Home Again

Frank and I returned from our trip last night, feeling like we have been away much longer than five days. What a difference travel makes to your point of view, no? I love to come home with my eyes refreshed, able to enjoy where I live with the perspective that only travel can bring, and it felt exciting to come home to Charleston after this trip, which made it feel like Charleston is really our home now.

Jasper and Carys loved their alone time with Grandma and Grandpa.

I had fun entertaining myself on our flights taking pictures of the sky with my iPhone. I just love the landscape above the clouds and I'm obsessed with the instagram app.

Now off to organize all of the other photos that I took while we were away.

Seeking Indigo

We've had a flurry of visitors this week, it has been so fun to explore Charleston and have an excuse to check out some places that I've been meaning to visit. One of these places was Seeking Indigo, a transporting wellness spa in one of my favorite areas of downtown Charleston. When my dear friend Sophia arrived this week I picked her up at the airport, and then we went straight to Seeking Indigo for a Migun Thermal Massage. Wouldn't you imagine that peace and tranquility lie beyond that door?

Migun Massage is inspired by the effects of Acupressure, Acupuncture, Heat-therapy, chiropractic adjustment and massage. Migun Thermal Massage is performed on an automated bed that uses jade stones, heat therapy and infrared light to give you a chiropractic adjustment and massage. We left after our half hour treatment (for only $20!) feeling renewed, balanced, and like we had been whisked far away for a moment. Especially as I was lying face up during the treatment looking at the amazing antique carved wooden ceiling imported from Bali.

Seeking Indigo seems to be Charleston's center for holistic wellness and living, I can't wait to take advantage of more of their offerings! It is probably one of my favorite finds in this area so far!

Thoughts on Bravery and Mindfulness

Frank and I are just about to finish up our second e-course that we've taken as a couple, both classes have been part of the Together series, taught by the amazing team of couple Marisa and Sean at Creative Thursday.
The most recent class was about living your dreams: being it, living it, doing it! My mind has been full of lots of exciting ideas since Friday, when I listened to their podcast on how it feels to get back to your normal life after a dream fulfilling experience, and how that bravery and confidence from living your dream can build into a momentum that carries through into your day-to-day life. Have you experienced this? I know that the momentum of living my dreams feels so powerful, especially as the confidence that comes with living your intent builds and builds. In fact, I listened to this class while in the studio painting, so my mind was wide open. Hearing all of the talk about this bravery idea had me agreeing and thinking about how brave I feel when I am living so true to what I want to do. So much so that when I went out to get a coffee later that day I was really feeling brave, and I walked right into a boutique that I had been meaning to approach for a while to see if they would be interested in carrying my wood mounted prints. I was nervous, but excited too, and they loved my work and now they are carrying it, which of course has given me more confidence and new ideas about other things that I could do!

Being a person who chooses to live in a certain flow in my life, I KNOW that I am always most alive, most stimulated and creative when I am living from a place of noticing the new. This works for me within my routine as I am always trying to push myself to be aware of the beauty and details of my day-to-day. 
Two things that have really pushed me to do this are having my kids, and blogging almost daily. The kids help me to do it because there just seem to be so many exciting moments that we share, where I find myself stepping outside of myself and seeing the magic of it all....and almost daily blogging has helped me to develop a practice of trying to harness the details of those moments so that I can distill and share them on my blog. Blogging has been a great tool for this for me, and I would love to hear your thought about blogging helping you to live more fully in this way to.
I take lots of photographs, for my blog and my family, and this practice of photographing my "everyday" has been a great tool for me to step outside of my usual way of seeing things, to break through that mind-numbing routine or muscle memory. I definitely recognize the huge challenge of maintaining the vision of the "newness" within everyday life. My art has always flowed best from this place of noticing details, and living in the "newness" of awareness so I have spent years cultivating ample space for that frame of mind. Nothing shakes it up like traveling, being out of my usual space and place, and I absolutely love getting back from being away for a while and experiencing that feeling of awareness within my familiar surroundings. For me it is best described as feeling like I have my vacation attitude while being at home. In this frame of mind even going to the grocery store can take on the feeling of an adventure. Usually when I get back this can last for me for about a week and then I feel my mind settling down and snuggling in to my old routine so more tools are needed to keep it going.

I know that we all could stand to live with a little more of this bravery in our day to day, what do you think? I know that when my shell is cracked open, newness comes in and my vision expands, there is nothing like seeing everything with new light.

goddess school

Trip to Bhutan, originally uploaded by Chris Guillebeau.

I am in Goddess School.

That's right, I am in the middle of the second week of an A M A Z I N G e-course right now over at Goddess Guidebook, called Making Space for Your Goddess to Shine: divine decluttering & magical space clearing.
So far the course has far exceeded my expectations, which I have to admit where a little vague at the start. I have been following Goddess Leonie's blog for a while and have absolutely enjoyed her quirky posts and gentle insights, so I was very intrigued with the idea of the class. I should explain that I wanted to take the course for two reasons:

1. We live in a TINY house, out of which I run 3 businesses...my family and all that it involves, my art (studio and online shop) and my doula practice. As you can imagine it is hard to keep everything organized and decluttered, although I try my best! So this was the practical side of my wanting to take this course, to find out more insights and hints to help me live in my space more effectively.

2. Number two was more of a gray area for me, but I knew that I wanted to take the course in a deep way for the internal space clearing that it promised. Along with the physical decluttering and organizing that the course guides you through there is so much psychological stuff that is tied in with it, and the more layers that can be peeled back regarding our "stuff" the more clearly we can see everything, who we are where we are going, why we have certain patterns, etc.... This makes absolute sense to me!

I will also reveal here that Frank and I have been "stuck" in one very big area for about two years, and that is...whether to stay in New York City or to listen to the little voices in our hearts that keep getting louder telling us that our time here is drawing to close. It has been a wonderful 12 year run! Even though we do feel that we are being called to leave the city, the timing has not been quite right for us to make a decision about moving, and I have started to feel like we are dragging our feet and having the same conversations many times without making decisions or taking action. You know that place of frustrating inaction?

I felt like the timing was right for me to delve more deeply into things that could be holding us back.

Goddess Leonie creates a beautiful safe environment for sharing in the group class forum. I felt so comfortable that on my first visit I was sharing these questions about us leaving NYC, and I realized that I hadn't even shared that here on my blog yet! I saw that immediately this is one area in which I have been holding back, in declaring my intentions. I think that if we didn't declare our intention to leave NYC, then it didn't feel as scary. But, since I have been declaring it for the past couple of weeks, I feel a new lightness. I feel myself opening up to the reality of us leaving New York, and even though that is really scary since we have lived here so long, it is also really filled with the excitement that moving to a new place holds! This course has brought a lightness to my mental state in mysterious ways. You know when you think, talk or dream about someone that you have not seen or thought of for a while and then they manifest in your life in some way shortly afterwards? That has happened to me 10 times in the past week.

I think that I am living in the realm of possibility more fully right now than I have been in a while.

I know that I have a lot to say today, and there will definitely be more to come along these lines as I share our "leaving New York journey" with you here. I am embracing this time of transition for what it is, I have spent a lot of time in my life fighting change!

A wonderful resource that I have discovered through Goddess Leonie is space clearing through sound. Check out Fabiku's free sacred sounds healing downloads, these are recordings of him drumming and playing the bells simultaneously in subtle rhythms that he claims "unstick" stuck energy. I have no idea how this works but I loved it and did feel the effects afterwards!