February Joy eLetter

I've just released my February Joy eLetter about my Sacred Journey to India.
To see those photos, words & video about my adventure, email leonie@gmail.com with "I see the Goddess in you" as the subject heading.

Wishing you Limca lusciousness and dahl dreaming and hazy dawns and marigold necklaces ~
Leonie

~ namaste ~

In India, when you meet someone, you say Namaste. When you say goodbye, farewell, enjoy your journey, you say Namaste. When you want to honour someone, when you want to say: From the God in Me, I see the God in You, you say Namaste.

I have been on a great, wonderous and wild journey in India. I've seen, felt, heard and experienced so many things that I am saturated with them. It is bigger, more bodacious and more fantastical than words, images, stories could possibly contain. If you wish to know what India is like, go. India is too dear to me, too crazy, too boundless and too wild for me to write one post about. I would love to one day share my Book of India with you.

It has been a spirit trip for me, and I have been blessed to learn under India, Great Teacher. This past year has been for me a search for authenticity - how can I more live my life in connection with Spirit? India reinforced this for me, and gave me the space to be who I am by rivers, in cities, searching for tigers, resting in forts on mountaintops. India gave me so much - I gave myself so much.

The day after I left, leonielife.com decided to take its own retreat as well. When I dialled in from Agra to find a blank screen, all I felt was a great sense of freedom. Finally - I felt as if I could truly live India for me. I didn't need to try and document it for anyone else. I didn't need to make it look beautiful or make it make sense. I just needed to be there, for me. After three years of documenting by blog my life to some extent for others, I could live my own precious, wild, strong-medicine life in the present and wholly for myself.

That felt good, and that felt true.
That felt like what I needed to do.

Even when I arrived home, my webby website would not come out of its cave. It grew fur like a mama bear, and growled softly:
Not until you hear my lesson.
She took me into her cave that smelled of earth and moss and breath, and she gave me a gift - her gift: the medicine of introspection. Of being inward-facing. Of finding true centre, true home, true north, in my own heart.
I set up gypsy camp in her cave for a while, fossicking through my jumbled bag of belongings, actions, habits. I picked up each piece, turning it over and over, whispering to it: Do you serve me? and pressing my ear against it to hear the answer. I had to empty my bag to make room for more dreams.

And so, with breath, and heartfulness, ~ I say Namaste to blogging as a form of communication for right now. I have a bigger dream of how I can share and express in this world, and more importantly, I have a bigger dream of how I wish to be.

I give thanks for all blogging has given me these past few years - for all the ways it has helped me develop as an artist and soul, the connections and inspirations it has cultivated and the possibilities this blog has dreamed awake. Now it's time for me to live those awakened dreams.

There are books to be written and retreats to be created and art to be made and sacred space to be given in to. And most importantly, there is my own sacred, precious, beautiful life to be lived.

From time to time I will release a joy e-letter with dreams, art and happenings ~ if you would like to be on the mailing list, please email leonie (at) gmail (dot) com. I would love to see you at the retreats I will be holding, and share with you through art, books and stories of miracles come true.

Leonielife.com still points to my website, but I welcome a new domain name as my main focus - GoddessLeonie.com. For me, this feels like a small but significant shift. This isn't about everyday leonie life now. This is about being the Goddess Leonie who I know lives inside me.

I say Namaste to each and every one of you ~ and to your own sacred, precious, beautiful life. I wish to thank you deeply for sharing in this journey, for your encouragement and inspiration. If you'd like to connect, you can reach me at the above email address.

May your life always bloom in new rainbow-light, spirit-loving and authentic-true ways.

With love of spirit and life,
Leonie

Life Images

I am so proud to announce that one of my photographs was published in the Life Images magazine in January. It is a lush, full volume overflowing with inspiration and dreams in ink.

You can check out the Life Images magazine on the Stampington website.

Bless you, sweet dream come true!

Extreme Bridal 2

Here's the next section of images from the lush extreme bridal session with Kaylia (first section posted here).

I don't have many words today ~ my fingers are itching to paint... so I will let the images tell their own story about beauty and promise and truth and puppy dogs.

Wishing you the very best of light ~
Leonie

































And one to make you smile...

Kaylia patiently explaining to Spiral Puppy why she can't come photoshoot-canoeing with us...

Extreme Bridal

After picnicking in a cowshed during a storm, we headed out onto the farm to take some extreme bridal photos of my dear friend/supermodel extraordinaire Kaylia.

The gift that is Kaylia: not only is she a talented writer, a dear spirit sister, a healer and my crazy adventure accomplice, but she is startlingly beautiful with Raven hair, Pacific eyes and Dove skin. And she has one of those wild woman hearts who will climb water towers in high heeled cowgirl boots just for that one shot. Or drape herself over a fallen tree in the middle of a lake. Or canoe out into the lake in gusty mad wind just to stand up for a photo.

And did I mention she is beautiful?

*happy sigh*

My friends are the very best.

May these photographs fill you up with beauty, truth and peace.

Cow Shed Love Peek

This afternoon we went for a crazy little picnic in the pouring rain to our favourite cow shed on a friend's farm.

And really, what's cow shed picnic without some photoshoot fun...

More to come... but for now, here's the lovely Angel and Connor!





I couldn't decide between this beautiful portrait...



and this one...



*happy sigh*

Such beautiful days...

Celebration of Freya

A year ago I met a beautiful soul named Freya.
She was in her mama's belly at the time, and we made friends with each other through skin - I would tell her stories, and she would wave at me making Angel's belly ripple. She is growing into the most precious, soulful little one. Her laughter has evolved into a loud chortle and her eyes shine love and truth and beauty.

To celebrate her birthing day, we gathered to eat and watch a puppet show and bless and photograph Freya, her mum Angel and brother Connor...

I hope these photos make you giggle, gasp and make beauty flowers blossom in your heart.




Looking all Hepburn-ish :)






Connor is going to be a photographer...
Here he takes a picture of me taking a picture of him...



And photographing his mama...




I think I need shoes like this.


Miss Freya and her gorgeous grandma

Now that you are one, you can put your own hat on...


almost...


there!





"The happiest moments of my life have been
the few which I have passed at home
in the bosom of my family."
~ Thomas Jefferson



"You don't choose your family.
They are God's gift to you, as you are to them."
~ Desmond Tutu

Shannon and Paul Wedding

Earlier this year, I had the delicious pleasure of photographing the wedding of my dear friend from high school, Shannon, and her dream-come-true Paul.

The wedding was held on the beautiful cattle property of Shan's family: picture meadows of long grass with slender eucalypts, magical riverbeds, a lake brimming after recent rains and red dust roads to walk on at sunset. They were surrounded and supported by good people - SUCH good people - all with their own gifts, all with warm smiles and huge hearts. I spent a week out there, mostly alternating between huge gaspfuls of laughter and deep conversations with the myriad of lovely souls who were there. (A special shoutout to the River Girls, Magnificent Moira, Hot Bachy and Shan's parents for the most precious times possible).

Paul and Shan promised to love each other for this lifetime and more by the lake near sunset. Shan rode in to the sweet, emotion-filled ceremony on a palamino stallion, looking every bit like an etheric fairy princess coming to find her fairy prince.

I hope you delight in these photos... I hope they document the joy, love, magic and light that was there that day and always.




Fairy Shan and her fairy cousin...


The bride's dad




































Their first dance...
just as they will dance for the rest of their lives...


Rings on table decorations...

And my favourite image of the day...

The lovely Paul - rough, funny, country boy Paul - broke down in tears during the ceremony and couldn't finish his vows. Shannon would wrap him up in her arms, and they would giggle together as tears streamed down his face...





You know you are in love
when you see the world in her eyes,
and her eyes everywhere in the world.

- David Levesque