Hola from holidaying

mango sorbet melting on the beach
becoming enchanted by "Mists of Avalon"
sisters and brothers and mothers and fathers and many more
handgliding down into a green valley
riding a golf buggy around a tropical island
vision quests with animal healing
three soaring groups of ducks circling over my head
a family of hawks in a strangler fig
and that yellow belly black snake who was just as afraid of me
hot noodles when it is way too hot to eat
my favourite store in the whole wide world - the sanctuary - and my favourite store owners in the whole wide world.
mustering cattle on my old chestnut mare jeremiah
dirty feet and the requisite thongs
my lover and me.

deepest blessings of the season to you.
no matter what season you are in.

:)

Internet Sale

Wanting to start the new year with a fresh perspective and a luminous avatar for joy? I've decided to have an Internet sale on some works ready to spread their wings out into the world. All works are on canvasses, and are ready to hang on the wall. The edges of the panel have been painted, so this piece can hang straight on the wall or on a small stand without being framed.

If you think one of these babies is the perfect Christmassy present for a beloved, I can do you up a personal gift card to give to them to let them know some magic is coming their way.

Please email me - leonie@gmail.com if you are interested in any of the pieces. I accept bank account deposits (from Australians), credit card transactions from all over the world through www.paymate.com.au, money orders or Western Union money transfers. I will also accept book swaps for the Angels Surround Us striped artwork and the four seperate pieces of The Universe is Conspiring to shower you with blessings. Your piece will be mailed off in the new year, along with its own personal hand written blessings card.

If you see the one you like has already been sold, don't be sad, be GLAD! hee hee hee... If one takes your heart ~ let me know and I can create another one for you as a commission, and use your favourite colours.

In the meantime, I'm off on holidays, to the islands and the ocean and my family.

I want to thank each of you for this year. It has been magical beyond my wildest expectations. I am so grateful for your energies, your presence, your comments, emails and support.

Deep blessings to you in your festive seasons,
love,
Leonie

dream BIG
and drink in the joy.

(P.S. Click on images to enlarge)

SOLD to someone who is blessed.

SOLD to a butterfly woman

SOLD to the gorgeous lady in red.

SOLD to the birthday girl

SOLD to someone who believes in miracles

Day in dot points

* Talk to the amazing Donna this morning for the first time. She is energy aware and throaty and divine and bolstered me to dream BIG.

* I "drop by" the shops to get some more canvasses. I didn't realise the Christmas shoppers would be out in their hordes on Sundays. Makes me really, really glad we are having a love*filled and present*less Christmas this year.

* Driving, I sing to U2's One, and really HEAR it for the first time.

"We’re one
But we’re not the same
We get to carry each other
Carry each other...

Love is a temple
Love a higher law
Love is a temple
Love the higher law

One love
One blood
One life
You got to do what you should

One life
With each other
Sisters
Brothers

One life
But we’re not the same
We get to carry each other
Carry each other

One

One."

* Our team BBQ this afternoon out by the river. Mike and I decide to work off our four steaks and two vegetarian sausages (respectively) by climbing a mountain. It was good to be out there again, walking in the alpine country. We met a caterpillar friend and decided half way up that following the contour trail was too dull for us go-getters, and bush-bashed our way to the top. We felt like CHAMPIONS up there.


* We walked our way to the other side of the mountain, and looked out to a gorgeous view of Cotter Dam. So worth the scratches, just to see the place where the valleys, lakes and mountains reached to kiss the sky.



* We stumbled our way down. I have scratched hands and a smile on my face.
Somedays it is those serendipitous adventures, those ones that just HAPPEN, that are the best of all. It gave me faith that I could do just as I pleased. And if that means not following the trail, then I will have a damn good time of it.


"You don't get to choose how you're going to die.
Or when.
You can decide how you're going to live now."
~ Joan Baez

A radiant love letter to myself

i love myself so much that i took the leap
and had my first art market today
with all my paintings
and i didn't sell a single thing
but i had the most wonderful day anyway

i love that my day was joyous and simple in my market day camping chair
that i fell deeply into MISTS OF AVALON
ate delicious vegetarian rice paper rolls
drank apple cider lemonade
and listened to the gorgeous busker near me who sang my favourite songs all day
i love that i loved this

and i love that i don't feel erred by it
don't feel stuck or sad or confused
i just feel peace because i know i'm doing a loving, conscious thing anyway
and that art pours from my soul
and that it is invaluable,
even if nobody buys it on a really slow market day.

i love that i am being what my own best friend would do to me ~
stroking my hair, arms wrapped around me,
saying I LOVE YOU JUST AS YOU ARE
you don't need to explain anything away
you are just as you are, and that is the most beautiful thing of all.

i love that i know now more than ever
that success has nothing to do with it
whether one painting sells, the whole lot, or none at all
the fact that i still am radiating
that i still am going to create
is beauty enough. that is success and that is love of the divine.

i will go back to the markets again
and i will enjoy my day
and everything will be JUST FINE
even if it reveals to me that markets aren't for me,
if they are partly for me,
or not at all,
i have a deep feeling that divine spirit has a grand plan for me.

i love you leonie
i married you under that rock four months ago
i promised i would remember to love you no matter what
and i DO
i promised to honour your highest truth
and i DO
sometimes it scares the shit out of me,
but we leap together holding hands.
i cradle you gently when we feel soft and messy and out of sorts,
i love you just as you are,
and i will continue to.

love
leonie
the highest spirit

office party gurus

alex and dave

what i've been manifesting for a while now:
divine connections. it's written in a dozen journal wish lists,
and symbolised in a number of wishboards.

i see it working in my life.

today we had our office christmas party.
i thought it was going to be a whole heap of sweaty crazy dancing {as per usual}.
there was some of that, but not the sum of it.

no, i think the sum of it was talking to alex and dave,
using a strawberry to paint red pigment on each other's foreheads,
and calling each other guru.

lessons in seeing the divinity in everyone can come at
any time.
any place.
even an office christmas party...

You're beautiful, it's true...

Out There

"Out There
you'll see it all.
The floating ends will meet and mend, and you will be yourself;
your fully-formed, though always changing, self of selves.
Every clumsy backward look will pay for itself.
Every tear you've cried, or wanted to cry, will set your broken bones.
The rips in your heart will no longer need to be guarded by steel
girders,
banyan trees,
or even rice paper.
Not so much as a dragonfly's wing will you need
to cover the bludgeoned place,
to protect the private you you love so much and hope to save intact
from what has seemed years of relentless pummelling.
Go and live and love in peace, my friend...


... for surely there is love to enfold you,
and life to be feasted upon;
our portion is boundless.
Love will be the more you've wanted.
You will know it when you see it.
You will love yourself as no lover has ever had the courage to love;
and the warmth you've wanted will line your pillowcases,
dance upon your windowsill, and hide at the ends of your socks
awaiting your toes."

by Deborah Mears

{with thanks to Padraigan for discovering and sharing it}


These beautiful pictures were sent to me by my darling friend Donna. She is a floral designer and an all round glorious soul. She is a gift to the world indeed. I deeply encourage you to click on the above pictures to see them full size. See all the crystals, stones, frangipanis and miracles in each. They take my breath away... I don't think I've ever seen my words so lovingly and deliciously honoured!

Today I give thanks to:

beautiful words
beautiful images
and
beautiful friends.

love,
Leonie

I'm in heaven...

"I have never met a person whose greatest need
was anything other than real, unconditional love."
~ Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

:: so joyful that Lunation Occult & Magical Store is opening in Canberra City!

:: Imagine yourself in India, Venice or China with Intrepid Travel's Put yourself in the travel picture game. Can't WAIT to do India next year with them!

:: Via the beautiful bajaboy ~ the incredible video of the Dance of the thousand hand Bodhisattva. "In Buddhist tradition, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva (the buddha of great compassion) is depicted with eleven heads, and 1000 hands with an eye in the palm of each hand. The symbolism of the thousand hands and eyes are in the buddha's compassion to see and reach out to the suffering of all sentient beings. The fact that the participants in this dance depicting that symbolism are all deaf... simply has me in complete awe."

:: And, you will now see in the left taskbar over there
<----------------------
a sign up box for blogarithm, so you will get email updates when I update this blog. You can also add the rest of the blogs you watch on there, and get your update notices in a once daily email. I tried to implement RSS feed on here but lovingly have no idea. :)

:: Go OUT. Be BRAVE.

Brunch with the marvellouses

Juliana, Bianca, Deb, Louie, Raquel and Bernie

What better a way
to spend a sunny Sunday morning
than to sit out over the lake
eat pancakes
and be with the marvellouses:
my womens circle.

Huli and Bee

They know just how to hold me, hug me, and ask me:
how are you?
{Sometimes I don't know the answer}

Bee and me

"There comes that mysterious meeting in life
when someone acknowledges who we are and what
we can be, igniting the circuits of our highest potential."
~ Rusty Berkus

Louie and Raquel

It has been a year since they came into my life.
And now I can't picture life without them.

Louie said to me ~
Knowing you is like watching an interesting movie.
Then you realise it is in a different language,
so you turn on the subtitles.
Oh! Now I get it!
And it turns out to be a wonderful film once you have the subtitles and can understand it.

I think that is the most wonderful compliment I've ever received.


Deepest blessings to you my womyn.
For showing me all I can be, and loving me right where I am.

Me and the beautiful Deb.

This Saturday...

"Every artist dips his brush in his own soul,
and paints his own nature into his pictures."

~ Henry Ward Beecher

journeying into vegetarianism

leonie: professional grass watcher and lover

It has been less than a week since I made the decision to become a vegetarian.
I wanted to share with you the insights thus far.

This is BETTER than being on a diet.
It makes me conscious of what I am eating, and what I am actively choosing to nourish my body. I feel so much more joyful when it comes to eating food now. I don't have to switch off my mind. I don't have to try to ignore what an animal sacrificed in order for me to eat it. My mind feels peaceful now, and my belly feels like it is smiling.

I'm now so much more aware of what I can choose to eat. I haven't just cut out meat from my life - I have started eating more fruit, more tofu, more good things that make me feel good. I find my tastebuds adjusting, and no longer wanting to eat *gasp* as much sugar as before. And this is coming from a Sugar QUEEN.

My friend Juliana told me her experience of being mostly vegetarian ~ she told me to become aware of my sensitivity around violence, news on TV and drunk/disorderly people. Another vegetarian friend has agreed with this, and said he is unable to watch mindless violence on TV now that he actively chooses compassion in his day to day life.

I'm already very sensitive to violence and keep a strict movie diet of romantic comedies, documentaries and gentle drama. I often find myself prickling up in tears over the news. Last night I was watching ELF and started to cry when Buddy Elf decided to leave the North Pole, and Papa Elf was saying goodbye. {And: this isn't the first time I have watched Elf. It wasn't an unexpected goodbye}. I wonder just how much more sensitive can I get. It will be interesting to see how this one develops.

Journeying into vegetarianism has also meant the discovery of new food that I would have never have tried otherwise. I was worried about missing Chicken Pad Thai and Lamb & Tabouli Kebabs. This week I've found some replacements - Tofu Pad Thai (highly scrumptious) and the wonder of FELAFEL kebabs. Let me prostrate before the god who invented felafels. Let me kiss your feet as you have made my belly sing like no other. I know felafels aren't the newest of foodstuffs inventions, but I've just never tried them before. I was a loyal lamb kebab eater. I tend to find something I like and just eat it everytime. Being vegetarian has pushed me out of my comfort zone and into new realms of discovery.

Last night we made another discovery - vegetarian sausages. I thought they would be poo. Wrong. They are incredibly tasty! *insert happy, smiling face*
They were just the thing to watch M*A*S*H re-runs with. {How on earth does that show still manage to be so funny 25 years on?}

So a week into my journey, I'm giving it the double thumbs up, and a big shiner of a smile.

Thank you to all for your advice, encouragement and love. I deeply appreciate it.

Off to the studio. Less than a week until my first market!

love
leonie-lover-of-felafels

{PS: Wanted to just affirm that this is *my* journey. What feels good to me doesn't necessarily mean it's right for everyone. Deepest blessings.}

Confession time.

I was reading the fabulous Natalie Mac's Things to Do this life list...
Number 375 is Leave the bed unmade for a month.

And I was startled.
I called hunky man to the computer, and read it out to him.
We both sat startled for a while.

In all the five years we have lived together,
I cannot remember a time we have actually made the bed.

It seems the moment I left boarding school and my parents' home,
the concept went flying off out into the stratosphere.
I had actually forgotten bed making existed.

huh.

{Don't get me wrong,
I'm not even entertaining the thought of re-inserting this back in my life,
but it's somewhat refreshing to sit here, ponder my bed making deficit,
shrug my shoulders, and say
huh
in those well i'll be darned tones
and smile}

any confessions of your own?

vegetarian path

i made a decision last night to become vegetarian for a while... to try it out, see if the lifestyle fits me, how it makes me feel.

this has been coming for a little while...

i actually grew up on a beef farm and ate beef pretty much everyday for lunch and dinner. since moving out i've been eating meat progressively less and less... i usually eat lamb or chicken once or twice a week, the rest of the nights are vegetarian.

when i eat meat now, i don't enjoy it really. i feel some sadness for the life lost. i think it's cool if you can eat meat and thank the animal sincerely for sacrificing its life for your nourishment... but I don't feel able to do this. I tend to turn off all thoughts, and just plow it into my mouth.

And i want to live my life consciously.

Last night i was reading Ram Dass' book "Be Here Now." He was speaking about the energies of the food we eat. If we eat something made with love, it changes that food, and it changes us. I know this to be entirely true. My dear friend Deb is a goddess. She pours her heart into her cooking, and whenever you eat it, you feel noticeably different. My belly feels so happy and nourished after eating her food. Even a cup of tea made by Deb tastes different. I have noticed this time and time again.

Ram Dass wrote about the energy that is in meat. Before an animal dies, it experiences fear, and adrenaline surges through all parts of its body. This is the energy you are eating.

It struck me so much in that moment that I knew I wanted to try a different way of living.

So here I am. Just after New Moon. Wanting to create a life filled with peace and consciousness.

I would love to hear of your stories of becoming vegetarian, why you chose to, any challenges you faced... also any advice or your fave recipes would be greatly appreciated.

thank you in advance.

turquoise goddess...

"I do not want to die... until I have faithfully made the most of my talent and cultivated the seed that was placed in me until the last small twig has grown. "
~Kathe Kollwitz

Another monday, another day in the studio. {Hurrah!}

Have discovered new ways to get into the artiste groove.
When painting, I like to "theme" my music according to the feel of the work. Today I took it a step further and dressed up in a long turquoise skirt and jangly earrings, to get in touch with the inner desert dancing goddess.


Wishing you the most imaginative of days...

{i shall leave you wondering about this desert dancing womyn adorned in blue}

it is true.

my gorgeous friend juliana.

"The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep."
~ Jalaluddin Rumi


What to say, what to say, what to say?
My days have been filled...
The veneer of normal day is becoming more transparent,
and I see gentle rainbows forming in the liquid nature of life.

Serendipity, ritual and consciousness become a part of every day.
Connections and friendships forged on matters of the soul.
Learn my lessons, and re-learn them again.

I lay on my green couch as a gentle spring breeze wafts through,
reading the transcendental "Be Here Now" by Ram Dass.
I don't get it all now. But I don't need to get it all now.
As he says ~

"You've got to go
at the rate
you can go.

You wake up
at the rate
you wake up.

You're finished with your desires
at the rate
you finish with your desires.

You can't rip
the skin off the snake.
The snake must moult the skin.
That's the rate it happens."

So I live life at Leonie~Pace.
It doesn't need to be any other way.


Drink up them creative juices ~

:: Robert Genn's article on Creating or Consuming - living the authentic life.
:: Keri Smith writes about Doing it anyway - creating courageously.
:: Am *drinking up* the SEED Handbook by Lynne Franks. If you're an artist, writer or goddess with a seedling of a business idea, this book will comfort you and help you lovingly deal with those businessy things that you'd usually prefer to run shreaking from.
:: Eyeing off the book 52 Projects - Random Acts of Everyday Creativity
:: and HURRAH for the Illustration Friday Art Forums!


And tomorrow...
it is MONDAY! My art day Mondays!

But right now... I am right here. Writing to you.
Right here now, I remember the sight of heart flowers blooming, both yours and mine,
and in the highest, most sacred and knowing place of myself,
I know this to be true.

Stall at Old Bus Depot Markets

I'm having a stall with art on sale at the Old Bus Depot Markets in Kingston, Canberra on ~

Saturday 17 December
10am - 4pm

Put it in your calendars people... and I'll see your smiling faces there!

goddess of the garden: where the wild things are

She is wildish, deeply sentimental,
has earth beneath her nails,
and is at home beneath the sky.

She is vivacious,
gently speaks of her truth,
and fills her house with vases of roses.

Dragonflies and butterflies flit out from the tangles that are her hair.
She evokes the energy of Gaia, earth mama goddess.

She is the goddess of the garden,
the womyn who dances barefoot in all of us
whether we walk on cow trodden paths in the morning before the heat comes,
or tend to flowers in windowsills as we gaze out onto the street below.


She is love,
she is the tender moment,
the sweet smelling of roses
at dawn.

she is where the wild things are
inside us.
where the kangaroos stride
the buffalo run
the elephants, the bears,
the winged ones.
she is the wolf,
and she is the most delicate of petals.

~

see where more of the wild things are at Studio Friday