Stars by Laly Bigeard...

Eight moons ago, on a crisp winter evening, we made a little fire in our backyard to sit with the full moon. We ate our dinner around the fire and then made s'mores - one of Laly's favourite treats. She wrote love letters to the moon on the concrete patio with some of the fallen charcoal. While we were sitting around the fire, she began humming her song Stars, to the moon. We hadn't yet booked a time to record it in the studio but it was essentially ready for the big wide world.

While she was humming the song and dancing around the fire with her charcoal stick, inspiration came to me for her music video. I said, "Let's get some sparklers and you can dance in the moonlight while singing your song, I think this could be the video!" With a beaming smile she ran and got some sparklers, put on her dark blue jumpsuit and off we went into the night. Would we step on something slimy? Possibly, but she did not care! I filmed her with my phone while she danced to the song in her head, the vision of the music video coming to me as I filmed. I had Coldplay's Yellow in my mind as inspiration - remember the one continuous shot of Chris Martin walking in the rain on the beach as dawn broke?

We did 4 takes, and that was that! I wanted it to be as organic and playful as possible, just like her song. I had no idea if it would work but the moment was captured, and that's all that mattered for me at that moment. We giggled and laughed and it was the most wonderful memory-making time together, mother and daughter. I told her it might not be great, and it's on the phone so the quality isn't the best but she didn't care, she felt the buzz of it and knew it would become whatever it would become.

After we recorded the song in the recording studio in August, I started thinking again about how I could turn that footage into a music video. I wasn't confident about my editing skills at first - it's been over 20 years since I sat at a film editing suite at university, and technology has advanced so much since then. I decided to ask around for a video editor, and I did end up paying someone to put it together for me but I wasn't quite happy with the end result because I realised I already had a strong vision for it and needed to create it myself. So this past month while I had the time, I decided to give it a try myself. It was fun to learn a new software, expanding my photography skills into the moving world. And I am really happy with the result, it's the closest to what I envisioned that beautiful night, and even with the limited quality of the phone, not to mention it being shot at night, with no other equipment, I am really pleased with it.

It is now on you tube! I have a separate channel for Laly but it's on my account so she can't access it herself, and comments have to be modified by me before they are public so that she's as protected as possible but still able to share her creativity with the world.

I really hope you like it too, feel free to share it with your friends and family and online if you feel moved to. She's already working on her next song and it's a heart melter.

With love,

Pia xx

Let the alchemy begin...

"Hope and fear cannot occupy the same space. Invite one to stay." Maya Angelou

Dear Wild Hearts,

Twelve years ago I embarked on my first online, global collective art project, inviting readers of my blog  - enhance the everyday - to submit photographs of wandering hearts found in their homes and environment. It was called My Heart Wanders: Finding subtle hearts in unexpected places. The intention of the project was to encourage us all to be more present, to connect with the nature around us no matter where we lived, and to connect with our hearts: the intuitive part of us that often gets forgotten about, lost and can go unheard for years.

One of my favourites from the original project, by Nadia Q. Dole learn more from the original project here.

For months I had submissions pouring into my inbox and shared as many as I could keep up with on my blog, there was incredible beauty in the work I received from so many places in the world – not only did it turn out to connect us with the hidden magic wherever we happened to live, it connected us to each other. We met people we would never have known about, had our hearts not found this way to communicate through this project.
 
And there was one more outcome that I had not anticipated  - not only did this project become an integral part of my own creative career but it was a catalyst for many others too. In 2011 My Heart Wanders became a beautiful photographic book about my own personal journey of following my heart, and over the years since I have received emails from people all over the world letting me know my book has touched their hearts in a way they didn’t know was possible, and launched them into transforming their lives, turning their dreams into their reality.
 
This is the Everyday Alchemy that I love.  

Subtle hearts everywhere in my work - always look for it in my photographs, there may be one in there for you to find.

Not only is the heart central to all that I create, colour has always been a huge part of my career, my life’s work, my offerings and service in the world. My love and connection to the colours in nature are what ignite my creativity everyday.

Without the power of colour, I would not be able to do what I do.



Colour, particularly in abundance, has the power to create radical transformations in our lives. In my photography and visual storytelling, I use colours to evoke certain emotions, and in my mentoring, I assign certain colours to clients for a period of time as a way of connecting them to their intuitive centres to transform their everyday lives into the one they’ve been dreaming about...

My heart takes me to places I dream about and I let it.

For the past two months, my heart has been beckoning me to extend this colour wisdom to you and with you, starting with one of the most powerful colours that exist as a way to assist us in the shift we are collectively going through at the moment. 

Are you ready for another adventure together? 

Today, in the darkness of the new moon, I invite you all to embark on this journey to transform our everyday by invoking the power of the colour  GOLD.

Gold is known as the master healer. It opens us to truth & transformation. It strengthens us in all areas of our lives and releases fear, making space for hope to grow. Using social media, we are going to flood our feeds with the power of gold...

Found: elf wings, hidden in plain sight, on the forest floor.
find out more here

This is not so much about the gold mined out of the earth - unless its been beautifully crafted by your own hands or that of an artisan you love - but the gold in our everyday lives: gold in nature, gold in light, gold in the food we make, and gold in what we make with our hands. 

There are many layers to this, which I will explain in my instagram posts over the weeks to come, but mostly its about healing, transforming, and authentic connection. This is an opportunity to become visible, to anchor ourselves into the earth & ether as the waves around us ebb & flow; to share our own light and to share each others light through intentional re-sharing whatever we resonate with and brings us joy. By flooding our feeds with the power of the colour gold we will be creating an alchemical process within ourselves and with the world around us. Just like we once looked for hearts in our everyday made by light and shadows and with our own hands, now we search together for the gold in our everyday. It's subtle and it's simple, like the heart shapes, but it's powerful. 
 

So how will we do this? 

• Using instagram and facebook, we will use the hashtag #everydayalchemyingold (that's: Everyday Alchemy In Gold) every time we post an image that has gorgeous golden hues. I'll start posting lots of my own photographs as well as those of others so you can see the effect of the images coming together in the feed. 

• Re-share or repost any and all images you love - whatever sparks that sense of joy in you, no matter how subtle (we want to build on this within us and create it in others) so that other people can see who we are inspired by, and it will create the colour flood - the more involved the more powerful the alchemy. To start with you can re-share my images as they come up, and then you'll start to see others come through and you will start to see the gold in your own images to share... 

• Take photographs of gold in your life, particularly focussed on nature and food and all things made by hand. Are you an interior designer? Post images of gold things you love. Are you a jeweller? You know what do to. Artist? Cook? Nature lover? Share your photographs on social media and use the hashtag #everydayalchemyingold

• Follow the hashtag #everydayalchemyingold on instagram if you have an instagram account so that you will start to see other peoples golden images come through on your feed and benefit from the collective energy. 

• If you don't have an instagram account but want to join in with your own images and/or colour knowledge, send them to me in an email, and any images I intuit as having an energetic impact I'll share on my instagram account with your permission, and I'll be including your name and any links you wish to send people to so they can find out more about you and what you create. 

Let's immerse ourselves in each other's knowledge and wisdom of the colour gold, what we already know and what we learn along the way - share what you know, what you've read, what you've experienced (you might even start having dreams in gold, if so let us know!), and always credit where you've got your information because it helps others to find out more too.  Make an effort to find the original source and give gratitude by crediting. It’s a simple, important step in how we can all benefit from this collective transformation. This is about sharing your own work –stepping into your own light – and equally sharing others.
 
So, let the alchemy begin!  We will start with gold because gold is the ultimate alchemical process and we are going to make it our own, transforming it from what it has represented in the past to what it truly symbolises now and for the future. Let’s flood our feeds with gold & immerse ourselves in the healing power of this incredible energy. So that no matter what is happening in our lives, what healing processes we are needing to go through physically, mentally, or emotionally over the next coming months, you can use your eyes to breathe in the healing of this colour, anytime you need. For those who are aware of the ancient Buddhist meditation of Tonglen, this in a way is an expression of that practice using the power of visual storytelling.  I'll move us onto the next colour when I get the calling to, but for now, it's all about gold. I cannot wait to see what you post and I am so eager to share your incredible world with others. 

Please know that you are always welcome to share my images on social media as long as there is a link to me so people know where to find me. So to get you started, you can scroll through my website and find any gold images you like, save them on your device and post them onto your social media feeds with the hashtag. I have also begun a pinterest board for us titled Everyday Alchemy in Gold that we can have a look at for inspiration and repost on social media any of the links we love, and also tag me in your finds so I can add them to the board too. Invite your friends to join us, and don't hesitate to email me if you have any questions or suggestions, ideas or thoughts! 
 

Until next time, dear Hearts, may this new moon reveal what needs to be revealed, and heal what needs to be healed...

With love,
Pia xx

{inner child} create your own colour...

At the end of last year, I held another art workshop for 50 students in year 2 (age 8) at Laly’s school. This time, I focussed on colour and chatted to the kids about the power of colour in our lives. I was inspired by my faraway friend, artist & educator Lisa Solomon’s new book A Field Guide to Color - it is full of fantastic techniques on understanding colour through watercolour. And the paper throughout the book is ideal to apply watercolour paint, so you can do the exercises directly in the book which I love…

I took the book in and taught the children a little about Lisa’s art, what I personally love about her work, and some of her colour work techniques like Colour Meditation.

They were all very excited to be making colour! They knew the basic principles of making different colours (red + yellow = orange etc) but I wanted to stretch this a bit further, to get them to experiment, to not just take a colour from a tube and go with that but to adjust it according to their mood, and to use their intuition when creating a new colour.

We created a few different stations in the classroom so that the kids could go from one to the other, allowing a few children at a time a few minutes at my station - the colour making station. As I mentioned, one of the many things that Lisa does is create colour meditations with watercolour, it’s a wonderful activity so I used this idea as one of the stations for the kids. At this table, they were to repeat a marking on their paper over and over again using a different coloured marker for each one. Another station I set up with a whole bunch of colour samples from the paint section of the local hardware store. These I had gathered over the previous months for my own photoshoots, as I use them to create colour palettes in my storyboarding. For this station, the idea was to look at the names of the colours to gather inspiration, and to then come up with a name for their colour that they will be creating. They came up with so many creative names!

At my station, it was all about the mixing. It was no easy feat to manage this to accomodate 50 kids in two hours! Their excitement and gratitude though was worth every drop of sweat as I frantically prepped for each round of children. I let them choose a base colour from a group of mixing vessels I’d prepared before they arrived at the table, and then we got adding - I asked them what colour they would like to add to see what happens, and off they went. I tried my best to teach them that the more colour they added, the more it could become brown, but at the same time I also know that they need to learn this from trying themselves. Stepping back to allow their own lessons to transpire while also being available to teach them when they need it is a challenge. I have always had immense gratitude to the teachers of the world who manage this daily, in their own journey to find their own balance.

After they’d mixed their colour, they went to the painting station to paint their colour onto a piece of paper and write the name of their colour and their name onto the paper. So. much. fun.

Meanwhile at home, I’d been making my own colour palette for a backdrop and painting I was working on. I’ll be sharing the process in detail of developing a shoot from start to finish on the Wandering Hearts Collective in the coming week, as this process is transferrable to how I design intuitive websites for my mentoring clients as well as intuitive business practice.

Although I hosted this workshop for children, it’s an activity I would recommend to my clients and anyone at all who is needing to connect with their intuition, creativity, and inner child.

And if you’ve been wanting to learn how to play with watercolours and deepen your knowledge of colour, then Lisa’s book is definitely for you.

With love & colours,

Pia xx

Creative Women in Conversation, February 29, 2020

…turned out the beautiful Mistress of Ceremonies Cynthia and I were wearing the exact same colour combination, even with loop earrings and high bun! Nothing like sweet synchronicity to know you’ve met a kindred spirit. X

Last Saturday, I was honoured to be one of the guest speakers at this year’s Creative Women In Conversation event held at the fabulous North Sydney Community Centre. I’d heard so many wonderful things about it from past speakers and audience members, and it certainly lived up to its reputation, I had a fabulous time! I felt so completely nurtured while up on stage, and I’m so grateful to everyone for sharing their enthusiasm for all I had to share, and for the incredible feedback I received throughout the day. This was Shona Smith and my first official live event together which we eagerly announced on our podcast at the end of last year, and we had such a great time. Having been in dialogue for a year now on It’s All Up From Here, we were ready to try our hand at opening the dialogue with a live audience, it was such a treat…

snapshots with thanks to Cynthia Sciberras

We talked about what it means to live a creative life; how ideas form; what some of the most common creative blocks are and what mine have been; how to manage being a multi-passionate creative; the importance of mentoring and using our intuition; and how global events affect the creative flow. We had so many great questions from the audience, each one sparked new ideas and topics that we’d love to extend on in future podcasts and live, intimate events.

I absolutely loved listening to the other speakers, learning more about their work and how they manage their own creative blocks and life experiences while still engaging their creative passions. Sharing this day with them was a wonderful experience.

I’d like to say a huge thank you to Joanna Goodwin, the centre’s director, for inviting me to participate this year, she truly is incredible at connecting people and bringing creativity into the everyday, not just through this fabulous yearly event in celebration of International Women’s Day, but also through the centre’s workshops, hosted by incredible artists.

The talks were recorded for the North Sydney Centre podcast, and Shona and I will be adding our talk as a special episode of It’s All Up From Here too, so you can listen then, I’ll let you know on social media when it’s live.

Thank you again to everyone who bought books on the day, and those who expressed interest in mentoring, you can check out the mentoring packages here, or send me an email.

xx