CALM

“My ultimate authority is the divine voice in my own soul. Period.“

~ Sue Monk Kidd
www.suemonkkidd.com

Art by Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné (Artist)
www.daniellebooodoofortune.com

Reminders for me today, hopefully you too!💛

Sorry to say, I have made the decision to cancel Summer's End, due to lack of bookings.
Stay tuned for another exciting Workshop event coming the end of March...
So much love to you today!

This is an organic white, airdryed clay "press plate" (which is my word for it, so if you were trying to guess what a "press plate" may be, then here it is...)
I made this one using shell pressing....

Clay work is such a beautiful way of connecting to the earth, and ourselves.
Clay is made of earth, and so are we....
When we work with clay with our hands, we can let our emotions truly release. We can find profound insights into the self, and find safe, guided expression of our emotions....

At CALM's next gathering 'Summer's End', we will be using white air dryed clay, to create a press plate using only our hands and found natural materials in the forest surroundings....

If you would like to know more about Summer's End, or if you have any other questions about the event, such as, "what is movement meditation?" then please tune in on this CALM page this Friday at 10am for more info, and an exciting announcement about an awesome time sensitive special for Summer's End !!!$$👏

*oh, please post any questions that you would like me to answer on this post, or via messenger 🙏

Feeling this in Tassie, as the summer season turns....

Treating yourself like a "favoured child" is a beautiful way of describing the process of self care/self love and self soothing.... 💛💛

The ability to bring comfort to the broken/painful/desolate and neglected places within ourselves, truly is the best medicine. Bringing healing and love to all the places within you that desperatley need it....💛💛

So much love to you today...
🙏

“When I started feeling the drag of winter, I began to treat myself like a favoured child: with kindness and love. I assumed my needs were reasonable and that my feelings were signals of something important. I kept myself well fed and made sure I was getting enough sleep. I took myself for walks in the fresh air and spent time doing things that soothed me. I asked myself: What is this winter all about? I asked myself: What change is coming?”
Katherine May - Wintering: The power of rest and retreat in difficult times, 2021.

Erik Theodor Werenskiold - On the Plain, 1883.

“I've seen women insist on cleaning everything in the house before they could sit down to write... and you know it's a funny thing about housecleaning... it never comes to an end. The perfect way to stop a woman. A woman must be careful to not allow over-responsibility (or over-respectability) to steal her necessary creative rests, riffs, and raptures. She simply must put her foot down and say no to half of what she believes she "should" be doing. Art is not meant to be created in stolen moments only.”
Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Anders Zorn - Baking the Bread, 1889.

SAVE THE DATE!

Our first CALM Workshop for 2022, will be happening on Saturday the 26th February!! Yay!

This workshop will be a celebration of summer, in an outdoor bush setting.....

This will be such an exciting time for us to gather with other artistic and like minded women, and celebrate ourselves in nature.
🌿
Getting creative with meditation movement, connecting to the rhythms of nature through movement. Hand clay nature pressings, and sharing circle/alter offerings....

Setting off our year in the right way, and celebrating ourselves and our nature spaces within and around us. This will be a time for refreshing, relaxation, play, mindfulness and connection.

Stay tuned for all the details to come....
So much love to you today.....
Namaste
Rach
🙏

Perfect quote to really express how Holistic Integrated Creative Arts Therapy works, and how I have been spending my days of this beautiful new year....🥰
This new year is such an exciting opportunity for new directions, intentions, and more focus on things that really matter.....you!
What an amazing year 2022 promises to be!
I will be returning to the studio in the first week in February, after such a lovely Christmas break with my family....
If you would like to book a one on one session with me into the new year, then get in touch and I will book you in for early February!! YAY👏
Can't wait to re-connect soon,
So much love,
Rach
🥰

The CALM Studio is now closed for the Christmas Season, until mid-January.
I will be spending this precious time with my family, reading LOTS of books (Santa is bringing me 6 books which I can't wait to get started on!) Resting, Resetting and Vision Casting for my own personal growth into the new year, but also for all of the new offerings for the CALM Studio for 2022!!
Thanks and so much love to all of you beautiful ones who have journeyed with me this year, I can't wait to reconnect again soon!!
Blessings and love to you for a magnificent Cristmas and a brilliant New Year!

🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄

“The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.”
Paulo Coelho - The Alchemist.

Hugo Simberg - Towards the Evening, 1913.

Words from our last Spring Emergence meditation.....(while picturing our future selves)
"She is standing tall and full of life and light...

Her face to the wind, proud in all her glory....

She has seen hardships and let them soften her, not harden her....

She is surrounded by light and love emanating from her, through her, around her.....

It's the person within that defines and shapes how she looks without...."

Sometimes the future happens randomly, and we just have to put up with a repeated version of whatever we expect and are willing to put up with.

We mistakenly believe the negative tapes that run on repeat that stop the wheels of our
creative innovation,
exciting dreaming,
fun and play,
and believing, with great faith, in the immense and profound potential that exists with us...

We forget that we really are the creators of ourselves, and our lives!

We have the power within to shape our lives through our own deliberate intention!

We can persue breakthrough, clarity and change, and see it!

I believe in you, and send you so much love today.

If you are wanting to make some changes to the internal struggles, or you would like to sit in inspiring, creative surroundings and pour out your heart through creative self expression, I'd love to hear from you...."

So much love,
Rachel
💚

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And that's a wrap!🎬

Spring Emergence is done for another year.....👏👏

These amazing workshops have been so transforming and exciting for me, and I have loved devoting the 3 months of Spring to embracing the lessons of the season through the process of change and blossoming....

Kindest and warmest thanks to all of you beautiful, amazing women who attended.
Thankyou for trusting me, and opening wide your hearts right along with me.
🙏🙏
Thankyou for trying something new, and embracing the creative process.....🙏🙏

I am still taking one on one appointments right up until mid-December, so if you are looking for a fun, playful way of bringing CALM to the hectic season, please get in touch!
💛💛
Stay tuned for some very exciting workshops and creative adventures into the new year....

So much love to you today....
🌸🌷🌸🌷🌸🌷🌸🌷🌸🌷🌸🌷

Creating new work for my last workshop of 2021, SPRING EMERGENCE-"Future You"

These pieces will become card gifts for all of the beautiful women that will attending my Creative Arts Therapy Workshop....
I love my work SO much!

My big love at the moment is to witness how surprised women in my workshops become when the piece they have created seems to come through without any deliberate intention.
This is the subconsious work of the soul....and it is always such a profoundly beautiful experience....

"One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star...."

-FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

Refuse to fall down
If you cannot refuse to fall down,
refuse to stay down.
If you cannot refuse to stay down,
lift your heart toward heaven,
and like a hungry beggar,
ask that it be filled.
You may be pushed down.
You may be kept from rising.
But no one can keep you from lifting your heart
toward heaven
only you.
It is in the middle of misery
that so much becomes clear.
The one who says nothing good
came of this,
is not yet listening.

-Clarissa Pinkola Estes
www.clarissapinkolaestes.com

Art by Mental Paint
IG: .paint
www.linktr.ee/mentalpaint

What an amazing time at Spring Emergence on the weekend!
Such a beautiful space to create our grattitude trees and clay totems.....
A really beautiful, nourishing time with a fantastic group of wonderful ladies!!👏👏
Can't wait til next month for more Creative Arts Therapy.....
Thankyou to all of you lovely ones who came along!
💛💛💛💛

Such a great day for Workshop number 2 today!!!🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞

Thankyou everyone for your interest and enthusiasm for CALM's Spring Emergence Workshop events!
🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸
These will be CALM's last workshops for 2021, but stay tuned for some VERY exciting Creative Arts Therapy offerings over the summer, begining Jan 2022!!👏👏👏
I am still taking bookings for one-on-one sessions, if you are interested, please get in touch!

“A woman’s journey to healing begins the moment she decides she will no longer abandon herself.”

~ Amy Wilding
www.redtentlouisville.com

Art by Danielle Boodoo-Fortune
www.daniellebooodoofortune.com

We had such an amazing day yesterday at Spring Emergence!
It was a wonderful time together connecting, exploring and expressing our inner childhood....
Can't wait til our next workshop in October!👏

If you are all booked in for next Saturday, the 25th of September, look for the signs, I will have out on the street for Spring Emergence...!!
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Head to the Ida Birchall room, at these beautiful doors.....
This first Workshop event is sold out!
Still more spots available for October and November, but they are fast filling up!
Get in touch for details if you want to have a fabulous, fun adventure with Creative Arts Therapy!!👏👏

Get in touch if you want to join in, there is still one space available for September's Workshop!! Stay tuned for our October and November Spring Emergence Workshops coming up!

Hello SPRING!

New spring blooms in the CALM studio for spring! Hello Sunshine!
☀🌺☀🌺☀🌺☀🌺☀🌺☀

I created these bright colourful paintings during a very cloudy grey rainy day last week, these pieces are titled "Spring Emergence" as I am getting very excited to greet a new season here in Tassie!
As I was creating them, I was dreaming about our last Spring Arts Therapy Workshop and have decided to run another Spring Emergence Gathering next month👏👏👏...
Stay tuned for details....YAY!

Beautiful reminders....
Happy weekend
❤💙💚💛💜

✨ ✨ ✨

You are an ever evolving spirit made of pure potential and love. Happy Sunday! ❤️🌈🥰

Just some mid-week reminders for anyone who needs them 💚

Absolutley real....
Love this....💜

There is a story about a woman who visited the Buddha while deep in sadness and despair. She asked why she had to face such hardship and loss. In response, the Buddha asked her to go and get a grain of rice from each house in the village in which no loss had occurred or tears had been shed. She went from house to house, and after a week returned with an empty bowl. In realizing that she was not alone, she was transformed. Her suffering, which once caused her to feel isolated and hopeless, now became a gateway to compassion and connection.

Awareness of collective suffering reduces our isolation. We must also keep in mind that each individual’s experience of suffering is unique...we cannot compare. Instead, we must lean in and listen.

Everyone has a story.

Listening as an art form awakens profound experiences of the self and soul, offering a portal that can awaken a transformational experience of connection to others and the world. Listen for the emotional meanings conveyed by others. Listen for what is not being said. Listen inside of the space between words.

-- Dr Arielle Schwartz (from her book, The Complex PTSD Workbook.)

art | Ikenaga Yasunari

“The fullness of your power will intimidate many.
Stand in it anyway.”

~ Tania Hart
IG:

Art by Taynee
www.tayneetinsley.com

Look around you....
THE TREES ARE SHOWING US HOW BEAUTIFUL IT IS TO LET GO...
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I am receiving the message of Autumn loud and clear this season! Nature is one of our teachers and whispers to us of our stories, our desires, and our deepest needs....
She is a reflection of who we really are!
The trees are showing you that...
You are ready...
You are braver than you think you are....
It is time.....
If you are feeling into this lesson, the story of the trees, and the deep spirit within that calls you to let go, then I am offering a deep dive into this letting go space, to be witnessed and supported by the trees and myself in the forest...
I will support, nourish and guide you into a one to one personalized meeting in the magic of the outdoors, beside the river, where I will witness your process and teach you how to give over our heavyweight that you carry, with faith that as you let go, you will let the burdens of your heart be released, and feel lighter within, and without.....
Letting go of the things you don't want to carry anymore always makes room for the new to come....!
$50pp (ladies only)
please contact me, Rachel, via email [email protected] or Messenger for further info.
With love and gratitude
Rachel

Validating our feelings, even the supposed "negative" ones is not popular in our modern societies. So many of us are walking through our day to day lives full to the brim with suppressed, ignored, unexpressed emotional weight, too afraid to face it. Facing the fear is the doorway to freedom....it's hard, uncomfortable and terrifying, but is the work that is needed to unlock the door to the life you are dreaming of. On the otherside of fear is everything you want.....

"Even the most positive life events, like commitment to a life partner, becoming a parent, relationship reconciliation, promotion or acknowledgement at work, moving to a new home, personal achievements, or retirement can bring an ending we didn’t expect. We move into happier times feeling confused about the feelings of sadness that lurk beneath the surface, or suffer full-blown panic attacks when something we dreamed of finally arrives. We keep these feelings to ourselves because of guilt or confusion, and yet, when our losses are ignored, they demand attention another way.

Although changes are bound to cause upset and disruption as a matter of course, we’ve come to believe that we don’t have a right to our feelings, that unless we move on quickly there is something inherently wrong with us. We forget that endings allow us to access the fullness of life."

Kristen Roderick, Excerpt from my online course Blessing Our Secret Sorrow: tinyurl.com/secretsorrow Begins October 26th.