Offering HeART and SoulCollage® workshops to inspire your creative spirit |
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Bringing Trauma Into the Light |
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Greetings!
All families have some sort of traumatic history. And much of that trauma has been borne by women in the form of domestic violence, physical/emotional abuse, sexual abuse, childbirth complications, death, mental illness, and the list goes on. Over the past several weeks I have been working toward healing my own maternal lineage by educating myself about how trauma is carried through generations (if it is not reckoned with and healed) and what I can do about it.
In honor of International Women's Day, I want to share some tools that have helped illuminate the ways in which my maternal lineage's unresolved suffering has impacted my own limiting beliefs, fears, habits, and behaviors. By following a step-by-step workbook, creating sacred ceremony to release trauma back to where it belongs, and making art (always through art!), I am healing the trauma of my maternal lineage. I can feel a difference in my body -- less tension and anxiety, more presence and contentment.
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Here are some of the things I am participating in to help heal the trauma in my maternal lineage:
It Didn't Start With You, a book by Mark Wolynn that includes written exercises to discover the source of your trauma and end the cycle.
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Synchronistically, while cleaning under the bed the other day, I found a box with my great grandmother's quilt. I'd forgotten I even had it. Now, I am sleeping under her quilt and sending love back in the lineage through my mother, Dodie, my grandmother, Ruth, and my great grandmother, Maude. Sometimes I feel all three of them, along with the other women in my lineage stacked up around me, row after row, cheering me on.
"I am pure light, not just a fistful of clay.
The shell is not me, I came as the royal pearl within.
Look at me not with outward eye but with inward vision of the heart;
Follow me there and see how unencumbered we become." -- Rumi
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Come join me for an upcoming Art and SoulCollage® gathering |
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Friday SoulCollage® Gatherings are back at the Down to Earth Studio
March 18 (FULL), April 15 (FULL), May 27, 2022 (OPEN),
1:00 pm to 4:00 pm. In person workshop.
Sliding scale $20 - $35. In Person. Come join us for the rekindling of the SoulCollage community fires. I've missed having your creative hearts in the studio and am enjoying to be in soulful community with you again -- creating, sharing, surprising yourselves with your brilliance!
Those new to SoulCollage® can come early for an overview. Newcomer Fee of $65 includes 1 hour overview and 3 hour session.
Join me for these upcoming Friday SoulCollage® themes:
March 18 - The East Shield and the Season of Spring
April 15 - Spring! Waking up to Re-Creation
May 27 - "May we..." Creating Prayer and Blessings with SoulCollage®
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Vernal Equinox SoulCollage® Gathering on Zoom
Sunday, March 20, 2022 from 3:00 to 5:30 PM Pacific Time
Zoom Gathering at GG’s Virtual Down to Earth Studio
Free! No workshop fee; this is a love offering (If you feel moved to donate, the money will be added to the Down to Earth Studio Scholarship fund).
Come join in community and ritual to celebrate the Vernal Equinox and let the seeds of possibility that have been lying dormant within your rich, dark, fertile Soul soil burst forth. You don't need to know what these seeds hold; you only need to make intentional space for possibility.
We will create this intentional space through an Equinox ritual and creating art together. You can make a SoulCollage(r) card, a collage, painting, drawing, doodle or any other creative gesture. Work with whatever medium calls to you -- magazine and calendar images, watercolors, acrylic paints, pastels, colored pencils, markers, ink pens, or crayons. Or, you can write a poem or something. Free-flowing, without judgment, without expectation, and with the pure intention to love and acknowledge what wants to sprout from within. Let your Spirit Sprout shine!
Not an artist? Good. This is not an art class, nor is it an art show. This is an opportunity to let the promise of spring conjure up creative energy from your mind and heart, let it pass through your hands and out into the world. The beauty is in the effort, not necessarily in the outcome.
Email me to participate in this joyous celebration of movement from winter to spring.
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Mosaic Collage and Image Transfer
Sunday, April 24, 2022
9:30 AM to 4:00 PM
Newport Paper and Book Arts Festival, Newport, Oregon
In-person workshop
Come participate in this joyful exploration of mosaic collage design and image transfer. Students will use colored art tissue, acrylic paint and stenciling to create a gallery wrapped canvas pieces in the shape and color-combinations of their choice. A variety of nature silhouette images will be provided to choose as a focal point.
Learn more about the Newport Paper and Book Arts Festival and the Mosaic Collage and Silhouette Image workshop here.
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Window Collage and Painting Workshop
Saturday, May 14, 2022
10:00 AM to 4:00 PM
GG's Down to Earth Studio, Salem, OR
In-person workshop
Workshop fee: $85.00
In this fun and light workshop we will explore true mixed media. Combining paint, papers, stenciling, and Posca pens, we will create pieces ranging from whimsical to serene, from birds to bouquets. Come engage in this critic-free environment that encourages relaxed playful expression. All levels welcome. No drawing or collage experience needed. Contact me to register.
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Kintsugi Breaking and Mending Retreat
at Breitenbush Hot Springs
Friday evening May 20 through Sunday afternoon May 22, 2022
Breitenbush is back! Come join us as we engage in the ceremonial art of Kintsugi to explore the brokenness that lives in ourselves and in our Mother Earth, and find the beauty and gratitude that resides there.
Many of us are living with broken hearts. We accumulate grief and carry it with us, often unseen and unexpressed. But grief can be a storehouse of power, a way to reconnect with what and how we love, and honor what came before. Grief can help us find the beauty in our brokenness, while opening us to loving more and being of greater service to the world.
Breitenbush has been rebuilt, like a phoenix rising from the ashes. New growth abounds and the land awaits our homecoming. It's a beautiful metaphor for the breaking and mending of Mother Earth, and the perfect place for a Kintsugi gathering.
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Our time together at the Kintsugi retreat will include ceremonial art and ritual, journaling, nature altar building, connecting with one another in community, and deep listening as we honor the place in us where grief, gratitude and beauty coexist. Of course there will also be free time to soak in the hot springs. : )
Learn more about Breitenbush Hot Springs here.
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Other Offerings from GG's Down to Earth Studio
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Prints of my artwork: "Being Held in Deep Grief and Unbearable Beauty" are available for $65.00 (12"h x 16"w). Plus postage. I'm really pleased with the quality of these prints -- almost better than the original : ) |
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Gift Certificates for GG's Down to Earth Studio for products, classes, or art doula services. |
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The Art Doula is Here for You!
Come and explore, discover, and birth your unique creativity.
Are you a tentative artist, or maybe a wanna-be? Do you feel the call to create something but don't know where to start? Have you heard yourself say the words “I’m not a creative person?” Or, maybe you think of yourself as only a painter, or only a crafter.
Let’s debunk those myths! I am an Art Doula, here to help you explore, discover, and birth more of your unique creativity. I'd so love to work with you in 2022 to help your creative life blossom. Zoom or in-person doula services available. More information on my website here.
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Upcoming Book: Quest - My Story of Transformation in the Solitude of Wild Nature...
will be published by She Writes Press in the fall of 2023. This book is about the healing and restorative power of nature as illustrated by the 13 wilderness (vision) quests I experienced over a 20 year period.
I sifted through my wilderness quest adventures and refined them into a collection of rich chronicles of how my time in the wild -- hungry, isolated, and exposed -- helped me circle back, again and again, to the events of my life -- to sort through them, find deeper meaning, and make peace with my past. Each story is a unique layer of color, texture, and shape that creates an overall collage of transformation.
This book is a love letter to my grandchildren, great grandchildren, and all those yet to join us in this beautiful place.
Stay tuned for the release date!
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from my creative heart to yours ~ |
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