Creating Brave Retreat at 1440 Multiversity

1440: Stunning New Retreat Center. Join us for Creating Brave

I am thrilled to be offering this Creating Brave Retreat  at 1440 Multiversity, a stunning new center nestled in a magnificent forest of of redwoods just outside Santa Cruz, California.  This campus is carefully crafted to nurture, educate and inspire! Bring 2017 to a Close by Gifting Yourself Time Step Outside Your Life Pause to…

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Starting a Mindful Creativity Practice

Ongoing Mindful Creativity Mandala

Developing a Mindful Creativity Practice assists us in navigating through the uncharted territories of life. When life presents us with unexpected twists and turns, many times we get knocked off our center.  Having access to restorative resources keeps us afloat and helps us find our way home. Mindful creativity is one of those avenues, allowing us…

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Harvest Despacho Giveaway Contest

despacho ceremony: sacred creations

What is a harvest despacho? Despacho is an Andean amulet-making ceremony, in which the despacho-maker brings various elements into an object and then ritually sends it off. They are traditionally made by Andean shamans for a variety of (often transitional) occasions, from birth rituals to rituals honoring the dead. In a sense, a harvest despacho…

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Despacho Ceremony: Sacred Creations

A Despacho Ceremony

A despacho ceremony is an ancient indigenous ritual of the Andean people of Peru. Despacho literally means to ship or dispatch something.  Creating a despacho is an intentional, focused sacred ceremony in which an amulet-like bundle is filled with natural, biodegradable ingredients. These ingredients hold symbolic elements that represent the prayerful intentions of the despacho-maker.…

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Creating Brave’s Nature Mandala Giveaway Contest

What is a Nature Mandala? Mandala, the Sanskrit word for circle, is a universal symbol of balance, wholeness and unity. Healing Icons, and our upcoming eCourse hub Creating Brave, uses them to quiet the constant buzz of our busy lives and distill our focus to the present moment so that each moment is fully lived.…

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Art as Healing eCourse: Behind the Scenes

Creating Brave: Mindful Mandalas, an art as healing eCourse

In January, it was a glimmer of an idea: Art as Healing: Beginning an eCourse.  Creating an art as healing eCourse was an overwhelmingly daunting experience for me but with the help of some talented people, the process was actually invigorating.   I want you to meet some of the ones who bolstered my confidence and encouraged this…

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Community Healing: The Monks Are Coming!

The Tibetan monks are ready to begin our community mandala.

    A Video Captures Our Story Our community needed healing.  Three weeks before the Tibetan monks were to arrive from the Drepung Loseling Monastery, our city was devastated by a”100 year flood.”  Extremely heavy rains caused our rivers to overflow, which caused many dams to break, which caused huge devastation throughout our community.  Homes were destroyed. Our water…

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Tibetan Inspired Community Art: Mandalas, Talismans and Prayer Flags

Talisman of Healing

  Tibetan Inspired Community Art For our 20th anniversary exhibition, Circles of Life: Making Art, Creating Communities of Hope, I wanted to pay tribute to the Tibetan Culture, as they had influenced the design of my creativity practices for at least 15 years. Curious why Tibet?  Read our earlier post – Travel Inspiration: Stumbling Across the Tibetan Sacred…

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Our Creativity Manifesto: Rules to Live By

“Care of the soul is quite different in scope from modern notions of psychology and psychotherapy.  It isn’t about curing, fixing, changing, adjusting or making healthy, and it isn’t about some idea of perfection or even improvement.  It doesn’t look to the future for an ideal, trouble-free existence.  Rather it remains patiently in the present,…

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