Halloween Reads

Heather Sanderson's Blog, page 5

September 1, 2023

August 1, 2023

July 1, 2023

June 21, 2023

Solstice, Mermaids, Parades + What Art Can Do

This past weekend, in honor of the summer solstice, I danced in the 41st annual Mermaid Parade in Coney Island with The Findyhoppers. Even though I have now been dancing for ten years, choreography is not something that comes easily. Dance itself did not come at first. Far from it. I legitimately could not even move my foot how my first dance teacher showed me. I stared at her and couldn’t pick it up to place it in “third position” (and had no idea what that was).

When she picked my foot up for me and placed it in the spot, I felt my brain respond and knew I had to keep going (you can read a post about it all here). And, a decade later, here I am performing in front of thousands of people. Still not “good” meaning “professional” but that is not the point. It’s a challenge, it’s engaging, and it’s fun to do! To me, it’s an essential embodied healing practice in so many ways. And it’s a beautiful practice of being in and contributing to community. 

These are some of the themes that are also in a brand new book which launched today called What Art Can Do: A Conversation with Janet Morgan. In it Janet talks about her creative process and shares the wisdom that making and teaching art has brought to her (and through her to others). In exploring the outrageous, the foolish, and the divine, Janet shares how some of her best work started with a failure, rejection, and/or making a mess and what that means (in art and in life). She then shares a vision of the healing and inclusive power of art, especially in relation to building community.

With this in mind, our conversation brought me new insights of what “success” is and how it can transform into something that is unifying instead of exclusive. How art is a major conduit through which that transformation can occur, which I share in my concluding thoughts along with several exercises for readers to notice their own beliefs and start their own art practice.

Janet also talks about her work painting deities and her strong connection with Coney Island and how it has inspired her own story telling and that it is a place with a history of inclusivity.

This inclusivity and community with art at the center is a driving force of the Mermaid Parade! An event where all are welcome and show up in so many creative expressions of Self and mer-ness. No matter how that art takes shape, it is met with support and adoration by all of the attendees.

This is what art can do, to–build up the energy and power of being vulnerable and still loved. Taking risks and having them seen without criticism. Generating positive connection in ways that feed one another. 

I would be honored if you could get a copy of the book where we cover all of this and more! It’s available as an eBook and paperback and also includes six of Janet’s art pieces. 

Here are the links to get What Art Can Do!

eBook available for Amazon Kindle (device, app or laptop):

US, CA, UK, DE, FR, ES, IT, NL, JP, BR, MX, AU, IN

Paperback available:

US, CA, UK, DE, FR, ES, IT, JP, AU, NL, SE, PL

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Published on June 21, 2023 08:31

June 8, 2023

Top 25 Majestic Wisdom Books of All Time

To honor the approach of the summer solstice and a heightened time of solar energy, outward expression, and bursting plant life, here are the all-time top 25 Majestic Wisdom books for you to choose from!

The 25 Majestic Wisdom books of all time are:

Dreaming with Mugwort Dreaming with Nettle Sister, Dreaming with Dandelion Dreaming with Lavender Dreaming with Hawthorn Dreaming with Oak Dreaming with Violet Dreaming with Rosemary Dreaming with Redwood Loving Kindness for Everyday Life Dreaming with Willow Building the Future Now Through Reiki Dreaming with Holly Yoga Nidra for Everyday Life Dreaming with Red Clover Dreaming with Birch Dreaming with Sunflower Dreaming with Apple Dreaming with Heather Envisioning New Ecosystems Dreaming with Trillium Holding Space to Heal Dreaming with Elder Understanding Reiki

Thank you for reading and dreaming with the plants and the new series of magic-making conversations. It truly is a dream come true to share these works with you. Together, the future is possible!

For a list of all available and upcoming titles, click here.

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Published on June 08, 2023 09:37

June 2, 2023

Offerings of Giving and Receiving

My recent newsletter has been nudging me to become a blog post… hope it resonates with you. And if you want to sign up for future newsletters, you can do so here.

It’s been a while! Over two months since I sent my last newsletter out. That is the longest pause since I started them back in 2016. Thank you for being here and for receiving these musings and offerings (whether you just joined or have been along for a while). 

Truth is, I didn’t have much to say. I didn’t have as much capacity to offer because, I realized, I’d become caught in a pattern of only responding and being available. I like responding. I like being available and present. These are all helpful things. 

What I was neglecting was my own need to receive.

So I paused. I focused on school and writing fairy tales. I went to more yoga classes, swing dances, and lectures at the library. I gave myself a Wellspring Acu-Sound healing session with my friend Annie. I didn’t retreat–not like how I used to where I’d be away in a training and offline completely for a week or ten days, but I did realize I miss those times of retreating.

I did take the opportunity for a trip to Salt Lake City that came my way. While there, I turned my out-of-office on for five days and and spent a whole day driving to the Salt Flats. I had no agenda and no time to be back. No meetings or work. Nothing to be available for or respond to. 

That evening, upon returning from the adventure, I met a great human. 

Talking with him was supportive. I let myself receive, even in listening. He asked questions about the past 20 years of life made me realize just how much has transformed. And how much I had forgotten. 

I had forgotten how much I re-engineered my life and path. I had forgotten how far I’ve come. I had forgotten myself.

I had also forgotten the huge web of healers who are in Brooklyn (and NYC). I didn’t forget that they are here, but I had started to take it for granted. Moving to NYC was a significant part of becoming a healing arts practitioner. Something my soul longed for. It is also where I found the people who taught me how to heal and who gave me so much, so that I now have so much to give.

From taking a moment to remember, I started to see, in a new way, the web so many of us are generating through energy healing and yoga and all kinds of spiritual offerings here in NYC and around the world.  

Reflecting on his questions made me realize how much I have forgotten about my own path and myself. I’d become a bit lost, and I hadn’t noticed.

Reflecting on his questions made me realize how I spend time and energy focusing on how things aren’t. This goes hand-in-hand with how much I had forgotten and had stopped noticing. All this has done is create feelings of despair. 

This story of despair (because it isn’t real–it’s definitely just a pattern of thought) comes from cutting off the receptive parts of myself and denying who I am. Trying to minimize, not matter, stay small. But I am not small, and I am finally recognizing that I will no longer diminish myself. 

Something significant has changed from these interactions that I did not see coming.

I remembered who I am.

This remembering came from giving myself nourishment and the space and time to connect.

From this remembering, I’ve found an even deeper understanding and appreciation for all that I also have to offer. All that I enjoy offering and hope will be received by others. I have spent so much time worrying and believing that what I do and who I am won’t be received or received well and that worry is now gone. 

Now, instead of focusing on what isn’t, I’m focusing on what is. And from that place there is strength and abundance and balanced power.

I can feel the flip within me and in my mind–like the blinders have been taken off.

So now, with open eyes, heart, and mind, I am more ready than ever to step in and step up. To offer without worry. To offer without holding back (yes, this has been me holding back and hiding all these years… haha). Offering, I realize as I write this, is entirely different from responding. It holds the nature and energy of exchange–giving and receiving or co-creating with those who are present. This also nourishes me and, I hope, nourishes others too. 

I share these insights, as always, in case they resonate with you in some way. In case perhaps you need to rebalance around giving and receiving or have a minute for a life review that lays open all of where you have come from and healed. And I state them to reinforce and make them more true because this is a commitment to myself: I’m ready. 

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Published on June 02, 2023 07:01

June 1, 2023

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April 1, 2023

March 27, 2023

Raspberry and Bear by Carrie Anderson

Photo by Sofía Rabassa on Pexels.com

Wild Raspberry blooms here, in the spring. A delicate white flower protected by the fuzzy embrace of prickly thorns. A halo of red for Raspberry.

By summer, the berries beckon with a sweet earthy scent and a deep merlot color.

In the ripeness of the berries one can taste the woods. There’s a distant memory, not quite tangible, just outside our peripheral vision. This berry it’s the taste of the wildness that connects us.

The juice lingers on the tongue and beckons us to sit down with Raspberry. In the shade of a nearby tree we spend time together, Raspberry and I.  We share a secluded solitude that nourishes my soul. 

Wild Raspberry is a snapshot of hot summer days.  As children, we walk along the dusty back roads and pick the berries. Our fingers turn red as the berry juice bursts and we continue down a path that leads nowhere, but anywhere else, as long as it’s not home. We walk, getting covered in dirty dust, drunk on berry sugar.  We dream of our future with Raspberry trailing along and keeping pace.

At the end of summer, Raspberry lingers on with a headiness that entices with the early scent of decay. In between spring and summer, Raspberry does not wither away and fade with sun. She stands strong in the cold.

Becoming myself, shedding the tight outer idea of self my parents created for me, leads me to move away from the closeness of Raspberry. She doesn’t grow here in my city.

She’s not shy and she’s not reclusive. I can easily find her on any trail, path, or along a meadow.

Raspberry even greets me in the in-between. She calls me, while my eyes are closed. She sings, not a siren song, but a lullaby. I walk towards her and she opens herself up so that we can greet each other like true friends.  I glide into her and am greeted by a soft milky white viscous fluid that is her life force. I am carried to her home.

Raspberry awaits. She glows like a luminescent Luna Moth. She’s pearlescent, she’s like the grandmother to Mother of Pearl.  She has wings, folded upon her back, she wears a cap that covers her head. She is at once, all the colors, but subdued and lit from within. She reminds me of an ethereal Art Deco painting of an ephemeral beauty, almost translucent.

She explains that she wears a crown of thorns to protect herself. Without the thorns, she would not have survived the thirst and hunger of all that await to feast upon her. She would have, long ago, been stripped bare and left to die. The thorns fight for her and battle the greed of others. Raspberry understands there is a delicate balance between self-reliance and thriving alongside others. She extends her delicate fingers, with her offering of berries.

She shares with me a story of how she learned the lesson of needing to give to others and not become hardened and hidden behind her thorns.

Long ago, one summer, a bear cub approached Raspberry, and grabbed at her. It cried as the thorns pierced its soft paw. The cub bled upon Raspberry and ran off to leave her alone. Winter came and she did not see the cub. Spring arrived with the news that there were no new Raspberry plants. She had hurt the cub and he had told his family. They stopped eating the berries and without them, her seeds were not dispersed.

So, she sang her song for the cub, now a young bear. He came with his parents. She wanted the bears to enjoy her offerings, but she had been so worried about her fragile state that she had feared being crushed by the cub. So, she attacked. She asked the bears to come to her again, with thicken pads, to taste her fruit and allow her to flourish. She would nourish them with her red color, a reminder for the blood that was spilled when she had only thought of herself and not been aware of her role in the forest.

Raspberry will not give up her crown of thorns. She needs her armor to protect her from those that would take without asking. Raspberry knows she is sought, and she wishes to share her sweetness.  She gives herself freely when she is treated with care.

Carrie Anderson is a Reiki Master, Plant Spirit Intuitive Consultant, Animal Death Doula, author and sometimes Yoga Instructor. She created her own energy healing called, Green Wisdom Reiki, that blends Reiki with Plants, Animals, and Fungi and has a book of writings titled, Reiki in Nature. She is an author for Reiki Rays and a writer for Witch Magazine and was honored to be a speaker for Reiki Rays Global Summit in 2021. She has been the guest Meditation Script Writer and Meditation Guide for the past several years for their annual Global Summit. Her hobbies include crocheting art with vintage yarns, spending time with her family and her elderly rescue dog. Carrie is guided by her deep respect and honor for Earth in all of her work and life. You can find out more at her website, www.caresreiki.com and follow her on Instagram at @caresreiki and @ladycrochety.                                                                                

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Published on March 27, 2023 09:18