Welcome to my blog page! I love writing about the healing power of the creative process. Here you will find a collection of all of my writing from all the way back to 2005! Enjoy!
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Lead us from the unreal to the real~ Hindu Invocation When I was just getting started on my life path, my career, my vocation, my calling to be of service through working with peoples hearts, so many moons ago, one of the things that I created almost immediately were...
At the end of one of my most recent Painting From The Wild Heart workshops I was thanked by one of my students for not being, as she put it, a "woo-woo wackadoodle." Which I actually take as a high compliment. I know what she meant. Like her, I greatly appreciate the...
I am currently in the middle of my yearly January Painting From The Wild Heart retreat in the wine country of Northern California, and I'm feeling pretty good. Usually, by this point in the workshop I'm starting to get kind of fried. I'm still enjoying what I'm doing...
As 2011 begins, like a lot of people, I am thinking about what I hope this New Year will bring. But I'm not following the time honored tradition of making explicit resolutions. That is soooo 20th century and anyway most research has shown that choosing a specific goal...
Lately it has been pointed out to me that a.) there is one person that I tend to neglect on a regular basis ( meaning me) and b.) it's kinda sorta difficult for me to receive. As we are in the middle of that time of year that is often known as the season of...
I just had the privilege of facilitating the first session of my third Wild Heart Expressive Arts Teacher Training program earlier this month. Whenever I teach I notice that every group and every workshop has it's own distinct personality. And one of the ways that...
This little piece is one of those drawings that made me pretty nervous from the moment I started it because I had NO IDEA what it was or where it was going. Which meant I had to practice trusting the process and the brush quite a bit... not exactly my favorite thing....
Whenever I am painting or drawing I try to keep my judging mind out of the picture as much as possible and just allow whatever wants to show up to just be there. And what that means is that I sometimes don't LIKE what I've drawn or painted very much. I develop very...
I travel a lot for my work. I'm gone for about one week every month leading workshops and teaching so I spend a fair amount of time in hotel rooms which means getting set up to do visual creative work can be a bit of a challenge... especially since what I really love...
I'm at a retreat center in the Napa Valley Wine country of Northern California called Mountain Home Ranch where I'm facilitating my 3rd Wild Heart Expressive Arts Teacher Training Program. So one of the things I am creating is the program itself. It's really fabulous...
I'm sometimes crazier then others and this year is one where I'm pulling out all the crazy stops by doing my best to participate in BOTH National Novel Writing Month AND Leah Piken Kolidas' Art Every Day during the month of November. Since I'm trying to add so much...
Just recently one of my students emailed me with a question about my upcoming teacher training program. She had been researching various educational opportunities in the expressive arts world and was feeling confused about how to proceed. She wasn't sure which program...
One of my favorite movies is a little flick called City Slickers that came out in 1991. It's the story about 3 guys who hit their mid forties and find themselves kind of lost and wondering what the heck happened to their lives. They are friends and all live in New...
Just recently one of my brave, brave students took her intuitive paintings home and showed them to her dad. She was generous enough to share the interchange with me and I thought it would be helpful to share it with all of you. Here's a brief transcript of their...
Have you ever been asked the question " If you could have a superpower, what would it be?" Well, it seems like I already have one although it's not one that you ever see in the Marvel Comic books. Nor is it one that I would have necessarily chosen. My weird superpower...
I recently got an email from a lovely woman on my mailing list asking me about how to use creativity to work through negative emotions. Which is a completely fabulous question and one that I have thought about a great deal. My first response to that question is...
My muse is quite the bossy sort and has been yammering at me pretty much non-stop lately. What she wants this time is for me to be writing more. And specifically she wants me to be BLOGGING more often. There's a familiar dance that we engage in that starts with her...
I just completed the final session of my current Wild Heart Expressive Arts Teacher Training program. During this five day intensive each of my students took a three hour block of time and presented and facilitated an expressive arts class that they designed. Which...
I have been a personal growth, spiritual and creativity retreat junkie most of my adult life. Since the time when dinosaurs walked the earth and the term hippie was not prefaced by the world "old", I have participated in scads and scads of workshops and healing...
I get awfully tired of being an adult all the time. I get exhausted just thinking about the list of things I have to do to keep my life operating on a more or less even keel, much less actually doing all those things. Like always having to be competent. And...
I've been reading a lot of novels lately... and have come across some darned good ones... but the thing I've noticed the most is that a story only really gets interesting when someone majorly screws up. If the protagonist falls in love with the wrong person, if the...
I have been involved in the world of blogging and making online connections for the past year and a half. And it's been an exciting new adventure for an old dog like me. I'm 57 and most of my peers can send an email and surf the web but don't really understand the...
Whenever one of my students is in a creative bind and they feel stuck and blocked and like they don't know what to do next I often ask them the question "So what would you NOT want to paint?" This usually gets me a.) an incredibly dirty look b.) the dawning...
I have a confession to make. In writing this blog I talk a lot about the creative process which makes it sound like it's something that's kind of abstract. Or at least part of the workings of my own mind. Which isn't exactly the truth. I've been avoiding telling the...
Today is the day when we all celebrate love. Or are at least thinking about love. Or trying not to think about love. And mostly what gets celebrated is romantic love. Which is great. But it's not the only love game in town. There's another kind of love that we all...
I have been on a quest lately to find out what it is that truly makes me happy. I'm trying to learn to tell the difference between the considerable fulfillment I experience when I am being productive and simple, straightforward happiness. I have actually had them very...
