100 days

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Today my children are celebrating the 100th day of school, an acknowledgment of their practice. I am on day 11 of my 100 day project. It is the second time I am venturing to show up 100 consecutive days to honor my creativity.

Last year I painted flowers with watercolors on little pieces of paper. Each day I did, I reclaimed fragments of myself that I left behind. I untangled old beliefs that in order to be an artist I needed to be proficient at still lives and landscapes. I believed those skills warranted the use of the title “artist”. I also had to lovingly bring back to life the parts of me that died each time I experienced rejection, criticism, or being looked over for creative endeavors. I never was the cream of the crop. And I equated that – to not being a real artist.

I recovered that sense of myself, and will be forever grateful. I am an artist of many mediums. I use words, paint, beads, and flowers to bring to beauty to form.  For these 100 days, I am working in my little art journal. That is the structure, and then I just get to show up, and keep showing up especially when I am underwhelmed with what I have created the day(s) before. I practice.

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Tiny Internal Shifts

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Am I the the only one that religiously undercuts myself, and fails to see all I have created? Progress: a blur, unable to be identified amidst moving so quickly day in and day out.

It is another snow day today. While the kids were eating their oatmeal and my husband was snowplowing, I crept downstairs to exercise for 20 minutes – which I knew would ultimately be for everyone’s benefit. The teacher, Robyn Arzon said, what do you have now in your life that you once wished so hard for? Wow. Well, everything, and more. Beyond my wildest dreams in fact.

My mentor Anahita Joon gave me a challenge in December to set a 8 joy alarms each day for 30 days. When they rang I had to seek out my joy and spend more time there. 98% of the time my joy was right in front of me : it rang while I was in the kitchen with my kids, on a walk with a friend, talking with my husband, or creating art….I just had to pause a beat and realize what was in front of me, and receive it. Let it all the way in.

Every time I am swimming in unrealistic exceptions of myself, may I remember to slow down, to notice what is being built, especially when everything feels to be consistently torn down. To take time to CELEBRATE, to write a love letter to myself, to honor all I have gave, all you have received, all that you have dreamed into form. Join me?!

I wonder how I would feel at the end of the day, if I witnessed and honored my spirit instead of scrolling and comparing. Obviously it would feel so good! I would feel fulfilled and proud, which is always what I am forever searching for. Can’t we always give ourselves just what it is we are looking for?

Tiny internal shifts, another one now.

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Fluorite Love

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Have you ever had so many ideas you need time to stretch so they all can be born? This occurs for me daily. It is a gift if I know how to manage said ideas, and a curse if I let them run me.

I live for creativity, and I am learning to create the structure to hold it all. Like a house with rooms that are neat, expressive, and purposeful. I yearn for this. I want a structure to hold me. I call on all the support and guidance I can summon, and I find them in various forms : coaches, mentors, books, and even stones!

When I came across the stone of Fluorite in The Crystal Bible I stopped in my tracks reading the description : Flourite is protective and stabilizing. It is “the best crystal to use to overcome any form of disorganization”. It is connected with progress and can support structure in daily life, a reorganizer of sorts. Ok, I thought, I need fluorite all over me. I struggle with structure and organization. Could this magic stone be the answer to these challenges? A structure began to emerge for me as a way to hold my creations.

So I did what I do best. I sourced incredible flourite, got a hunk of the stone for my desk and created my first collection!!! View it here : a variety of earrings, bracelets, necklaces, and one very special mala. These are all one of a kind, so get them while you can.

I have been wearing these pieces and I feel charged and ready to create the container for which I want to exist in. I will wear these throughout the year and beyond as I create a steady foundation. 

Keep your eyes out for the next month’s crystal offering. Each will have a unique element to support you and your creation of your desires. 

I will leave you by these words I read this morning in a book I am devouring by Justina Blakeney, The New Bohemians Handbook. She has crystal expert, Vanessa Knight, share about her favorite crystals. Here is some of what she says about fluorite :

“Fluorite is the best crystal to use to untangle your mind. When feelings seem to be spinning out of control or when you’ve been walking around in a fog for days, fluorite will usher in some much needed clarity, and stability by allowing you to rapidly organize and process the information swimming around in your mind…”

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The Charm & Magic Journey

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Last week  my son turned 7. Two weeks before, Charm & Magic turned 7 as well.

Seven is a potent number, one that represents the completion of a cycle.

Charm & Magic was born out of desire and on a complete whim.

The spark that ignited it all was a Christmas present my husband gave me in 2013. A session with Rachelle of The Neshama Project. I admired the life she led as yoga teacher with a jewelry line. At the time I was an aspiring yoga teacher, emerging health coach, and a dance educator in NYC yearning to create again.

Listening to my desires, she prompted me : Just do it! So I did. She gave me permission. I didn’t have a business plan or a business background, just a deep desire to create.

I began making mini malas, necklaces made with 108 smaller beads so they hung like a normal necklace. I was too intimidated to create actual malas, with many companies already doing this… so I created something small. I was thrilled when I made my first few sales, to mostly friends, and some strangers (!), my biggest customer was my aunt.

Then 14 days later my first child was born and I became a mother. Which was obviously a steep learning curve. I took the sage advice and slept when the baby slept, but sometimes when he was sleeping on me in a carrier I would make a necklace at our table.

When my husband’s two week paternity leave came to a close, I made us all walk to another neighborhood in Brooklyn to visit a bead shop. I insisted on having a lesson, while Aaron sat with sleeping Luca in a restaurant, and I gathered materials to sustain me while I was alone with the baby for the first time. Looking back at this now, it seems absurd, but at the time, there didn’t seem to be any other option than doing just that.

I would create whenever I could fit it in. We moved to Germany for 6 months, and then back to our little apartment in Brooklyn, then to Lancaster, PA where Anna would be born, and then a few years later, Elliot. Motherhood would continue to be my biggest challenge, joy, teacher, and would routinely swallowed me whole.

I started making actual malas, then bracelets, then earrings, and then necklaces. I learned about gems, I found places to source my materials, I created a studio in our house. I found such solace, joy, and peace while I was making. I made custom malas, I made custom malas for yoga studios, I taught mala making workshops, I brought my things to craft fairs, yoga fairs, and Vegan fairs. I slowly developed partnerships and relationships.

Each year I always spent a few $100 more than whatever I made.

It really was a glorified hobby, but I was giving it the weight and importance and expectation of a thriving business. I used its perceived failure to generate income, as reinforcement that I was not successful, good, or worthy. What started out as a pleasurable pursuit silently ate away at my perspective of myself, my ability to achieve, my claim to worthiness.

Thankfully, I truly get it now. And I am sure there is more that I will continue to learn (obviously), but this seems to be a big lesson. I understand that my performance in this external venture does not signify my worth, my power, my brilliance, my ability to shine. I am all those things. I do not need to prove I am a multidimensional, creative, thoughtful being capable of success. I do not have to prove I am more than a mother. Of course I am more than a mother. We are all more than the thing we identify with the most. With this huge insight, I realize the chase will not get me there, instead I get to cultivate the feeling of full acceptance within.

I’m glad I was young and starry eyed and just dove in. I appreciate that about myself. I am very good at just leaping, especially when I seem to have no business doing so. Perhaps if I knew all it would take, all the mistakes that would be made, perhaps I wouldn’t have dared to be so bold.

The quote I included in every order in the beginning was : 

“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.” -Geothe 

And so just like we continue to evolve. Charm & Magic continues to do the same. 

I am working towards creating a clear container for my work. While honoring creativity, inviting play, and celebrating beauty. Thank you for being a part of this journey. I so appreciate you!

More to come,

Leah

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I am

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You are,

We become.

Welcome.

I know you will appear similar to what just was. It will feel the same, until it doesn’t. Then we will know there is something new for us here.

I will soften and receive because I have made space to release and grieve. I will dance constantly, because that is one of the best ways I know to heal.

Let gratitude course my being with perspective and grace. Let me see the tremendous amount of good fortune all around. Let me not forget for a moment all of what I have by yearning for what I do not have. Let me be delighted by the dreams and visions, but not disillusioned with our current life.

I believe in myself, I care for myself enough to create a structure for my life. I am held. I fiercely turn my seeking of success inwards, by noting the big and little things that have occurred. I take time to celebrate!!! I take time to let it in. This practice is revolutionary and shifts my outer world. I finally get that my external output does not define my worth, brilliance, creativity and sense of self.

I let my body guide me. I tap into her divine wisdom and am guided by her. I am devoted to her. Teach me to fully accept her.

I savor this life.

Thank you.

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Behold

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It feels like a sacred act to witness the leaves falling.

It feels like a secret initiation to behold the changing of colors. With leaves on top blushing red, while the bottom leaves remain green and all the other shades are represented in the in between. This becomes a testament, a visual representation, a reflection of the process of change.

The reason it feels like such a gift, is that most change is imperceivable. Something we rarely get to visually see, until we are on the side of whatever it is. Normally one cannot view the evolution, for it is subtle and elusive.

We cannot see a child grow day to day.

We cannot see a loved one age day to day.

There are so many things we are blind to in the immediate, in the slow graceful shifting of change.

The leaves are slow and graceful in their shift, and yet they linger long enough so we can absorb their beauty, so we can prepare for what is to come next.

Now many trees are bare, with a skirt of leaves hugging the roots, assisting in the next part of the trees life and transformation. 

And we all wait, for what is to come next.

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