This month’s featured artist is Leigha Tracey-Gaynair, a writer, SoulCollager, and seeker of deeper connection—with herself, her community, and the natural world.

In this conversation, Leigha shares how her journey with SoulCollage® has opened new ways of understanding her sensitivity, creativity, and relationship with the Earth. Here is our conversation, in Leigha’s own words.

Q: Tell us a little about ourself.

A: My formal name is Leigh Anna, but I go by Leigha. I’m 55 and live in the Willamette Valley, in Northeast Salem, in a quintessential city neighborhood with all the characters you might imagine.

My husband, Robert, is retired, and our adult son is in the army, living his own life far away. I’m a realtor specializing in vintage homes, and I’m also a proprietor, I run a guest house that started years ago as a much grander dream that has landed here, smaller but real. I love the people who pass through our guest house: travelers, people taking exams or running races, visiting family, or here for work or medical procedures. Providing a safe haven for these travelers has become one of the quiet joys of my life.

Alongside all of that, I do civic work with the city of Salem, and I’m a writer working on a book about our connection to nature’s energy.

Q: What was happening in your life when you first felt called to come to SoulCollage® at the Down to Earth Studio?

A: I was truly searching for community. I’d lived in Salem for eight years by then. I knew my neighbors, had become chair of my city neighborhood association, and had a lot of acquaintances. But I kept finding myself facilitating connection rather than experiencing it. I’d tried writing groups, book clubs—nothing quite landed.

Someone had left GG’s book, Solo Passage: 13 Quests, 13 Questions, in the little free library in front of my house. I took it camping and savored it slowly. It stirred something in me—the thought that I might find my own “tribe” the way GG had found hers.

I’ve been going to Breitenbush since the mid-1990s; it’s sacred ground for me. Looking through their workshop listings, I saw a SoulCollage® workshop and clicked for more information. The words women, community, explore, and deepen caught my attention. Then I saw Glenda Goodrich listed as a facilitator. I was reading her book and there she was. I thought, that’s a calling; I have to be there. The workshop was full, so I put myself on the waiting list with a plea I couldn’t fully explain—just that I had to be there. When a spot opened, I went, knowing nothing at all about SoulCollage®. That’s part of why it was transformative. I went in open, ready to witness and participate, to grow and connect with the other women there. Two years later, the value of that first workshop keeps deepening.

Q: Was there a moment of shift, breakthrough, or release?

A: Three sessions, months apart, built into each other in a way I didn’t see happening at the time. A Summer Solstice piece asked me to consider service from stillness rather than output; to stop treating rest as something I had to earn. Then a session built around the hare as totem asked where in my body I was still waiting for permission to come home to my own sensitivity. The hare’s power was discernment, not speed or the instinct to flee.

And most recently, a warrior-themed session gave me the language I’d been missing: the difference between discipline and resignation, between what’s actually mine to carry and what I’ve simply gotten used to carrying. Each card, made in ceremony and read back to me as “I am one who…” added a layer the last one hadn’t finished.

Q: What fears, doubts, or inner voices have surfaced, and how have you moved through them?

A: The doubt underneath all three sessions, and many more, was the same: a lifelong unsureness about my own sensitivity, a fear of trusting what I receive. The hare totem card named it most directly—a permission I’d been waiting for someone else to give me, and a reminder that my gift was never about outrunning what I fear. It’s about knowing. I haven’t fully moved through it in one sitting; it comes back in different forms. But each session’s ceremony—the meditation beforehand, the object brought to the altar, the making itself—gives the fear somewhere honest to surface. And the card tends to answer with more trust than my thinking mind finds on its own.

Q: What have you learned, and how has it rippled out into other aspects of your life?

A: I’ve learned that my sensitivity is my instrument, not my wound, and that receiving isn’t the same as failing to produce. The recent warrior session sharpened that into something I could actually use: discipline versus resignation, and the ongoing practice of asking, Is this mine to hold? It’s rippled into my health, my marriage, and even how I run my business. It’s also deepened something more literal—my connection to nature itself. The Earth was always where I felt most myself, but SoulCollage® has made that relationship conscious rather than instinctive. The forest, the driftwood, the stones I collect—they’re now an integral part of my practice.

Q: Is there a SoulCollage® card that has become especially meaningful?

A: Three cards stand out. On March 20, 2026, in a session called Companions and Allies: Sacred Totems of Belonging, Guidance, and Kinship, I met my totem animal—the hare, whose gift is discernment, not speed or flight. Learning to celebrate my sensitivity as wisdom rather than a wound, through that card, was transformative.

A session on our relationship to the natural world brought forward that receiving is a natural part of the symbiotic relationship we have with the Earth—alongside stewardship, and the understanding that all beings are connected.

And in a session on Creative Ancestors, an opening meditation gave me a vision of a circle of women handing me a vessel. In that vessel, my inspiration and ideas were held. That image has stayed with me most of all. It named something I’d never had language for: that my creative overflow isn’t a burden I generate alone. It’s a sacred gift, passed down and held for me.

Q: What does the creative spirit, muse, or flow mean to you now?

A: I’ve discovered that the creative flow no longer needs a beginning, middle, and end. It can be an open source—something to keep contemplating rather than resolve. My SoulCollage® cards work that way. They’re not finished the moment they’re made. Like oracle cards, they keep teaching me, keep speaking to me, long after the session ends. They hold my impressions, my soul work, in continuum.

Q: Do you have a message or blessing for someone just awakening their own creative spirit?

A: Trust what you already receive, even before you understand it. You don’t need permission. The sensitivity you might think is too much, too tender, or too easily overwhelmed is likely your instrument, not your wound. Let the work be an open conversation rather than something you have to finish or perfect in one sitting.



And go gently with the fear. It will surface, and that’s not a sign you’re doing it wrong; it’s a signal that you are present.

Wild blessings on your way!

Here are the three SoulCollage® cards Leigha referred to in her interview.

Saturday October 24, 2026

11:15 am to 4:45 pm

Art Department Supply Store, Salem, OR

Who says a book has to open from front to back!

In this class we will step outside the ordinary to create little pocketed Leporello accordion books (4" x 4")* -- a book that unfolods, eands, reveals, conceals, and invites you to tuck little treasures inside.

We will explore the possibilities of folds, pockets, olayers, and surprises. Your book can become a tiny visual journal, a collection of secrets, a place for words and imagtes, a portable gallery, a gift for someone special, or simply a beautiful object that begs to be opened. I'm making several of these this year (with cash tucked into the pockets) as Christmas gifts for my grandchildren (3) and great grandchildren (5).

We will also play with assorted papers, ephemera, images, stickers, and fabric to create little works of art to tuck into the pockets.

No bookmaking experience necessary. Come ready to fold something unexpected and discover where the next page takes you.

(*You can make a larger version. Check with GG for size options.)

You'll go home with a beautiful collection of prints. What do you do with them? Gelli prints are a beautiful collection of visual ingredients. Like a painter's palette or a basket of fabrics, they become the raw material for countless creative projects. Use them for collage, mixed media, books and journals, cards and paper crafts, home decor, nature-inspired projects, gifts, creative play, group activities -- the possibilities are almost endless!

$75.00 (20% on all class supplies at the Art Department.)

Register at the store here.

Tipi Village Retreats

Marcola, Oregon

June 10 - 14, 2027

GG and Dayna Collins

Imagine spending five days nestled in the sanctuary of a rich green forest next to a babbling brook, sleeping in a cozy bed, being pampered with gourmet food, playing with paint and collage, and renewing that spontaneous, juicy, creative, soulful part of yourself. It’s all yours to enjoy in a community of kindred spirits.

GG and Dayna will be your midwives clearing the way for you to step out of what you think is true about your creative self, and step into an environment where you feel free to birth whatever wants to be expressed.

Through a series of experimental exercises with paint, paper, and written and spoken words, you will explore a variety of techniques designed to bypass creative blocks and connect deeply with your personal serendipitous muse. Whether you’re a seasoned artist or just starting to explore your creative potential, this workshop offers a supportive environment where you can freely experiment, awaken the subconscious, discover new creative pathways, build creative muscle, and develop a more profound connection with your mysterious and creative Self.

The Tipi Village Retreat center is a haven away from the ordinary. Located in the Mohawk Valley near Eugene/Oregon, it is the perfect location to step out of daily life for four days and step into a place where you are held by majestic trees and nourishing waters. Meander along the trails, nap in the shade, soak in the hot tub, or dip in the swimming hole, this place is intimate and magical – truly one of Oregon’s hidden emerald gems. Bring your swimsuit and dive in!

Registration will open up in January 2027.

Join us for a soulful retreat at the serene and healing grounds of Breitenbush Hot Springs.

In the golden hush of autumn, we mirror the Earth — letting go of what no longer serves, composting old identities, and preparing the inner soil for new life. Through SoulCollage®, council, ritual, reflection, and rest, we gather in creative community to refresh and remember who we are.

Stay tuned for themes and dates in 2027.

Solo Passage Book and

Oracle of the Sacred Path Card Deck

are both available on my website here.

Solo Passage Book: In this series of interwoven stories, GG chronicles her path toward healing through wilderness quests in the Pacific Northwest and Central California. Thorugh her connection to nature, she rediscovers the importance of self-esteem, forgiveness, acceptance, and standing in her own truth.

*****

Solo Passage Oracle Deck:

Birthed from the rhythms of the Earth and the whispers of the unseen, and graced by GG's original artwork and photography, this 65-card deck is a companion for wilderness questers, threshold walkers, and seekers of truth. Each card holds a question—a doorway to a theme, an archetype, or a symbol meant to speak directly to your Soul.