many arts studio

20/07/2025

This one is for my dear client-artists, the children and their parents, as well as those who’ve grown up too fast only to be challenged by the task of parenting themselves 🌻

It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.

And none of us is alone.

Here, please catch this sense of WONDER, and drink it all in 💖

🌿 “I sincerely believe that for the child, and for the parent seeking to guide him, it is not half so important to know as to FEEL.

If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow.

The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil.” 🌱

Rachel L. Carson, The Sense of Wonder: A Celebration of Nature for Parents and Children

13/07/2025

🌊 Thank you for another cosy makers circle, blissful stillness in a rough windy day🙇🏻‍♀️

🌿Today’s post quiet making conversation felt like a gentle walk to me. It was spacious, curious and warm.

🪷Things that each of us made led us to sharing different ways of mindfulness/being present in the everyday. We were reminded of the joy and hope and spaciousness even in the daily grind.

💞And as grownups from very different backgrounds, we all agreed on the value and necessity of play.

✨Yes, play - even if it’s quiet as sketching a window, or small as reading a personal poem hidden in a tiny book to a couple of people in a little hideout.

🌸Please join us, monthly in person at Many Arts or anywhere over Zoom. Next on 25 Aug, 1-4. Free. Registration essential. Link in bio.

💬We’ve also decided to set up a WhatsApp group for us to share our creations as we like. Please let me know if you’d like to be added to the chat :)

12/07/2025

In this mess of a life
Some of us like to talk it out
Others of us know to clay it out

Many of us have been taught out of our body and stuck into our intellect:
What’s wrong and how to fix it and quick BUT

A small lump of clay
Some water and a pair of hands
Call for your response

Pound it, squeeze it, hold it, smoothen it, dissolve it, wait for it to dry, rehydrate it, roll it, sculpt it, twist it, even glitter it up!

So delicious like you could eat it, and share it
There, you regain your place
In the mess of a world we’re in
Satisfaction from being alive and with one another

REMEMBER

07/07/2025

Meet Tria, ambassador for Many Arts Studio, speedily branded and delivered by .press.hawthorn

Practically a cute little clip, Tria is made of bamboo, wheat straw plastic, and metal.

Tria is strong and sturdy with smooth and round edges. She fits nicely in the hand, any hand, and she promises to hold securely whether it’s a pack of chips or a stack of paper.

150 pieces of Tria are heading to the Neurodiversity Affirming Therapy Conference hosted by this Thursday. They are to be gifted to all walks of practitioners who value and support different (weird and wonderful!) ways of being (freely!) human in the world.

Tria also sends prayers for new and good friends to be made through the conference.

If Tria ends up in your hand, even brings you here, please don’t hesitate to say hi and (proudly) make yourself known!

05/07/2025

Thursday evening we had a BIG Feast of Friendship at the beautiful Hawthorn Arts Centre.

We had a campfire, a clear vision of the universe, a seriously gorgeous mountain of resources and nourishing food for the senses, comfy fields to rest upon, AND a big pot of soup infused with a perfect balance of Love and Fear and Neutrality - deliberately and nutritiously made by everyone AND for everyone.

Each participant was warmly invited to enter the door of perception, to open their heart to a new friend, and to follow the language of the materials.

I heard that through our making alone and together, repulsion turned into determination, skepticism melted into enchantment, superficial vanity came to be with deep introspection, the artificial touched the real, desire found a portal into reality, self-doubt blew into a total force of nature… and all the loveliness, lightness, and joy were simply there to support and nurture us all.

Each person’s unique process of befriending was tangible, real, true, and beautiful.

Differences were instantly and importantly, seen, felt, and celebrated!

We marvelled at each other’s ingenuity and offered our deep appreciation for one another.

Finally, we stood up tall and sang our ode to friendship in an organically formed, close-knit circle, and in all delicious moods, ways, and thanks.

And we lingered on (!) in the life-affirming air of creativity and connection…

Wish you were there?

Shoot me a line, to join a cosy feast in a group of 4 at Many Arts, or LET US come to you and your world!! (Yes, a fantastic group thing that is connective, spacious, delightful, and highly cost effective in both time and money terms!)

P.S. My heartfelt thanks to my brilliant co-facilitator, Ana ; our mighty manpower, Daniel ; the best librarian in the world, Inta ; the most generous venue support, Kat ; AND everyone who braved the cold dark winter evening to come to be with us. Thank you all so much for making this gathering possible AND ohh so MAGICAL 🙇🏻‍♀️

P.P.S. We were sold out and had 10 people on the waitlist!

01/07/2025

Come play with us!
And as you are!
It’ll be connective, spacious, and delightful!

Thursday 3 July
7-8:30pm
Hawthorn Arts Centre
(We get to meet in the BEAUTIFUL Library Lounge!)

Grab the last few FREE tix NOW!

Discover the power of connection through creativity at this creative arts therapy workshop.

27/06/2025

Pain

“Be curious about pain that is held from the past. Bring it to the light. Explore what it has to teach for the present. Embrace and release.

In times of change, the old is being released and the new is being born. As part of the process, old wounds reappear to be healed and integrated.”

- Peter Merry, Leading From the Field.

My relationship with pain used to have much to do with the nursing role: I was told to assess and to manage pain. And to skip the “psychosomatic”, like it’s a waste of everyone’s time.

But psychotherapy puts me on the embodiment path, where pain, even (or particularly) the “psychosomatic” kind, really gets to grow bigger and louder.

It has made me see that I’m a person - so much more than a role, the nursing role, or any other roles. For I’m a person with my own body that unavoidably experiences my own pain.

And I know these to be true about my current relationship with pain:

1. I want to know it
2. I feel guilty about it
3. I think I often feel powerless in front of it - but this may not be true
4. I am able to get curious about it sometimes
5. I also don’t want it sometimes
6. It feels nice to bring it to the light
7. Pain is always real
8. I am affected by it
9. It brings me back to my body

Wherever you are, my warm wishes to you and your pain
✨🥘✨

23/06/2025

Some of us like to stay on course
Others of us seek to go off track

Friendship and Art bring us together

We see, we feel, we make, we speak
We change, we heal, we grow
We wonderful living, creative things

We never fail to make sense of even the most nonsensical, whenever we follow the materials -

In and out
Tangible
Real
True
Beautiful

My thanks to dearest Ana and the four amazing new people for co-creating the very first Feast of Friendship creative gathering with me right here at Many Arts.

Let’s feast on, always in Friendship and Art 🌸

21/06/2025

Progress

“Pay attention to what wants to happen now and take the next natural step. That’s all.

In times of change, things move quickly and unpredictably. Staying as close as possible to the present moment is the best way to navigate.”

- Peter Merry, Leading From the Field

Progress notes are a repetitive daily thing in my psych nursing career. It used to taint the word Progress with a numbness. For it’s too often a chore. Important for the keeping of a job, a profession, or a system, but tells little about life. Generic. Sterile. Dead.

I am grateful for the view of Progress quoted above. Such a humbling, gentle breath of fresh air. It brings me back to life.

Now I believe that meaningful progress happens, and can only happen whenever we are able to be present moment to moment to what is arising within ourselves and between each other. And I work hard to support this in the therapy room.

May Progress be with you and me like this thriving String of Hearts :)

✨💜✨

19/06/2025

Several months after creating and staying with this image, I finally found the perfect words for the message it’s been trying to offer me; words once said by the very wise and much much loved Mukara Meredith:

🌊 Feeling, remembering Earth: Belonging is Letting go, Rooting down, and Rising up. 🔥

My deep bow to life 🙇🏻‍♀️

13/06/2025

Timing

“Work with the natural rhythms of time.

Go when it flows and stop when it blocks.

In times of change, time tends to work less linearly, and we are more effective when we connect to timing more intuitively.”

- Peter Merry, Leading From the Field

I’ve been conditioned in countless ways to believe that what I need is outside of myself and wherever I’m at. That leaves me tired and powerless. And Time flies away.

Gladly the path of psychotherapy has been helping me to appreciate and respect Time, by returning me again and again to the present moment, the only place I get to understand and harness the power within, and to connect with the natural rhythms of my heart.

This seems to be the right way to learn when to go and when to stop. I’m a beginner choosing and learning to trust it more and more.

Hey listen, if your heart could speak right now, what would it say?

✨🌻✨

09/06/2025

Content

“Be actively interested in the content of what people are working on.

People have passion for their area of expertise and if you show interest, it will inspire them to share and connect.

In times of change, connections between content areas is critical to seeing and nurturing the emerging order.”

- Peter Merry, Leading From the Field

It seems accurate that the word for information and experiences is the same as the word that means peaceful happiness and satisfaction.

The path of psychotherapy requires me to look at people and things with open eyes, and to unblind myself from assumptions and labels. I have noticed ignorance and differences turned again and again into connections as communication and understanding deepen. And that gives me satisfaction, hope, enthusiasm, and strength to companion all ages and faces in my practice.

Many out there expect us to walk straight to “normality”, “performance”, “progress”, and so-called “happiness”, but here we practice going off track to dive into congruence, wholeness, connection, and wild possibility.

May you walk the path of true content
✨🌊✨