About Me

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Living close to what matters, I strive to remember that the greatest story of all is the one I am living and so to live full and well. This is certainly a work in progress!I am a mixed media artist, healer, mom, wife, muser, lover of the natural world. I am learning always about how to listen with care to what's inside that wants to be expressed, brought out into the light of day...to the stories and adventures of people I care about, and to the folks I share this world with, to honor life's impulses and flow and act to make real the dreams I hold within. I hope to share with you the journey of life, full of creative juice, magic, mystery, and the unexpected!

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

ur happy place for 2/23!




welcome to ur happy place: a refuge for body, mind and soul for 2/23! i'm still recovering from a major chest cold but wanted to give u a nibble on a new project i'm working on to debut 3/29!

it's a 5 week course running five tues. eve's from 6:30-8:30 at serenity massage & wellenss-

your intuitive life: a course to awaken and use your inner gifts and guidance. In it we will explore this and more:


Meditations- learn how to tune in , center, clear, amp up ur energies etc.

Chakras- what they are , how to clear, work with, see them etc.

Auras- what is it, how it functions and brings info to you, how to read them

Psychometry- reading energy from objects

Energy scanning- learning to see what’s coming at work, start ur day out in tune with the energies around you etc.

Esp games- reading answers from inside envelopes, symbol games etc.

Journaling- the importance of documenting, other ways to use it as a tool

Dreams- ur symbols, kinds of dreams, programming urself to remember them etc

Tons of fun practicing the techniques and doing readings!

$150 includes all of the above plus a booklet of take home material and discount at circles of wisdom to buy suggested materials!

Pay all up front and receive the first ongoing class free ($20 value) -which will start after the 5 week series. Or pay as you go.


you might be asking what is intuition and why do i want to develop mine? below i've put together some of my fav. spiritual teachers comments on this for u to peruse. more to follow in the weeks leading up to the class. enrollment is open now- contact me with questions. i hope u'll plan to attend and explore and awaken or further refine ur relationship with our own intuition and live more of your soul's life! enjoy and i'll see you next time...xx

A. Shakti Gawain, from Developing Intuition:

Intuition is a natural ability we are all born with. If our family and our culture support our intuitive gift, it will develop into a natural and practical asset. If not, it may go underdeveloped unless and until we choose to consciously focus on developing it. Some people, however, have an especially strongly developed intuitive sense. They may be born with it, or they may develop it early in life. These are the people we think of as natural psychics. Others may consciously choose to develop their intuitive abilities to the point where they become psychic.

People who are psychic may receive a great deal of intuitive information about themselves and others. Like any other talent, this can be a mixed blessing. Their challenge is to learn to manage this ability in such a way that it works in their lives.

B. Penney Peirce, from The Intuitive Way:

As you contemplate opening your intuition, you ‘re sure to encounter another myth about intuition. Many people associate being intuitive with being psychic. Do you think that if you open your intuition you just might pick the winning lottery numbers? Or know when and where the next big earthquake is going to hit? Intuitive ability is much more than predicting the highs and lows of the stock market or communing with spiritual entities. Psychic phenomena, as it turns out, are often just the first signals of a much greater and all-encompassing wisdom. We notice these paranormal ways of perceiving first because they’re dramatic.

If you persist in the search for a more elegant, more efficient, more loving, more uplifting way of knowing, you’ll follow the intuitive way deeper and deeper into life. Eventually you’ll discover what I have discovered: intuition is not just about knowing who’s calling you on the phone-it’s about attaining crystal –clear perception…you’ll also realize it’s not the opposite of logic- it is a cyclical process, a comrehensive way of knowing life that includes both left-brain analytical thinking and right –brain communion states.

Follow intuition and eventually you’ll experience your soul, in your body, as your personality. Intuition is a powerful tool that can heal the painful split we all feel between our earthy, mundane selves and our divine, eternal selves.. when we realize that our spiritual knowledge is in us right now and always has been, we become filled with light- light –hearted and enlightened.

Living As Your Soul: Spiritual Senses and the True You; Where You’re Headed

A. Gary Zukav, from Seat of the Soul:

We are evolving from five-sensory humans into multi-sensory humans. Our five senses, together, form a single sensory system that is designed to perceive physical reality. The perceptions of a multisensory human extend beyond physical reality to the larger dynamical system of which our physical reality is a part. The multisensory human is able to perceive, and to appreciate , the role that our physical reality plays in a larger picture of evolution, and the dynamics by which our physical reality is created and sustained. This realm is invisible to the five sensory human.

It is in this invisible realm that the origins of our deepest values are found. From the perspective of this invisible realm, the motivations of those who consciously sacrifice their lives for higher purposes make sense, the power of Gandhi is explicable, and the compassionate acts of the Christ are comprehensible in a fullness that is not accessible to the five-sensory human.

All of our great teachers have been or are, multisensory humans. They have spoken to us and acted in accordance with perceptions and values that reflect the larger perspective to the multisensory being and therefore their words and actions awaken within us the recognition of truths.

B. Penney Peirce, from The Intuitive Way:

Intuition can make your life smoother and more fun, but it may also be the crucial skill of the future. …the “normal” beliefs and forms people have identified with are shifting like sand in the Sahara..We need direct access to answers that are both authentic and appropriate to our lives…Intuition will empower you to know what you need to know, just when you need to know it. It will help you become one of the voices of love and truth in the world and give you the advantage of extended perception, heightened clarity, and a renewed sense of magic about life.

C. Echkart Tolle, from A New Earth:

Awakened doing is the outer aspect of the next stage in the evolution of consciousness on our planet. The closer we get to the end of our present evolutionary stage, the more dysfunctional the ego becomes, in the same way that a caterpillar becomes dysfunctional just before it transforms into a butterfly. But the new consciousness is arising even as the old dissolves.

Awakened doing is the alignment is the alignment of your outer purpose-what you do-with your inner purpose- awakening and staying awake. Though awakened doing, you become one with the outgoing purpose of the universe.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

ur happy place 2/16!


welcome to ur happy place: a refuge for body, mind and soul for 2/16!

refining. tweaking. evolving. this week i've been involved in noticing this process. once we ask to live a more conscious way of life, the wheels of change are set in motion. we go thru cycles of inspiration, listening to the muse's whispers, grounding them and making them real in the world and then feeling that wonderful sense of satisfaction when the thing is done, the project finished, the book written, the attic reorganized...then comes the void..the pause.. the exhale..and it begins all over again.

as we become more enlightened, we are increasingly aware of this process in all areas of our lives. if we can stay loose, unattached and fluid, then we keep to our soul's rhythm and its urge to express it self, perhaps in ways that require us to depart our current path and trek off road. if we cling only to what we know, to what others might think, to what our ego or small self is accustomed to, to what we deem safe and acceptable, we may feel ourselves getting antsy, experience a sense of frustration, of seeing only a brick wall or dead end. the longer we resist, the more prone we are to feeling bored, irritable, hopeless or depressed. when we mistakenly interpret the soul's need to grow as a threat to our security, or as rash, irresponsible, impulsive, we dismember our inherent need to stretch, to dance with the divine, to create, design and innovate into new dimensions of space, time and knowledge. we cut ourselves off from the creative forces of the universe and our intrinsic creative nature.

at times like this is can be helpful to ask some questions like: what if we were to just for the heck of it entertain the soul for a bit? what if we were to, instead of shutting it down completely, let it have its say? what would it tell us? maybe it would say something like." you know when i bring up change, i'm signaling you that you've outgrown something. you've finished up what you need to learn, that i'm satisfied and ready for another opportunity. true, it may be on a different time table than you had in mind, but i won't steer you wrong. trust that the next set of coincidences , synchronicities, symbols and signals will come along, that life will take you step by step into the next bright horizon, just the way it did into what you've now mastered."


to put it into perspective, imagine this: a child staying in the first grade for his entire educational process. " what, graduate out of first grade? what do you mean? why would you ever want to do that? you know what to expect, when to eat lunch, when you'll have recess, where the bathroom is, what your math and language arts topics will be. why would you ever want to change that?"

crazy, huh? hmmmm..how many of us stay when it's clearly time to go? why? do we lack Self trust, our ability to find our way, to buck the antiquated system of grab on and hold on for dear life? often we equate change with risk, one of those four letter words we conjure to stay stuck. change is bad, scary, threatening, to be avoided.

but what if risk is simply what's next? a right direction down the soul road of evolution. what if risk means nothing more than taking the next step and then the next step as it appears? could we be ok with not seeing the end of the road before we step onto it? what if risk is nothing more than saying "yes" and "show me". could this be the way of our future as we dismantle humanity's need to fear the unknown? as we lighten up and enlighten ourselves to orientations more in line with ease, open-minded and open- hearted creativity? to aligning with our true divine nature? in this context risk becomes an invitation to play, explore, dream and anchor in an entirely soul based perspective, one that leads to a more soul based life. a life you were born to live.

i extend this invitation to you the next time your soul presents you with that familiar feeling of nearing the end of one road: smile and breathe and say yes.

until next time...xx


Monday, February 7, 2011

ur happy place for 2/9!


photos by niko this weekend....me & dino.

welcome to ur happy place : a refuge for body mind and soul for the week of 2/9! with valentine's day coming up my thoughts have been on the idea of love and what i've learned about it over the years. how do we love? here's a bit i'd like to share with you.

we are living in such turbulent times. spiritually we are being asked to evolve into our greatest selves and part of the upheaval we all feel is related not only to a personal but relational call to do so. our relationships truly offer us an exquisite opportunity to wake up and live to our highest capacity. if we are in sync with our partners for example, we experience a sense of harmony, grace and well being. we feel supported and we offer this same support. we feel unlimited and worthy of the best life has to offer us.

we know however, that life is never static and our souls crave movement, learning and growth. i believe this is why we are here, after all. i wonder if you've noticed, as i have, that our growth spurts are not always parallel to our partners. you may be on a bender of new experience, gaining valuable insights and moving at the speed of light while your mate is still standing at the starting gate. i've worked in session recently with women who are awakening to a more inward and spiritual way of moving through there days; listening to the intuitive impulses, feeling urges to make changes in lifestyle, or altering how they go about making choices. they want to stretch their wings and remake their lives. not surprisingly, some of them have run into resistance from their mates. who is this woman? and where is my wife/girlfriend etc?? why is she rocking the boat? which can mean ,why is she rocking my comfort zone? herein lies the real grist of relationship. what then do we do? can we learn to work in concert playing our own instrument in time with our mates ? or do we have a soul recognition that tells us it's time to branch out and fly solo?

dino and i have had times of great harmony over the years, bliss even, especially in our early years. but as we encountered life's twists and turns, a lay off that eventually meant selling our home and leaving the town and friends we loved for example, we were thrust into the unknown. we struggled to hold onto our sense of self, to care for our individual needs while keeping in mind our commitment to each other. i reacted stubbornly, with anger and resentment at first, having no intention of uprooting my life to move to a town i'd never heard of, in a place where i knew no one, and had no connection to what so ever. it was a painful process for me to release my life, my business, my community and a geography that nourished and filled me. choosing to go with dino was the right thing for me to do, to live with him full time rather then seeing each other on the weekends with me on the cape and him in central massachusetts, two hours away.


the three and 1/2 years we lived there were some of the most bittersweet of my life. We became a family there, having niko, which was a huge life transition. when niko was four months old, dino was offered the job of a lifetime which meant travel, long hours and ha! him working away from us only to return on the weekends! if nothing else we can count on life to have a sly sense of humor. located as we were in a remote area, these times brought me a profound connection with nature, a place where i found great solace and healing. trekking out in the woods with our dog, bandit and with niko nestled in his snuggie sling we'd leave behind the isolation of the four walls and enter a world of sky and light and never ending wonder. being on my own for so much of the time i learned about resilience, deep courage and the power of a mother's heart. but there was no denying that the hardships of navigating through the new world of motherhood, being stretched beyond my endurance in every possible way, took its toll on me and us.

we took on a different meaning and with so few social resources, finding a sitter was nearly impossible. we had no family within easy commuting distance nor had we gained the kind of friendships that allowed share care of any kind.we were both exhausted with niko's quirky sleep patterns. "our time" faded away and so did the life we shared before parenthood. dueling responsibilities to the boys each with their wants kept me pulled this way and that. when i look back at pictures of myself from this time, i see a smiling woman in most of them. for all of the memories of what living there took from me, she reminds me that it also gave to me and created a new kind of us.


we left there having overcome trials that instead of breaking us, brought us closer. we learned to reinvent our rhythms, to appreciate a good night's sleep, and to savor the rare uninterrupted meal. we gained a beautiful child who lit up our days in ways we never imagined possible. i had the pleasure of falling in love again with dino, not simply as my husband but now as niko's father.
birthing niko initiated me into the mysteries of my woman's body, reunited me with my woman's wisdom, instinct and intuition and delivered me back home to the Great Mother, a reunion that grounds, informs and enlightens me to this day.


in the years that have passed dino and i have traveled lots of hills and valleys. life has asked us to risk being more honest, more brave, more understanding, more of our souls. as far as dino is concerned these days, already generous in his loving, he seems to draw from a well of unending generosity, of tender caring, of kind gestures. he is the one who buys flowers every week just because, the one who sees me as beautiful at 5:30am bed head and all, who tells me he has loved "all of my bodies" pre and post baby and each one in between. he's the one who can't wait to come home just to chat. through my marriage with him i claimed the roles of wife and mother and realigned with my deep feminine nature. with him i've had a most precious example of what it means to love. he has taught me how to forgive when i don't really want to, how to laugh when i want to scream, how to dig down deeper, to commit again and again. i am more fully my soul for having shared my days with him. am i lucky or have i chosen wisely? maybe a little of both.

i wish for us all to find love in this life. though so much of what i know of love has come through my bond with dino, love is limitless. we can find love in the eyes of a friend, a lover, a child, a stranger. it makes no difference. may we find it first within our own deep hearts and then within each heart we meet along the way.

happy heart day!


until next time...xx