Stephanie's Studio

This is my monthly installment, as a member of the Insecure Writer's Support Group . Follow the link, as this is an exciting time for us. It is the anniversary for the group, brainchild of Alex Cavanaugh, who has worked tirelessly building a safe, rewarding and meaningful community for bloggers. Over the last few months since I've been participating in IWSG, things have been rapidly developing and changing. It's almost as though, as a result of admitting my insecurities, airing them out and working on resolving or at the least dealing with them, I've embarked on yet another amazing journey. I do attribute some of this movement forward to my re-engagement with the possibilities of the Law of Attraction, metaphysics, magick and earth-based spirituality. With all of these thoughts and desperate practices coming together, the possibilities in life seem endless. These possibilities encompass every aspect of my life. Since writing is at the forefront, ...

Where have I been? What have I been doing the past two weeks? Making decisions, sorting things out, and as my last post suggests, moving forward. While sometimes I imagine I've gone down the ubiquitous rabbit hole, what I've been doing is necessary. To grow is to change and changing takes place on a convoluted path in its own time. As a writer and member of the Insecure Writer's Support Group , I gained some much needed courage. It may sound counterproductive but I quit a year long writing class that wasn't serving my needs. I'd been tortured about quitting it since the beginning. You have to apply for the class. Twice I was rejected but last year I was finally admitted. It's a small class that promises a lot. In the end I could see it was never going to deliver. Our teacher was disengaged all month and seemingly only thought about the class a few days before we were to meet (our meetings were once a month). The week I quit she asked us to...

Thank the Goddess! March has arrived. Only, here in Chicago, we are expecting quite a lot of snow--again. A while back I wrote for a journal called "Seeding the Snow." It's such a delightful concept that I had to title this post after it. With March, we are asked to think about renewal, growth and change. We can even go so far in our notion of transformation as to consider rebirth. Mother Earth will be coming into full bloom in no time at all. If we follow her rhythms closely, by taking her lead, this coming month offers us some very special gifts. March is about planning ahead for a harvest to come, sometime in the future. It is the time of the dreamer. We can also use divination and oracular skills to project out, gaining glimpses of where these seeds will best take root. We get to plant our dreams, and as it warms up, there is the opportunity to cultivate, till and weed them, until they are just right. But in many of our areas, we will need to do our seed...