What is Making Sacred?
Art for the sweet release of expression and the soul satisfaction of reflection.
Making Sacred is for soul seeking creatives - old hands and beginners alike, each offering is an invitation to consort with your soul through your body, stories, symbols, nature and creativity. These are apertures through which to contact the muse and find inspiration seeds to use in whatever medium you work with - you may be a 2D artist, a sculptor, a writer, a performer, a dancer, a musician, a digital artist, a sound artist, a talisman maker, a maker of sacred objects, you may be someone who works in a traditional craft like weaving, knitting, garment creation or any other art form you may care to imagine, including something interdisciplinary. These sessions are designed to spark your creative fire and offer you doorways to walk through with the light of that fire burning bright to guide your way.
Art for marking rites of passage...
Another reason for making art, even if we do not consider ourselves creatives, is to commemorate something, to mark a phase in our own or another's life.
You may wish to join a session so that you can receive inspiration to create such a piece, and you would be very welcome.
I can also offer practical creative support to help you manifest your creation after the session if you contact me via my contact page, we have can have a conversation to set a fee and arrange some support for you in that.
Making things sacred,
making sacred things.
Making Sacred is for you if any of these are true for you...
...you would like inspiration for your creativity, whether you are a seasoned creator, just starting out, or need a way back in.
...you are interested in symbolism, story, land connection and movement as ways to connect with your muse.
...you would like to find a community to create alongside.
...you long for a space where you can reconnect to your creative flow without judgement.
...you feel moved to express your inner world more freely.
...you would like your creativity to become integrated into your life in a soulful and grounded way.
...you would like to make meaning from your life experiences and channel them in to art.
...you feel creatively blocked and would like a space to explore expansion.
...you seek deeper meaning in all things and long to commune with your soul.
The Sessions
Sessions will be held online and i will offer a daytime week day, an evening week day and a weekend session so that no matter what other life commitments you have you can still access the session.
In each session space will be given for sketching, writing, journalling, scrap booking, or any other way you have of recording your ideas. This recording of ideas can take any form you wish even taking a less traditional route, for example you may choose to capture your thoughts through recorded movement or sound, you may put objects together and take a photograph as a way of preserving whatever seeds you find in the session.
I will offer space through curation of stories, poems, nature connection, guided mediations, or pieces of music, these other forms of art will be offered as a way to deepen into your personal relationship to the themes and ideas presented, they open up a space in which the sacred tongues of our souls can speak to us about what they wish to bring forth from the beautiful dark of our unconscious.
I will offer space for you to explore the ideas presented in the moment, some sessions will also include practices to take away with you to expand your exploration of the theme.
Each session will use the 8 shields method to guide it’s form, which means it will have a cyclical flow offering space to warm into the main body of the experience and then time to reflect and integrate at the end.
Many of these sessions will only be a few hours long, but occasionally I will offer longer sections of work spanning many sessions in order to deep dive into a story, symbol or animal or plant spirit.
Why am I offering Making Sacred?
I have been an artist all my life, as a small child i could be found making new jewellery from broken pieces or writing praise poems to dead ladybirds. I grew up loving art in its myriad forms and completed a degree in Contemporary Arts in my early 20's. Following this i worked mostly in care as a support worker for people with a variety of needs. I always had my creative life running alongside my working life, often with them over lapping, if you'd like to, you can learn more about my creative life here.
Since my son was born in 2013 i have been concentrating souly on my art
(alongside mothering of course, there's alway some care in there some where) and doing nothing else. Through this time I have found ways of connecting to the muse 'on demand' one might say. I have had many conversations with other creatives, both those starting out and those more seasoned, and found that, at times, this is something people can struggle with, I want to use my many years of experience to offer space to create from, ways to contact the muse within each of us.
If you'd like to view some examples of my art you can visit my galleries here. If you would like more insight into the way i work you can find out here or check out my instagram account.
I feel called to offer creative spaces through which the soul can speak, and have found that, what I call, sideways thinking can open that space. Sideways thinking engages with stories, dreams, symbols, and nature, it is found through sinking into the blessings of nature and the quiet mind. Sideways thinking opens apertures through which messages of the soul, those that wish to be spoken out into the world, can move through.
Upcoming Sessions
The Well Maidens
Sanctity, clarity, truth.
Three dates to choose from - Thursday 22nd May evening, Friday 23rd May daytime or Saturday 24th May daytime
Drawing inspiration from the story of the well maidens found in the literary Autharian text The Elucidation we will explore ideas of sanctity, clarity and truth. We will wonder in the garden of symbols this heart-breaking tale offers us and consider what might be the way back to wholeness through re-purifying the waters of the symbolic well.
This session will include a storytelling, ways to explore the symbols in the tale for ourselves as individuals, wisdom pot sharing, journalling and imaginal work exploring new additions to the end of the tale that transforms it and moves it forward.
You can use the seeds found in this session to inform any creative expression you choose or simply to spend time exploring this story, its themes and what they mean to your soul.
TW this tale includes the rape of the maidens, it will be told poetically, but still might be triggering for some. Please only attend if you are feeling psychologically supported enough.
There are three dates and times to chose from for this session. The session will be held online on Zoom.
Further details on the booking page.
The Becoming of Gullveig
Inner sight, initiating into the seers knowing through fire.
Three dates to choose from - Thursday 19th June evening, Friday 20th June daytime or Saturday 21st June daytime.
Gullvieg is a fascinating character who features in a single short stanza in the old Norse poem Voluspa. Although it's not much, that single stanza has proved rich fruit for the explorations of scholars and the imagination of artists alike.
In these few lines we learn that Gullveig goes to the hall of the Aesir gods and is stabbed with Odins spear, Gungnir. She heals this wound but then is thrown into the fire to be burnt three times, she survives all of this and becomes a powerful seer.
I have asked the questions "What is her story, what is her perspective on what occurred?", and have written the story from her perspective. I will share it with you in the session.
This is a tale of fire, a tale of transformation from one state of being to another. This session will be an opportunity to come close to her essence and, in turn, closer to the seer within each of us.
After the story we will explore the images as individuals and as a group through word association, oracle games, meditative journalling/recording of ideas and wisdom pot discussions.
Further details on the booking page.
This session will be followed up by an optional Gullveig ritual on Friday 4th July in the evening. The ritual will be based on The Gift of Gullveig ritual bundles available in my shop. The ritual will be to invite the seer in yourself to awaken. It would be supported by buying a ritual bundle but this is not necessary. You can book the ritual now, or wait until after the session to see if it is for you.
Venerable Friends
Three dates to choose from - Thursday 24th July evening, Friday 25th July daytime or Saturday 26th July daytime
This session will be based around trees - how they have impacted our individual lives, how they are part of their, and our, local eco-system and what dreaming they would like to offer to our creativity.
There are three dates and times to chose from for this session. The session will be held online on Zoom.
Further details to follow.
Baba Yagas Hut
Three dates to choose from - Thursday 9th October evening, Friday 10th October daytime or Saturday 11th October daytime.
Image by Thomas Denmark - thomasdenmark.com
We will spend this session exploring the motif of Baba Yagas hut from the story of Vasilisa the Brave. We will consider why it is such a strange home - looking at the culture the story was born in, but also at the other strange images that surround it including the three horsemen and the disembodied hands. We will consider what home is and how integral it can be to both or well-being and our creativity. We will also explore ideas around aging women and our deepening connection to our homes.