the essence of the heart nectar.”
What does mystery taste like to you?
I have always had a rebel side lurking beneath my polished exterior. Mystery tastes like that. The late night wanderings. Conversations no one else knows about. Damp skin in the dark of night.
And mystery feels like the expanse of the void. The ways I have come to know the edge of it and how someday I will also know the centers. Mystery is the way the wind howls there and sometimes it is dark and starry and other times its like the sun soaked desert.
Sometimes mystery is this scent I can’t quite name on a soft wind in the middle of an ordinary day. Sometimes it is a spider web, a hawk in flight, the way my children’s eyelids flutter as they dream.
Mystery tastes like sage and dirt and blood and wine.
Like swallowing the air.
Like falling on my knees when I feel beaten and crying hard and standing back up again to carry on.
Mystery is the swirling grain on my hardwood floors and my dining room table. Lingering whispers from my ancestors. The future calling out to me and daring me to arrive.
What are your tools and teachers? What have you been learning from them personally?
My tools are breath, movement, direct communication, daily practice, shaking, yoga, inversions, exploration, balancing, writing, sleep and nourishment. My teachers are my kindreds – soul sisters who are willing to dive into the creases and the wide expanses with me. My children who are clearly here to set me straight on just about anything if I will take the time to listen in. My teachers are the obvious, people I study from and books I read. My teachers are also a surprise – a stranger who reminds me of my truth on exactly the day I was ready to take it in.
Recently I have been learning about using what I have. I have been learning about quiet and how I hold the quiet in the noise. I have been learning about stillness and the kind of stillness that is achieved through movement. I have been learning about the walls I build and the ways I am ready to allow them to dissipate.
My teachers have always been the invisible. My spirit guides and allies. My team. What I learn from them is simple. I am everything. I am nothing.
What are you saying YES to these days?
I am saying to sunshine, coffee, ginger, essential oils, homemade muffins, and broth. I am saying yes to a stronger physical practice and more time in meditation. I am saying yes to reading more books and allowing the idea of studying all the time. I am saying yes to short notes and writing even when I have nothing perfect to say. I am saying yes to noticing love around me and laughing more and failing at things.
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild precious life?
I plan to do my own work all the time knowing that my own ferocious evolution will ripple outwards. I plan to step ever more fully into holding the hands of others and guiding them to the next level. I plan to seek truth, knowing that it is always everything and nothing. I plan to live, and rest, and live some more. I want to cultivate happiness and allow for pain. I want to drink up what is offered and make space for even more. I want to embrace freedom and let it be contagious. I want to trust my lineage and my heart to guide me towards my highest evolution of resonance with self. I want to rest assured that I have no idea how beautiful it could all be but that if I show up on the dance floor the universe will see me trying and she will say, yes my love, here you go. I want to relax into resonant potential. I want to bridge the gap so we all rise to the next evolution. I want to be a rock star and the quiet grounding we all need as a base to rise up. I want it all. And I want to take you with me.
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May 1, 2015 | Art, Global, Interview, Love, Photography
I saw Fonda’s work first in Orly Avineri Facebook group a stand for art journaling, it was the above photo of a winged creature with skeletons following close behind. I don’t know the story, although, I have made a pretty good one in my head of shadow and light chasing, but I began to look out for when she posted because her work has a very Marc Chagall feel if Marc Chagall was an art journaling feminist! Fonda’s work has a lot of archetypal energy as well as layered free form play. I enjoy seeing her evolve and allow new things to emerge.
Fonda Clark Haight is a mixed media artist living in Western NC. She and her husband Evan, an author, live in a converted apple barn on a 100 year old apple orchard. They share their home with six children, three boys and three girls, along with assorted rescues. She has a deep passion for upcycling in her art. Upcycling keeps a materials’ original composition, texture and quality intact by reshaping it for new use, extending its life cycle without the needs for additional raw materials or energy. She upcycles cardboard, newspapers, barn wood, tin, old art, and plywood into new pieces of art. Her goal as an artist is to take simple things and subjects we might see or imagine every day and present them in a different manner so we “re-see” them.
Tell me about your stunning Archetype series?
I’ve always loved oracle cards. They’re such precious pieces of tiny art with meaning. I wanted to create something like that for myself with my own artwork, using symbols that mean something to me specifically. I didn’t realize when I started how expensive it would be to turn them into cards. I love the archetypes. It’s like a whole world fit into ten or twelve prototypes. It’s a framework for understanding the people around me.
Your art for me has a very wonderful Primal/Totem feel is there a reason for this?
I went thru a stage where I did a whole series about fairytales. And then I was done. I had created the art that interested me. I think it was the story behind the fairy tales….the resonance of the person who sort of got lost in the telling, that make me light up. I’m incredibly drawn to celtic and Native American stories as well. And again, I always think…what’s happening with the people around the main characters in the story? What was going on in their lives?
I think the myths of history are such a deep well to draw from creatively.
And because they still resonate so strongly, I know that there is something there for everyone.
How does spirituality and art intertwine for you?
Well, I’m a feminist. I guess that’s pretty clear from my art. I recently heard Sister Chittister relate that she thought the world is operating from half it’s knowledge, the male half. That’s not bad in itself, but it needs the other half. She told a sufi story that sums it up for me. The students were all asking their master…”what will happen to us when you die? What will become of us? The master looked at the students and said, all these years I’ve been with you I’ve been pointing at the moon. I hope that when I die, you will finally look at the moon”.
For me, art is my way of pointing at the moon. My way of pointing to the mystery and magic of the spiritual part of my life.
Sometimes it’s just in the little details that I notice as I go about creating….and sometimes it’s something bigger. At least I hope it is.
What does Intuitive mean to you? How do you live Intuitively?
For me, intuitiveness is getting out of my brain. And into my heart. It’s my way of getting in touch with how I feel so I can convey that as an artist. I live intuitively in my art every day. I don’t plan a piece of art. I just start and let it speak to me. Sometimes I don’t get anything. Sometimes I get more than I bargained for…..and sometimes I hit a sweet spot and I know I am on purpose in my life in that moment.
What are your tools and teachers? What have you been learning from them personally?
I know most artists will be able to relate to this statement. In the beginning I wanted every new tool, gadget and gizmo. I was 34 before I ever created a piece of art. So I practiced and practiced and grabbed all the new stuff and I do believe that better tools give you a better result. These days though, I’ve realized that sometimes, for me, all that stuff is a way not to begin my art. So I use old books repurposed as a journal or canvas or cardboard. I cannot live without gesso, gel matte medium and neocolors. If were going to be stranded I would want those three things. My teacher…I guess I would have to say that life is my teacher and the internet. Wow! The internet is a happy teacher for sure. All the ideas, and art, and creativity are a happy thing.
What are you saying YES to these days?
Myself and my vision. No one else’s. I’m saying yes to all the parts of myself. The grungy whiny parts and the glorious beautiful ones too. The complaints and the gratitude. The light and the dark. Every artist knows…a piece of art is no good without both.
What lights you up? Turns you on? Makes your heart quicken?
Color. Lots and lots of color. I have to say too…I teach at a local nonprofit as a volunteer. I’ve got thousands of hours invested in those kids. They light me up in the same way that my art does. I have a passion about creating a space for them to be safe enough to feel what they feel. And helping them to convey that artistically is one of the great joys in life.
What do you want everyone to know?
That everyone is an artist. Everyone has that ability. They just have to let themselves believe that. That the more you are in touch with who you are….the better the world is.
Tell me when the light went off and you wanted to show your art/be an artist?
When I was 34, my twin sister gave me a set of watercolors for Christmas. I was horrible with watercolors. But there was something about the way it made me feel, something about creating that I knew was for me. It was a clarity of expression that I had not really known until then. I haven’t looked back once since that day.
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild precious life?
I plan to keep doing what I’m doing. Distilling who I am and what I feel into my art. Teaching and passing that on to the high risk children who may not have an opportunity like that in their daily lives.
Pointing at the moon.
You can find Fonda on Facebook or over on her website. You can also find Fonda’s original mixed media paintings HERE!
