Let's keep making beautiful things.

Celebrating our impulse to keep creating beauty in the midst of it all.

I’ve been leaning into art-making more than ever these days—heading to my studio nearly every day to push paint around and create wall hangings from yarn. But it’s not just the making itself that’s nourishing. Having a place to land during the day, away from my computer, and getting to commune with my studio mates has been deeply restorative, too.

And exciting news: the wildly talented Tammi Salas just launched our Moonflower Studio Instagram! Each week, we are featuring another Moonflower artist. There are 13 of us now.

What I’m working on:

1. Yarn wall hangings made of re-purposed yarn! I’ve been hitting the thrift shops, the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse, and have my eyes on SCRAP in SF next.

The latest, Moonflower Studio, Berkeley, CA

2. Laurie Wagner and I just had two glorious weekend workshops with tables full of creative women. We made SoulCollage® cards, did a lot of Wild Writing, and listened to each others’ stories. It was simple and soulful, witnessing ourselves and one another.
   
   We are looking forward to doing even more of this in Taos in the fall and at Mar de Jade in December.

   

   Table full of beauty, Laurie’s house in Alameda, CA

   My friends are making beautiful things:

   Pencil Magazine

   Issue #3 of Pencil Magazine is out now! Created by one of my forever BFF’s, Sasha Wizansky, Pencil is a print publication of art and writing made entirely in pencil.

   Its mission is to help people reconnect with attention by stepping away from devices and returning to the tactile friction of pencil on paper. Each themed issue explores the creative possibilities of the humble, unsung pencil!

The Sacred Mushroom Oracle Deck
My friend Xóchitl Ashe is a fifth-generation Afro-Indigenous Quechua Aymara medicine woman with over 30 years of ceremonial practice and lineage work. (We met 26 years ago in San Miguel de Allende and have been connected ever since) Most recently, she is the creator of the Sacred Mushroom Oracle Deck, published by Hay House.

Xóchitl is currently walking a healing journey from breast cancer, and every purchase made directly through her website at www.xochitlashe.com/sacred-mushroom-oracle supports her in a real and meaningful way. If you’re called to this deck, please order directly from her, it is one of the most tangible ways to stand with her right now.

The Wild Beneath

I met Kelly Anderson in Oaxaca this year at our Wild Wonder retreat, and I was instantly smitten by her warmth, curiosity, and incredible story — how she pivoted from being a full-time ER doctor to becoming a novelist, with her first novel coming out this August from HarperCollins.

We also had one of those truly magical moments of connection.

When she mentioned she lived in Toronto, I said the silliest thing: “Oh! I wonder if you know my cousin Gordie!” Then I immediately backtracked: “I know, dumb question. Toronto is huge.”

And she said, stunned: “No. Gordie was my boss for 15 years at the hospital.”

I’ve been savoring her novel, The Wild Beneath — a lyrical, mythical story about a young woman caught between her grounding first love, Evan, and a mysterious, wordless man who emits an otherworldly sound and pulls her into the hidden, magical depths of the ocean. A magical tale from a magical person.

Put this one on your summer reading list!

Out with Lanterns poetry by Julie Barton

I will end with a poem from my studio mate (another Moonflower!) and poet Julie Barton. I’ve been using her poetry in my Wild Writing classes and we always swoon. Here is a link to her Substack Out With Lanterns where she offers a poem a day.

Listening by Julie Barton

I rebuilt my ancestral altar.
Two nights later, two great-horned owls
stood near my front door. I knew
they were my grandparents who
lingered. They said in the next
morning’s meditation, Where we are,
masculine and feminine don’t exist.
(I heard it like an apology.)
We’re all just energy here.
(I heard: We had it so wrong.)
It’s just love.
I replied, That’s what the trees say too.
I inhaled with my still warm body, asked
for guidance. Let go, they said. Keep going.
Write with your eyes closed.