Out of office: On an abundant rampage

the last time we spent much time together...
was when i was younger and he was a baby...
and now he's a boy...
Joshy and proud Aunty Loney



Hey hey divine hotties,

just wanted to blow kisses and flecks of dandelions ~

I am off on a jet plane to spend a week with my family, painting and creating, playing with the-ones-who-still-believe-in-fairies (children), roadtripping in a ute with my lil sista, enjoying simple and loving times, walking in the warm tropical weather, dust flecked on my legs, photographing the women in my family.

All I had to do was say YES and jump into the possibility.
Wishing you the same courage and love.

Until I return ~
have a universal ho-down!
Love and light,
Leonie

P.S. I like what you've done with your hair today. Natural is always gorgeous.

belly medicine

I'm learning the medicine of belly lately, it seems.

Last week my belly was so bloated and round that I played a little trick.
I walked into the office of a good mate who is like an uncle to me. I held my hand to my belly, and smiled widely at A, telling him I had some big and great news.
He positively *squealed*:
"What! You're getting married? You're pregnant???"
I smiled even bigger, and said
"Give me your hand"
He did, and I placed it over my belly.
"Can you feel it, A?"
"OH MY GOD! You're pregnant!!!"
"No" (I grin even wilder) "I'm BLOATED! I'm so PROUD!"
He squealed and bubbled into laughter.

Belly medicine is still teaching me though, it seems.
Sensitive, swollen. Rotund, radiant. Nausea and breath taking cramps.
The last few days I have been falling asleep with my hand curved protectively around my belly. I am holding myself like a pregnant woman might hold a soul that is growing into this world.
In some way, I am.
I wonder if I am indeed bearing child. I don't believe I am, but I do not wish to clarify the situation for answers either. Presently I feel comfortable, dancing and swirling between worlds, holding my belly, holding myself, bearing what is to come and already is.
I am pregnant with possibility, with the birth of Leonie as a woman, and the delivery of creations into this world. Our magnificent selves and our artistic ways are our creations. We are the Mothers of the Muse, the Midwives to the Goddess.

Yes, we are all necessary. Needed.

The best moments of my last 24 hours was making dinner last night in the kitchen with the windows broad open, the spring breeze coming through. Cooking up and transforming these beautiful vegetables into nourishing food.

Cooking has come to be like soul work, I remain in the moment, and hum under my breath, and bless each piece of food mindfully. I keep conscious that I am pouring love into this food so we may take it into our bodies and nourish ourselves inward out.

Turning ourselves inwards out.
Holding the precious belly that is myself.
Birthing and nourishing.

In pictures

A perfect spring day
Setting up a creating picnic in the backyard
My golden dog
Biting into a mandarin, having mandarin stains on my shirt
The green of grass, the blue of sky
The splosh of paint
Writing in the sun.














Love,
Us

Spring Out of Office

Have set up office in the backyard.
Check out my Exclusive Charlie Foot Rest.

Too nice to be doing anything but being outdoors and creating today, so I'm off!

"Trees are in love with the earth; the earth is in love with the trees. The birds are in love with the trees; the trees are in love with the birds. The earth is in love with the sky; the sky is in love with the earth. The whole existence exists in a great ocean of love. Let love be your worship, let love be your prayer."
~ Osho

Springing into Spring

It is the beginning of a new season, a new cycle of life.
How do I want this one to be?

This is how I want to remember Spring 2006:

Eating fresh fruit in the grass. A pear in the park, a shared orange on the patio with my lover.

Watching the trees serenade into a chorus of green overnight.

Planning and planting the seeds for our new garden.

Making collages in bed.

Growing deeper in friendship with other souls.

Being gentle with my body, falling in love with myself through yoga and body balance. The sacredness of stretching.

Writing the lyric tunes of spirit to sing to the world. How beautiful you are, world. How beautiful you are, each of you. How beautiful our stories are.

Using the energy of crystals to connect with my highest truth and speak it.

Singing more. Trusting in the timbre of my voice and the strength in my belly.

I want to finally get that b a l a n c e thing worked out. Less computer time, more Life time.

Holding my belly more. Nurturing me, showering myself with love as a woman bearing a new soul would.

I want to remember this time as being
playful, radiant and alive. I want to
jump into my dreams and feel comfortable there.

I want to be a goddess of laughter, living, gentleness and creation.


Who do you want to be?
What do you call for from your season?

love,
Leonie

get the funk out

I woke up this morning in such a funk
(what IS going around in the energy fields lately!~)
that I thought:
If I can just get through today,
and go to Body Balance class tonight,
I will regard today as being Hugely Successful.
No pressure for anything else ~ just BEing okay.
No expectations. Just make it through the day.

And then today was Spring.
And they forecast for it to be 22 degrees.
We haven't been over 20 degrees in oh so very many months.

So we decided to have a 22 degree party.
A picnic in the park.
A celebration of spring.

We removed our symbols of bondage - ties and shoes.



We planted ourselves firmly in the earth.

We frolicked.







We boogied.



We had kips in the sun.



We were uber cool. How on earth can we Be so cool?



We played halo angels.



We stretched those bodies of ours.



We made love to the camera (Be a TIGER leonie... a TIGER!)



Our most distinguished member even did cartwheels. You have to be so very cool to do cartwheels when you're 12. You are triply so when you do them at age 42. (Mr P, you deserve a badge!)



I wanted just to make it through the day,
I didn't expect this fandango celebration of 22 degrees.
but it happened.
it goes down in those history making events
of when cool people do extraordinary things.
I like to think so anyway.



I want to offer my heart (cracker) to my accomplices in Serendipitous Season~Loving:
Lilly Pilly, eBear, Diana, Nickorama and Mr Paris.


(And now I'm off to Body Balance. It's true. Today was Hugely Successful.)

universe knows best

great mystery snapshots...

This was going to be an entirely different post than what it is.

Last night I wanted to write about emotional blow outs, which I still want to do, but I also wish to share how the Universe has magical plans for us that we may not see at the time.

I had the equivalent of a car tyre blow out last night.

I hadn't written a thing all day - on my "writing" day, which made me feel awful. All I had done was collage some cards (which looked pretty super, but soooo a distractionary tactic!)
And then there's so much happening in my life at the moment - big stuff and good stuff - but it is energy shifting. I am learning to speak my truth, stay centred in my energy and be the peaceful warrior of my spirit.
And then buying a house and the weight of a mortgage.
And then we put our car in for a service. They took an hour and a half longer than they were supposed to, so by the time we got it, I was too late to go to my illustration class. And I really don't like missing things.

So all of this resulted in me crashing on the couch in tears, sobbing how I felt like a failure for Not Having It All Together. Ah yes, the Task of Having It All Together. Of everything being digestable, easy, functioning and all good. When Chris asked me if I was okay, I told him I'd just blown out one of my tyres. It's been a long time since that happened, and I wondered how things would be different now. Just how far into the abyss I wanted to fall, discover and grovel in. I wondered if I would fall or fly; if I would eat my way out and listen to bad songs and continue to spiral down; or if I could find a new way to hear my heart and comfort myself.

I wondered why I had to miss illustration, why tonight was necessary, how this all worked in the big scheme of things, why did I need to be at home tonight, and why oh why did I feel this way.



When the tears subsided I took a long hot shower, took myself to my studio, took out my largest canvas and began fingerpainting in my favourite colours. As it dried, I wrote letters with paint stained fingers.

I started to feel the calm return inside of me, lapping at my shore. I began to feel okay again, that it could be okay, that I am okay just as I am.

And then a phone call came. It was my friend Lile. "Are you coming to the scrapbook party tonight at Mich's?" With shock, I remembered I'd received an invitation, but declined as I thought I would be elsewhere. "No, I wasn't, but I'll see you there in 20 minutes!"

I think I danced out that door, my teary face now resplendent with a cheesy grin. I drove there talking to the Universe: HOW GOOD ARE YOU UNIVERSE! YOU SO HAD ME THERE!

At the door, Mich greets me: "I thought you weren't supposed to be coming tonight?"
"The universe had better plans for me" I reply.
"How good is that!"

So there I was, in a room full of women I love, having a hardcore gigglefest. Releasing with laughter instead of tears (my healer friend D tells me they have the same releasing energy anyway).

And maybe that's exactly what needed to happen.
Maybe that's exactly where I needed to be.

The Universe had better plans for me, and once I accepted the Great Mystery, the blessings came flooding through.

I told my friend Paris this morning of last nights breakdown and surprise Festival of Women, Creativity and Laughter,
and he said:
"You know, I don't think breakdowns are really breakdowns. I really think they are breakthroughs."



"Every loss in life I consider as the throwing off of an old garment in order to put on a new one; and the new garment has always been better than the old one."
~ Hazrat Inayat Khan, Gayan ~

perfect serendipity

what a beautiful weekend of perfect serendipity.

i enrolled to do an online workshop on Holistic Interior Design, run by my marvellous friend Andrea. we are in the process of possibly buying this cottage we live in, and making it our magical home. we decided that to buy this home, we wanted to change the energy and make it more unique, artsy and beautiful. as soon as i found about Andrea's course, and also about a holistic landscape designer here, i knew i would be able to gain the magician's tools to create sacred space. i just love how this universe works in its magnificent ways!

i decided to take a trip to Revolve with my beloved. Revolve is attached to the local dump here, and is a warehouse filled with the stuff deemed too good for landfill. I went there hoping to find a stash of home decorating magazines for the course, without having to buy new ones. As I was foraging through the mishappen shelves, i happened upon a brand spanking new copy of "The Spirit of the Home: How to make your home a Sanctuary" published by one of my favourite publishers - Thorsons. Can I get me a big woooot wooooot please? Oh yes! Hitching it under my arm, I continued on foraging, knowing that my precious mags must be here somewhere. In a crate full of bridal magazines, I located a dozen of them. Second woooot wooooot of the day. i take my treasures to the counter to enquire about the price. Mr Yellow Shirt Man flicks through them, then pronounces the happy grand total of $2. Cie, 2 dobleros. I think I skipped out of there, humming a tune of wooooot woooooooot all away across the carpark.

i've spent joyous hours creating collages on what i envision for our sacred space. the best homework i think i've ever had.

then today, we journeyed along to the diaru centre for the fortnightly sunday meeting on all things spiritual. what is the topic today?
of course: Sacred Space. How to create a sanctuary in the home, according to feng shui, colours, herbal lore and spirit.

I grin wildly at the serendipity of all of this.
Sacred space, here I come!


the beautiful yang souls i share my life with...

Rainbow Medicine

Today I was sitting at my desk at work,
feeling unsure about energy:
Could I stay centred in my energy, even if I didn't know who surrounded me, and their intention?
I began to feel anxiety rise up in my body.

So I closed my eyes,
and I asked to be shown the Truth.

Immediately, a rainbow curved out of the sky,
and engulfed me in its beauty.
In a rainbow is all levels of healing
each chakra clearing
and all vibrations of being.
I felt it around me, washing through me like a crystal waterfall.

This is the Truth.
There is nothing to fear.
There is nothing to be anxious of.

I am you,
I am great spirit,
I am a part of you,
and you need not fear being apart from me again.
You can always call upon me to remind you.
Your energy is my energy, and there is an endless source
that is authentic and filled with light.
Do not worry about this drying up.
Do not concern yourself with any other person's intention,
Infuse your experience with your own,
and Light your World from the Inside Out.
You now walk your own path,
You now trust yourself to be you.

Peace rushed over me. Blessed be, and blessed it is.

This is the Medicine of Rainbow,
and the Beauty of Truth.

hallelujah,
Leonie


"Within us is the soul of the whole, the wise silence, the universal beauty, the eternal One."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

returning to love.

I was driving home in the car,
the sky dark apart from a gloaming full belly of moon.
I was feeling anger,
great anger at some friends whom I felt had in some way wronged me.
In my head the accusations flocked
and flew. All the ways
I wanted to be right
assimilated.
I kept a score card in my head, ticking off the buttons they had pressed,
and the confirmations of my self limiting beliefs on love.
That people would fall out of love with me. Tick.
That I could not trust. Tick.
That friendship meant pain and hurt. Tick.
The humanness took so much over me that I bubbled and gasped for air.
So I asked myself a simple question:
What do you want?
The words fled back:
I want them to know I am hurt and why I am hurt and how they have hurt me and I don't want to feel this pain again.
But what is it that you truly want?
And then my Spirit spoke:
I want to love them. I want to love them. I want to just love. I want to love unconditionally. I want to love without rules and hurt and pain. I want to offer love to them, as natural an energy flow as a breeze in spring time. It hurts me to hold back love. I want to love them.

I am learning. I am growing. I am learning to hear what I truly want, under all the hurt. Cutting off love was tearing the nose from my face.
And I am learning to release that hurt to make way for the healing.
As it often does, my body is learning the same lesson at the same time as my soul. Throughout the last week I have had strong neck and back pain. Yesterday a physiotherapist played magic hands on me to wiggle out most of the stiffness, but some pain remains. I am learning to take breaks to stretch and release it away, but I find myself on some level wanting to hold on to it.

Some days I hold on to my hurt like it is a medallion of war, a scar which shows I have suffered this life. Some days it feels safer to feel achy (I know this is not true). Sometimes I hold onto pain because it gives me an excuse to take time out (I find it difficult to call time out otherwise).

The call for spirit, love and healing is growing. In the mists of pain, I feel the longing to return to the Avalonian place of peace.

Home
my spirit calls.

Return to love.

love,
Leonie

Respect and choice

a goddess warrior dances


My dear friend Sone sent me a picture today that lit so many sparks inside me a fire burned. A picture of a Native American woman, with a brave eagle and a buffalo (both my totem animals). An image of the four directions embellished it, with the words:

"Even in thought, Respect women"

I wrote to Sone this...

"i love this poster, and i love the thought and energy behind it.
it feels like it supports me spiritually, and is a dear sign for me.

we had womens circle on sunday which was beautiful.
that night i had a nightmare that one of the women from circle was being stalked by an ex who didn't like at all that she was being empowered by a womens circle.
anyways, i was trying to protect her, and he pinned me down in the dark - not doing anything, just this enormous weight on me, and he was pinching me.

i felt myself having an anxiety attack in my dream, and i realised i needed to start breathing and take a step outside myself. the change was instant in me. i stepped back into my soul, and felt deep peace and calm. i thought through my options of how i could deal with this situation. i decided to call upon archangel michael to assist me in creating a bubble around me to keep me safe, and then work with me to cut all etheric and energetic chords between me and this guy. so i did that, and i felt the weight grow lighter, and i began awakening.

i have suffered from nightmares for as long as i can remember, but i am finding i am no longer suffering. my dreams are becoming infused with consciousness and choices. again and again i can learn the art of being a powerful leonie.

i lay awake for a long time afterwards in the darkness remembering what it was like for women to be persecuted by men who were afraid of their power. circles of women being persecuted. witches being persecuted. healers being persecuted. women souls persecuted by women-fearing men who became hunters.

i wondered to myself:
who would i have been? would i have been one to submit, to hide, to not continue on with my traditions for fear of persecution? or would i have been one to stand tall and speak my truth even as fire rained down?
the answer to these questions is yes - to both. i feel both the fear and the knowing of what it is to do both.

and now i live a new life, where i wonder who i can become this life. in my life it seems the only persecution to my spirituality was my own: when i could not ask for what i wanted. and now i am a student of this, and i grow through the lesson. i wonder how i can be a tool in this world, a guide and a gift to assist other women feel safe to do their spirit work. i wonder how to grab their hands and help them remember their own sacred dance. i wonder how i can be a healer and a compassionate guide for men who are so disattached from their own power they wish to claim it from women. how can i be a conduit for this earths evolution into a joyous balance of yin and yang?

shakti gawain says: when women step into their power, it allows men to step into their hearts.

may we no longer feel that fear... that fear i felt so keenly...
it was not so long ago this happened, but the light is returning to the earth once more.


These are my gifts and my lessons today.
These are how dreams and images come in to my life to awake me and help me re-member a sleeping knowing.


"When sleeping women wake, mountains move."
- Chinese Proverb



(I want to sing out my gratitude and blessings today to an amazing Yang man: Steve Irwin, and send love and peace to his family. A remarkable earth angel for the animal kingdom, a vivacious and colourful man who wore his great big heart on his sleeve. My favourite memory is his documentary on chimpanzees in Borneo - he was sitting in a tree near one, and it climbed up to him, kissed him, and showed him her baby. He almost cried, and proclaimed in his usual booming joyous voice that it was the best day of his life. You know he meant it. He was infectious with his energy, and his inner child was so apparent. He reminded us how to be delighted by the animal kingdom again. I thank you Steve for shining your light so bright. The world has been touched by you. I have been touched by you.)

em POWER ment

a mossy goddess tree


This afternoon
in a suburban lounge room
nine women met
and circled.

Nine women
I did not know them all
but now
they are my circle sisters.

Today I led
a new womens circle.

How is it that it always feels like coming home when I circle with women?
How is it that as soon as I circle with a woman I can see so clearly her distinct soul beauty, her divinity and her humanity? How is it that I just fall in love with each of them?
How can it be that I witnessed an exquisite flower begin to bud today?

I do not know what we will do. The possibilities are infinite.
The certainties are:
We will create. We will share our stories. We will discover. We will be incredibly silly. We will be deep.
We will share leadership. We will eat potluck.
We will be women.

In the shower last night (my second most favourite Place of Insight, after the work bathroom)
I wondered at why it was important for a circle to lead itself, with every woman being Circle Goddess. And these words came:
Power is strong, but the strongest form of power is
em POWER ment.

It is the philosophy of the Millionth Circle:
Once the millionth womens circle has been formed, our culture will have changed indelibly, and a new age will be entered into. We women :: our gifts, bodies and souls are so special. When we circle with women the light grows tenfold. We grow and we learn and we blossom in the most organic of ways.

Proceed into miracles my dear friends.
Form a circle with women, and watch those miracles unravel.

With love and joy,
and I feel so blessed,
Leonie

P.S. Please email me if you would like to know a few resources to help you on your circle way.

the insights

dreamcatcher watches me sleep


The insights are wordless at the moment. They are birthed into that part of my soul that does not speak in words (much less English), and instead levitates as a knowing.

I awake in the mornings knowing I have travelled,
and that in my sleep I am taking lessons at soul school,
I am traversing the world teaching of feathers and rituals and womanhood.
I know I have touched souls, my own included.

These have been days of adventures,
of devouring books and a new way of thought.

I remember life in tender, poignant pieces that make so much sense inside me.
These are the important pieces:
kneeling beneath the half crescent moon in quiet reverence
finding a piece of willow branch that asks to be a talking stick
lying on the patio watching the stars, singing to grandmother moon
watching "mists of avalon" and keening for vivianne, morgaine and the goddess
i long for a time that is no longer mine
and wonder at how i can bring the goddess back into the world today,
streaming in on a chariot of white winged horses, reclaiming mother earth as the great goddess gaia.
can i be the teacher i know i am, and co-cultivate a circle of miracles with women i have yet to meet?
may i kiss the faces of those around me, forgiving them for their madness, anger, longing and loss? in doing so, may i kiss my own.

i believe i can.
believing is the essence, it is the way and it is the path.
i believe i can, and i believe we can.

the knowing is growing.

{there sure are a lot of words for wordlessness}