Exploring Past Lives & Full Moon Vision Board Collage

Exploring Past Lives Workshop - 7pm Wednesday, 19th January 
In this interactive workshop we will discuss topics such as Soul Memories, Life Lessons & Karma, Why Soul Groups Reincarnate Together and Soul Mates. During the workshop you will also experience a regression to a past lifetime directed by your Higher Self to embrace healing so that you can move forward in the present. (3 places left)

Full Moon Visionboard Collage Workshop - 7pm Thursday, 20th January
On the night of the Full Moon we will use meditation & collage to work with the Universal Law of Attraction.  A vision board is a collage of the things you want to be, have, or do in your life. The purpose of a vision board is to activate the Law of Attraction to begin to pull things from the external environment that will enable you to realise your dream. By selecting pictures and writing that charges your emotions with feelings of passion, you will begin to manifest those things in your life. Creating a vision board can be a simple yet powerful visualisation tool to begin manifesting your dreams into reality. Please bring a small photo of yourself & any images that call to your heart to add to your collage (4 places left)

There are just a couple of places left in these workshops! Please let us know as soon as you can if you wish to join us.

Returning Home...


Hello Everyone,

this year I am over the moon to be holding a magical forest retreat for women in the sacred country of Hanging Rock. Our beautiful retreat house is nestled in 150 acres of tree-filled wonderland abundant with animals and we have our own personal chef cooking us yummy gourmet vegetarian meals. On this retreat we will focus on connection to the Divine Feminine and our Inner Knowing through meditation, sacred ceremony & the intuitive arts in the warm embrace of Nature and her plant & animal guardians. We are all so naturally gifted & wise but often have a hard time accessing deep peace due to our hectic lives. When we are in Retreat, we can hear the still quiet voice within and learn to trust and develop new pathways to our dreams. If you feel called to return to Nature and your True Self, it may be time to share this Returning Home with us. 


Details
Starts: 11am Friday 8th April
Finishes: 4pm Sunday 10th April


Prices
The retreat is set in a luxurious property crafted by hand - enjoy warm fires, spa, gourmet meals
Communal room (6 beds in shared room): $620 ($570 early bird price if paid by 28th Feb)
Your own room: (7 available): $680 ($630 early bird price to be paid by 28th Feb)

Places are strictly limited to 13 people only so that we can work deeply. To reserve your place, please contact me as soon as you can,

Warm Wishes,

Julia

In praise of the Storytellers...

"For most of human history, 'literature', both fiction and poetry, has been narrated, not written - heard, not read. So fairy tales, folk tales, stories from the oral tradition, are all of them the most vital connection we have with the imaginations of the ordinary men and women whose labor created our world."  Angela Carter

The Silver Doorway - Advanced Tarot Course

For those of you who have completed The Path Within and been waiting for the 2nd step into the realm of Advanced Tarot, I'm happy to announce I am opening enrolments for The Silver Doorway starting in May. In this course we throw away the books and step deeper into our own Knowing and trusting our Intuition. Based on the Celtic mythology of the Ninth Wave, in these 9 weeks we will be working deeply with the Divine Feminine through guided meditation, reading intricate Tarot spreads, developing connection with your Animal Totems & Spirit Guides and most importantly, learning to BELIEVE IN YOURSELF!

To be eligible for this course you will have completed The Path Within and be ready to step through The Silver Doorway...

Thank you

I found this beautiful image on the simply stunning blog: Artemis Dreaming - may you find inspiration through art and beauty as you move from this year into the next. Here comes the sun...  Thank you to everyone who shared circles and classes and consultations with us this year. We feel truly honoured to have spent time in your presence. Much love and peace to you.
Stay inspired, 
Julia & Tony

The Mythic Tribes and Wondrous Hands of Illustrator: Nadia Turner

Druantia and Ava

When I first saw the beautiful drawing of ‘Druantia and Ava,’ I was stopped in my tracks. I had heard about the druid goddess Druantia but had never seen her ‘made flesh’. I love it when an artist can make a story real for you & how wonderful to discover that the talented illustrator, Nadia Turner, lives right here in Melbourne. 

Fire King
Nadia: 
'I have been drawing and creating for pretty much as long as I can remember, always very happy to just sit with pencil and paper in my hand. When asked when I was a child what I wanted to do when I grew up it was always ‘I want to be an artist!”  So I’m very grateful that’s how it’s turned out.

I don’t think I really realized until I started studying illustration that I’ve always been an ‘illustrator’ in that it was always the story and narrative that I was interested in. Of course it’s the characters themselves that make these stories enticing. As a kid I was always to be found drawing pictures of characters from fairytales – Cinderella, the little mermaid, sleeping beauty (most definitely influenced by Disney like so many other little girls!) And I still adore fairytales and stories for children – much more likely to find me in the kid’s realm of the bookstore than the adult section!  I was, and still am, fascinated by the exotic and otherworldly and I love costume and how what someone wears can tell a story in itself.

Mythology and magic have been a constant source of inspiration but most especially I’m intrigued by this idea of urban fantasy-that magic is only a step away, just a footstep through the veil and into the spirit world - a couple of my favourite authors like Charles de Lint and Neil Gaiman explore this idea a lot in their books – this notion that the gods and creatures from mythology could be walking around with us, even perhaps in everyday, human form.  And those creatures of fantasy don’t just exist in fantastical otherworlds but also in our own, just out of sight, glimpsed in the corner of our eye or just around that corner....
Wind and Sea

"He was conscious of any number of bodachs and spirits, shadowmen and border folk, faerie and ghosts, all going about their business. They were under the trees behind him and up in the boughs of those same oaks. They wandered along the streets, keeping to the shadows. They slept in gardens, poked through dumpsters. They scurried about in the sewers and alleyways, crept along rooftops or along windowsills, peering into people's apartments".


- Charles de Lint, excerpt from "Spirits in the Wires"

After all these myths and legends must come from some central truth far back in history, surely?!

I love that sense of mystery – when you see a fascinating looking person walk by in the street or find an amazing old forgotten sepia photograph – I love to wonder about who these people really are, what their story is – maybe old trickster coyote is running around in human form or that woman wandering through the spring markets is really Kore ....come back from the underworld for a while to remember what it’s like to be among humans again....

So that’s an idea I like to explore in my art. Often I don’t start a painting or a sketch with an idea of what or who it is I’m about to draw, the title or meaning often comes to me afterward.  While it might be loosely based on a myth or a character from a story, I don’t want this to be set in stone. The story is up to the viewer to imagine.  Often all I know is a name and not necessarily a story to go with the face.... After all, personally I believe that good art should strike a chord with the viewer and you shouldn’t have to know the full story of what and how and when it was created in order to understand it or ‘get’ something out of it.

I just hope my art entices people to use their imaginations and helps them to remember that the world can be a magical place!
Drabarni
To look more at Nadia’s illustrations & creations (and you really must) please go to: www.waywardharper.com. You can also purchase original drawings and hand-painted oak brooches from Nadia’s shop. Thank you so much for sharing Nadia.

Spinning the Threads of New Learning at the Full Moon

When I woke up this morning I felt as if a weight had moved from my shoulders. Ah, the full moon! On Friday we finally experienced Venus going direct after being in such a tough retrograde for the last month. Venus has not completed all of her 'Shadow' work yet (she will move back into Scorpio on 30 November for her last dance with the shadow until mid-December) but there is no doubt that we can enjoy some flowing movement for the next week. Tonight we will see and feel the Full Moon in the last degrees of Taurus as the Sun moves into the dynamic sign of Sagittarius at around 9.15pm.

Rebekah Holguin

So what has Venus been showing and helping you to face during her retrograde? Venus is the Goddess of Love - have you noticed any relationships from the past popping into your mind to be examined, remembered, released? When Venus is in retrograde I liken it to the image above - she has to step into the waters of the past to retrieve the deeper and hidden wisdom that we hold around relationships, boundaries and love for ourselves.  Now that she has gone direct, use the intuitive flashes, new understanding and hopefully healing that Venus has facilitated to make that final reach for the gold that waits deep within our inner knowing. The gold of acceptance and then release from the past.

I see the full moon tonight as an enormous spinning wheel - a symbol of transformation. We are always growing and learning and evolving just like the moon, the earth and nature's cycles. I have been fascinated with the image of the spinning wheel since working with Venus. I like to imagine that with all we have learnt last month that we can now spin the strands of the past, with the present to create the future that we truly desire. In the Tarot we see a similar movement in The Wheel of Fortune - a card that reminds us that sometimes we just have to trust that the Wheel of Life will turn regardless of not knowing what that turn will be.

The Wheel - Gaian Tarot

Has Venus been asking you to think about the need or desire to control relationships in your life? Surrender and open your heart to the full moon tonight as the great spinning wheel in the sky helps to weave together the threads of your life to bring symbiosis and integration and most importantly, to create the gold that will be waiting for you once this process is complete. Next month we will feature the amazing art of Nadia Turner in our newsletter and below is her exquisite sketch of 'The Weaver' - may the threads turn to gold for you this evening.

The Weaver by Nadia Turner www.waywardharper.com