visual journaling

Discovery

| Sheree

#decemberreflections2017 – day 11 – I have discovered that I would be lost, lost I tell you without my visual journalling practice. This practice grounds me, centred me, plugs me right back into the core of me. I have been lucky enough to share this practice with different groups of women this year. I hope to expand this reach in 2018. Did I mention I’m running a creative retreat in Iceland where visual journalling will be at the heart of this adventure?
Only two places left. #discovery #womenscreativity #empoweringwomen #creativeiceland #icelandretreat

Burning Woman

| Sheree

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This year I attempted to make a concerted effort to read more books. I felt that I was missing out on rich and varied worlds and ideas by not reading enough. I started off well but I think things went off the boil mid-year, when things in my family life got a bit hectic and harrowing.

I’m trying to pick things up now moving into 2018. To choose just one book as the best for the year is something I cannot do. Also you usually just remember the last few books you’ve read as they are the most recent. To think back over the year, if you haven’t been keeping track is difficult to do anyway. Note to self: keep a record of what I read next year!!!

So I choose Burning Woman by Lucy H. Pearce on the premise that this is one of the books I have kept returning to over the year as it is so packed with juicy truths that resonate with me deeply. This is kind of like a handbook for claiming our power as women internally and externally. I definitely claim the title of a burning woman. #decemberreflections2017

ten:two

| Sheree

1. Up at 5.30am.
2. The whole centre to myself. Silence.
3. The mist rising off the reservoir into grey.
4. The warm glow of women gathering.
5. Smearing colour across white spaces claiming voice.
6. Hummus, falafel, kebabs and naan.
7. Hot boiling black tea with a hint of cardamom.
8. Walking out back amongst the pines.
9. Larch cones clinging to dark branches.
10. Joy.

Shifting Loyalties

| Sheree

I’m getting ready for the off again. Remember my time in residence on a canal boat with idlewomen? I facilitated a visual journaling workshop for women while there which was really inspiring. Well off the back of that, I’ve been invited back as a guest speaker/ presenter at their informal conference for women in Lancashire next week.

Shifting Loyalties is a gathering of women. Establishing in 2016 in collaboration with Silvia Federici in 2016,
for a week we’ll be living together near Pendle, a place known for its persecution of women as witches in the 1600s, utilising the space to have critical conversations and self-organising against society’s treatment and representation of women. This is an opportunity to share stories and experiences at the same time as becoming empowered as a sisterhood to make change, internally and externally.

All week I’ll be sharing my visual journaling practices through workshops and a drop-in room hopefully inspiring and encouraging other women to explore and adopt this creative practice for self-care and self-awareness.

I’m pulling together my resources and materials, gathering journal prompts that I feel will be accessible as well as beneficial for us to dive deep within safely and effectively when I realise that I could be a witch.

Witch. I really haven’t considered it before but I’ve got witchy tendencies. I believe in the Divine Goddess. I worship the natural world; Great Mother Earth. I observe and honour the Wheel of the Year, sensitive to the seasons and rituals as we cycle through the year. This year, during Samhain, I spent time at my altar conversing with my dead ancestors.  I look upon this path I’m on as magical, empowering me to grow, change and heal.

I call myself a Wild Soul Woman who listens to the wisdom within; my intuition and instincts. This is where my power lies. Maybe this isn’t the mainstream way of thinking and believing. But this is my truth.

The Witch was feared because she ( and sometimes he) lived “outside” the natural order. They represented a different way of living that challenged the status quo. Self-contained and self-possessed, they were a threat that could not be explained  and had to be eliminated.

Unfortunately, witch hunts still happen today in such places as Africa and India where old women are killed on the mere accusation of being a witch.  It saddens me that women who know their own power and worth and self-determine their lives, are persecuted and destroyed.

I’m hoping that my time at Shifting Loyalties will clarify my thoughts and feelings around this realisation at the same time as strengthening my voice in speaking out. ‘shifting loyalties is another beginning…’

 

Inner Truth

| Sheree
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Click here to visit The Phoenix Soul.

We are raw & real. Grit & grace. Truth-speakers. Heart-on-our-sleevers. Love-believers. You are. I am. We are The Phoenix Soul. – Amanda Fall

I chose the wrong month to be on a hiatus as I’m bubbling with excitement. There  are so many amazing things I want to share with you, what are happening right now, in this moment. And they fill me with joy. Big-wide-smiling-joy. You know the kind, you’ve seen my self-portraiture. You know it’s that smile.
It gives me great pleasure to share with you my Truth Tribe interview with the lovely Amanda Fall, creator and publisher of The Phoenix Soul magazine.

The Phoenix Soul has been on my radar for a few years now, ever since I read Beth Morey and followed Teresa Robinson, creator of Right Brain Planner.
What appealled to me about this magazine is the openess, the honest sharing and communication between a sisterhood of inspiring and creative women. I aspired to be part of this community as I worked through the trauma and grief of being alone, ostracised without such support and encouragement.

Over the past couple of years, through my work and practice of becoming my authentic self, I have enjoyed the privilege of sharing my words, images, thoughts and feelings via social media, which at one time was the death of me. Within this digital space, I have found my voice again. So it is really humbling and awe-inspiring when someone I admire, who is doing great work out there, reaches out to me and asks me to be involved in a beautiful project.

I jumped at the chance to be interviewed for The Phoenix Soul because I appreciate the truth-telling that this magazine shares. I gasp at and empathise with the women who share their stories within, expose their vulnerabilities with such strength and courage. I aspired to stand amongst these women. And now I do.

Selling for $6, each issue of The Phoenix Soul magazine is packed with oodles of  juiciness. Pages of hand-crafted mixed media backgrounds in full color with handwritten love notes from Amanda fill the reader with hope, healing and love. Soul-centred and truth-telling, words and imagery combine to provide a powerful, intimate read.

Have I mentioned  how honoured I am to be part of this tribe? Head on over and grab your copy today and I’d be mighty surprised if you aren’t inspired, affected and empowered by what you explore within The Phoenix Soul.
Click here to visit The Phoenix Soul.

The Creative Retreat Iceland Is Here

| Sheree


When I was at my lowest a couple of years ago, I channelled what little energy I had left into a pipe dream.
I didn’t have much money or direction. I was working on myself from the inside out but wasn’t sure of the path. But my soul whispered to trust; trust in myself.

I’m not sure when Iceland came onto my radar, but it has always captivated me. It always seemed to me to be a distance mythical land that would remain thriving within my imagination and never become a reality. Until I took action and made the decision to invest in myself.

I booked a flight to Iceland with a credit card without much time to reconsider or second guess myself. I didn’t have a plan, I just took one small step after another to create this trip away. Booked the flight, then thought about places to stay. I thought this would be my only chance to get to Iceland so I’d try to see as much as the country as possible. I booked a hire car, and started to plan my route around the whole island, stopping each night in a different place. Hotels, motels and hostels, whatever was available I made the bookings. My dream was becoming a reality because I was believing in myself. Believing that I could do this.

By the time I reached Iceland, May 2015, I had a map and a plan but I was still scared. I’d never visited the country before, I hadn’t driven there, and I certainly didn’t speak the language. But I’d been dreaming about this and now it was happening so I made a promise to myself to just enjoy it. Go with the flow and enjoy.

The sun was shining that first day I drove north out of the Reykjavik, onto the ring road, heading to the Western peninsula of Snæfellsnes. It was just me and Beyoncé’s Lemonade, in that car. This trip to Iceland changed my life. And that’s not hyperbole because by the end of my time there, I felt empowered, I felt free and back to me, the authentic me. I had done it all by myself for myself and I felt amazing. I also knew I had to return to Iceland, and keep returning to develop our relationship as we were speaking to each other on a deep level, on a soulful level.

I have returned to Iceland twice since then and I’m planning to return in 2018. And I’d like you to come with me. I didn’t have anyone with me to show me the way, so I found my way around one step at a time. I would love to be your guide, your safe and supportive passage into Iceland. I would love to share my love of Iceland with you. Go check out the Iceland – The Retreat page, to see what I have planned for our time together. Any questions, just get in touch.

unleashing joy 

| Sheree

You can access joy only when three conditions are present: a state of lively engagement with life, a receptive and spacious heart, and a respect for other beings than ourselves. Celtic Spirit: Daily Meditation for the Turning Year, Caitlin Matthews

Sharing Practice

| Sheree

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For the past week, I’ve been sharing my practice of visual journaling on social media. I do this because I love to share what I do but also because I love to break down barriers, those obstacles we put up between us and our creativity.

If you take the time to watch these quick and simple videos, you will see that it’s easy to get beyond the blank page. That it’s easy to start getting our thoughts and feelings down on paper. All we need to do is DO IT! To make that start and see what happens. Not sure where to start? Watch the videos. I use craft paint or acrylics or even water coloured paints. Anything that gives the page an explosion of colour and moves me out of my critical mind and into my body, into the moment.

Here are the videos showing my step by step approach for getting from the blank page to a page of images and words that inspire me to keep dreaming on paper.

If you like what you see consider coming along to the next workshop that I’m running around visual journaling.

Visual Journaling 1

Visual Journaling 2

Visual Journaling 3

Visual Journaling 4

Visual Journalling Workshop

| Sheree

 

I’m moving forward. I’m taking a leap. I’m putting myself out there.
I’m planning a visual journalling workshop in my local area for 21st October 2017.
This is something I’ve been wanting to offer for a couple of years now but the time hasn’t been right.
But maybe there isn’t ‘the right’ time. Maybe when you do it that’s the right time.
I’m working with a local charity, Old Low Lights Heritage Centre. They have a lovely, spacious and light
community room that you can hire for events.

What is visual journalling? This is something I get asked and it’s something I’ve tried to answer here on the website with different posts about my practice.
At it’s basic level, visual journalling is play. Play in a safe space; your own journal.
It’s a space where you can explore your thoughts and feelings without fears or worries or judgement because those barriers are sidetracked through the doing.

Within any visual journal workshop, we get rid of the blank page straight away with paint. We use disused credit cards and gift cards to smear the colours that are calling to our souls over the white spaces. Just by doing this small, simple act our energies have shifted, we’re out of our heads and into our bodies, feeling joy and excitement within creativity.

From this point, while we allow the paint to dry we can start collecting images. Images that we are drawn to, that are calling us, that are the answer to a certain theme we’re exploring in our lives, a question we are holding in our minds, or an issue we are trying to work through. Theses images will become part of our journal pages as well as our journeys. Images have a way of cutting right to the chase, right to the core of an issue and anchors into us to create a shift in our feelings and thinking.

Once we’ve laid down some images, we work with a specific writing prompt to get us to open up to ourselves more. This is all taking place in a group yet the details are all within your unique journal. You experience the support of the people around you, the sisterhood, as you bravely dive into yourself.

But enough for now. The details of the workshop are on the flyer above and you can always contact me for further details.