12/22/2025
Happy Holidays!
Dear Friends,
As I write this on Dec 21st—known as Winter Solstice or ‘the longest night of the year’—I am reflecting on all that we have accomplished, some things we didn’t, and the gratitude I have for all the learning that has happened this year. I am grateful for the team of volunteers and helpers, the classes and students, the therapy work that provides stability, and the absolute honor it is to watch people learn, grow, create, find peace, heal and go forward in their lives with new narratives and visions of what can be. Like many of you, when you receive this on Monday, we will be working on wrapping up our work for the week, preparing for our kids to come home, thinking about the food to be cooked and presents to be wrapped, and keeping on with our coffee and tea to stay warm and awake. It’s the most wonderful time of the year if it doesn’t totally stress you out!!!
Upcoming Classes and Events: January's fun opportunities await!!
NEW YEAR GATHERING
Friday, 1/9, 6-8 pm
Free for BTAW Members
$25 for Guests—payable at arrival
RSVP by 1/6/26 to rachel@blueturtlescounseling.com.
We don't do New Year's Resolutions--we find words, intentions and vision boards far more motivating, fun, and long lasting!!! Join us to celebrate the new year with a Word of the Year journaling activity, a Vision Board creation, a 5-Minute New Year Meditation and light snacks with conversation to start 2026.
Clay: Learn the Process! 6 Week Class
Thursdays Jan 8-Feb19 5:30-7:30
Price $300
Join Aspen to learn to throw on the wheel, practice your throwing, trim your pieces, and decorate the surfaces with glaze and other techniques--all the steps you see on BBC's The Great Pottery Throwdown!!. You will leave this 6 week experience with 6-8 finished pieces created and designed by you.
Clay: Handbuilding Mugs
Saturday, January 10, 9am -Noon
Price: $60
Join Rachel to learn the soft slab method of handbuilding while making your very own mug. You will decorate it as you desire with underglazes and we will fire it for you to pick up in a few weeks.
Art Journaling
Monday, January 12, 6:30-8:30 pm
Price: $60 New, $20 Returning
Join Rachel to learn or continue in this method of using our creativity to explore what is happening for us in our inner world. Or just to celebrate moments you love.
Clay: Clay Earrings
Sun. January 18, 10 am-Noon
Price: $60
Join Dahlia to learn to make earrings with clay!
Enneawhat? Intro to the Enneagram
Thursday, January 22, 6-8:30 pm
Price: $60
Join Eric and Rachel to learn about this Personality Typing system that has layers of personal development and growth work. In this Introduction course, we will cover the 3 different wisdom centers and 9 different types of the Enneagram, give growth paths for each type, and help people learn to apply types for understanding, personal growth, and empathy with others.
Glass: Mosaic Hearts
Saturday, January 31, 9am-Noon
Price: $60
Join Rachel to learn to cut glass and create a beautiful mosaic heart to hang or give to loved ones. Rachel will grout your piece(s) a week later (you are welcome to come learn and do your own) for you to take home.
Glass: Mosaic Trivets
Saturday, Feb 7, 9- Noon
Prices: $60
Join Rachel to learn to cut glass and create a unique mosaic trivet. Rachel will grout your piece a week later (you are welcome to come learn and do your own) for you to take home.
To register for a BTAW class, click here (https://www.blueturtlesartandwellness.com/classes) .
To register for an Enneagram Outfitters Class, click here (https://www.enneagramoutfitters.com/classes) .
Highlights at Blue Turtles Art & Wellness Collective:
1. LAST MINUTE GIFTS?
If you are in need of last minute gifts, BTAW offers gift certificates or class registrations as gifts to give someone. Email rachel@blueturtlescounseling.com if you want a printed certificate to give and she can send it digitally for your to print or meet you Monday or Tuesday to pass it on to you. Wednesday she is not available as she will be finishing all the things (as usual)!!!
2. BTAW Status Update: Roses, Thorns, and Buds
Roses: Our partnership with Centennial Community Education has been one of the surprising bright spots this year at BTAW. We feel so appreciated by them and their willingness to let us offer classes through them to the community has been so fun. Check out their catalog online and give them some love this upcoming year!!!
Thorns: The thought of raising prices to meet increasing expenses when we don’t want to. Our friends and clients losing resources they need. The seemingly slipping away of compassion and empathy in our culture.
Buds: In the next couple months we will be considering what is next for BTAW. We have some big decisions to make and there will likely be shifts in our spaces. Those of us in the leadership circle are consulting our deeper wisdom and intuition on what moves we have ahead. We will continue to share what we know when we know it as we believe that though things might change, the heart of its community is what keeps BTAW alive.
3. Random Thoughts from Rachel: Winter Holidays
Over the years, our family has explored and celebrated many holidays—both secular like New Year’s Eve, and religious like Christmas Day. I have explored other cultural and religious holidays as an educator and as one who likes to add meaning and new traditions to a season that can be difficult for many. A little over a year ago, while in Ireland to visit my youngest kiddo living there, we stood in the center of an ancient passage tomb* build by my some of my indigenous ancestors* in 3200 BC. These ancient people built this burial place to be oriented perfectly to have the dark inner tomb filled with light at the moment of sunrise on the Winter Solstice. How? Why?--I wonder. The answers scholars offer are only guesses, but I imagine that the turning of the light and dark played into their seasons and days as they lived closer to the natural world than we in all our ‘modernity’. While this day can signify “the longest night”, it also means “the return of the light”, which will increase bit by bit in the next days and weeks to come. This lengthening of the light gives hope to me (and all my clients who have Seasonal Affective Disorder!).
Every year for many years now, between Winter Solstice and Epiphany (Jan 6) I take some time to reflect on the year that is ‘ending’ by our Gregorian calendar, and set intentions for the year ahead. I have a lovely “Year in Review” and “Word of the Year” format I use in these practices to celebrate the wins and learn from the difficulties of the past year, and set gentle intentions for the year to come. Whether you join us at BTAW this year to explore those things, or do so in the privacy of your own space, I encourage you to reflect on this year and think through your desires for the future. Intentionality is how we move the needle on our lives--however, “Resolutions or goals” for New Year are not my thing. I find them too restrictive, inflexible, and easy to fail at. And, “starting things” in the depth of winter never felt quite right when it is a time of cold, quiet, and hibernation. But reflections of gratitude and intentional thoughts for what I want in my future mean I have some direction while I can also allow what comes to me in a more fluid way—much more my speed. I tend to have more energy as it turns to spring--when nature is having its ‘new growth’--so thats when I tend to consider more active goals. Whatever works for you, I hope these next months bring connection, rest, and the desires of your heart.
*newgrange.com (https://www.newgrange.com/)
*My Irish lineage comes from my paternal grandmother and the McKenna family line
Come Join Us!
We are on hiatus until January, but we hope to see you then!
May your days be merry and bright as we move through this holiday season.
Feel free to reach out if you have any questions, concerns, or ideas.
Best,
Rachel
(for the BTAW Collective)
651-338-2445
rachel@blueturtlescounseling.com
Quote of the month:
"I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way--things I had no words for."
– Georgia O'Keeffe
BTAW DEI Statment:
BTAW is a ‘sanctuary space’ which means we do not allow any hate speech or celebration of social injustice in our space. This is so our members and friends in marginalized populations feel safe and loved by all of us who are privileged enough to not have those difficulties. We strive to promote diverse and vibrant community by caring for people of all gender identities and expressions, sexualities, ethnicities, races, cultures, abilities, documentation status and all ways that make us each unique. We welcome all people to participate and lead in our organization and strive to create conditions where all feel included, safe, and engaged in our programs. We believe that real healing cannot happen on an individual level alone, but that collective healing happens through the richness of diversity and is a crucial part of our growth, health and transformation. ALL are welcome here.
BTAW acknowledges that early non-native settlers colonized what would become the US Territories, lands originally stewarded by indigenous tribes. In Minnesota the original tribes and nations were, and still are, mostly Dakota and Annishinaabe. We condemn the tools of historical and contemporary colonization, including genocide and forced assimilation, undertaken in the name of white supremacy that created structures of injustice and inequity that continue to oppress and marginalize Indigenous and underrepresented peoples. We acknowledge further that the land was developed on the backs of people of African descent for more than 400 years and of Latinx and Asian descent for more than 170 years forced into labor under slavery or work camps under atrocious and torturous conditions. Their brilliance, energy and very lives were taken on behalf of building this nation. We celebrate the resilience and strength that all indigenous people and descendants of Africa, Asia and Latin America have shown in this country and worldwide. The purpose of this statement is to simply acknowledge this true history and foster space for healing.
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