I Saw the Crescent Moon

La Luna (2011), paper, white emulsion, tippex, acrylic, plastic stars and wool

Last week I saw the crescent moon and it looked like art made by human hand, which made me recall my attempt at making a crescent moon many moons ago. On finding the blog post from 2011, I felt glee to see it! It was a playful experience and I want to share it with you!

I’m developing a special relationship with the moon and I really enjoy connecting with her. I say ‘her’ because I feel the presence to be feminine. Maybe that’s because I project my femininity onto her. Who knows? Who cares?

I’m looking forward to celebrating the next full moon, maybe with a fire ceremony, or maybe quietly, writing a piece of poetry. As we wax towards that, I hope you enjoy my crescent moon. Here’s the original text I wrote to accompany it in 2011:

The Three Muses set their weekly artistic challenge: “the moon”. It ties in with one of my current projects: telling the story of the different identities my imagination created during my childhood to protect me.

One is a she-wolf; she lives inside me on a beautiful snow covered mountainside. I discovered her existence during my first counselling session with Emma Welsh.

The moon has an important role in helping the wolf to release the pain she has held for me and the other identities; when the moon is full it stirs something in her to howl out. It’s not full yet…

I made the light side of the moon using a page from a magazine and several coats of white natural emulsion paint.

The dark side of the moon is black card flicked with tippex and painted over with black acrylic paint.

The fabric of the universe, or dark matter, is a large knitted square over which I sprinkled stars that were given to me by a wise woman at Survivors Network.

If there is a god or creator, I wonder if it created the universe as an art project?

What do you think?

Othering Me, Othering You Is This The Best We Can Do?

I completed my MSc Counselling and Psychotherapy – Contemporary Creative Approaches in August 2023 with a research project called Othering Me, Othering You – My Living Experience of Internalised Patriarchy. I’m going to share the following sections from my dissertation in this post: definition of terms, introduction, and conclusion. If you’d like me to send you the dissertation or have a conversation about setting up creative workshops to uncover hidden biases with compassion, please email me.

image shows a wall with 2 canvas paintings and 8 pieces of paper with drawings on them: a heart with 2 people inside, a person with their head inside a cloud with the word "worry" in it and the word "othering" written on the paper, a large multi coloured heart, two spirals - red and blue, a series of black circles, a pink triangle, a red circle with black spikes surrounding it with yellow outside of the black and green in the corners of the image, a diagram with colour coded lines leading to bits of paper, a collage with the words "would I have known where to start without this?" written on.

Some of my creative outputs from my research that I analysed for themes

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The Wonderful Long Term Effects of Practising Compassion

The Wonderful Long Term Effects of Practising Compassion, Pigment pen on paper, 16 x 16 cm
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Can Vision Boarding Help Your Mental Health?

Vision Board
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Clarity and Purpose With the Heart’s Desire Mandala

Julia Fry’s completed Heart’s Desire Mandala

The Heart’s Desire Mandala is a one page worksheet with five simple steps that help you:

  • gain clarity about your heart’s desire (purpose) and
  • identify actions to get closer to your heart’s desire
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Intuitive Christmas Soup Recipe

This time last year I was working on converting my van into a camper at my fab friend, Margaret’s, house. We’d already been eating our way through the vegan mince pie stock from the Sainsbury’s Local nearby since October. I love Christmas food! It’s one of the few things about Christmas I love. My favourite food is a yummy vegan nut roast with all the trimmings. This year we’ve been boycotting Sainsbury’s mince pies because they use palm oil but I still need my early Christmas food fix.

A hearty bowl of vegan Christmas Soup
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Two Trees Van Conversion (2019)

This is my van, Two Trees, and you’ll see why it’s called that when you see the porthole. I bought Two Trees in May 2018 and converted it into a tiny camper. I was incredibly lucky to have an amazing friend, Margaret, who let me park on her driveway for many hours to work on my van. She also taught me how to use power tools (yes!) and some woodworking techniques. We discussed creative ideas and how to bring them into reality. I could not have done this without her and am so grateful for her. Scroll down to see its transformation from light goods vehicle to camper-for-one.
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