Stephanie's Studio

Happy to announce that my 6th book has been published by a small publishing house in England called Green Magic Publishing! You can find it  here. It is a very unique book, that has been a long time coming - 14 years actually! When I began writing it my adult children were still living at home and my youngest, who is about to graduate from high school, was little more than a toddler. Time flies but book writing seems to take forever! The release of, Earth Mama's Spiritual Guide to Weight Loss feels like a birth. It has had growing pains, changes and the labor of bringing it into this world - a labor of love. I'm offering a series of workshops at Life Force Arts Center in Chicago, to kick off the book and get you into its unique type of hands-on healing and transformation work. This first one is inspired by Welsh Goddess Cerrwiden. Following is a description and how you can sign up at  Life Force Arts Center. Cerrwiden’s Pig: Shifting and Personal Transfor...

(Untitled: Colored pencils on Paper by Stephanie Rose Bird) Whew! That was a busy post I did previously called  Getting the Word Out There . I wrote it as a member of IWSG  for our monthly blog hop. Thanks so much to so many new people for stopping by during that event, joining this blog as members and adding me to your circles on Google+. I have been humbled by all of the new connections I've made with fellow bloggers, readers, writers, artists and people generally this past year. I am a private and quiet person. Coming out of my den and connecting with the world once again has been an inspiration. As I was busy blog hopping last Wednesday and Thursday as a part of the support group experience, I stumbled upon a post by a fellow member Gwen Gardner called  Giving it Another Try . One of the most compelling parts of her post for me was that she posed the question to us, is blogging dead? As an artist specializing in painting, I've heard that topic discusse...

Last night I had trouble sleeping. I was once again up during the late middle of the night. Something different happened for me this time though. My mind wondered off to yoga class--restorative yoga to be specific.  Monday's restorative was very physical. It was more focused on the body than I am accustomed to. At first I didn't think I liked this different approach but then gradually it grew on me. Our instructor noticed the low energy in our group. Sometimes you just go to restorative yoga to relax and kick back. That is what most of us seemed to be doing. To remain in that state may well have caused our day to be static, low energy and to lack flow. Slowly but surely our teacher set about finding ways to energize us. We got our blood flowing through flowing postures and moving meditations. I especially enjoyed eagle pose. It was a new challenge. Since I had broken my ankle I don't think I had stood on just that one repaired foot in ages. I felt accomplished....

Well, obviously, I'm not taking my own medicine, at least not as diligently as I should be. I have continued to blog and work on my novel, though I have the flu. Healers are ornery--many are their own worse patients. Be that what it may, I woke up this morning thinking about the A to Z April Blogger's Challenge and knew that for the letter "H" I wanted to write about health, healing and happiness. I thought about my journey. How did I get here and what inspired me to take on healing? I recognize that the most outstanding inspiration was my environment, where I grew up, immersed in nature. It was also the people around me--relatives and family friends who were self-determined, doing things for themselves, and by hand. As a teenager we lived very close to the land. My Dad hunted and fished, my mother, aunts and us kids gardened, harvested, canned and then cooked those home grown foods all winter, taking them out little by little from the deep freezer. Then too, the...