September's Inside the Theme

It's time for another IGGPPC Inside the Theme post and unfortunately, for me, it's all about food lol.    
     Now don't get me wrong, I love good food. But if I didn't need it to be alive and healthy, I wouldn't mind cutting back to just a sampling of mostly desserts every week or so... Also, despite having a very stereotypical Italian mom, that loves me so much she tends to overfeed me, can whip up a meal in minutes out of almost nothing and has her own super delicious, special spaghetti recipe, that part of the Italian genes skipped me and I barely know how to make a cold sandwich hehe. So be warned that my answer to these questions might not be what you expect from a "food-themed post."

1) What two edible masterpieces inspire your inner chef? 
As previously mentioned, I have absolutely no inner chef, but here are some pics of some amazing foods I've come across this year to inspire the rest of you, or at least inspire you to go out and find pretty foods to take pictures of haha.

Veggie lasagna and Vegan white chocolate whoopee pies and cupcakes!

Chocolate "Moose" and Hello Kitty blunt cakes. Yummm

Vegan sushi and "chick'n" with a nut crust on a bed of veggie goodness

Disney treats are THE best! Did you notice my partiality towards desserts?

2) Timeless Treasures. What family recipe do you most treasure or covet (if you don’t have it yet)? 
Well, apparently my great-grandma had some incredible pie and cake recipes that have been handed down only to worthy females in the family. My mom has them now and even my uncle who's a chef isn't supposed to have them. I mean not even grandma could get them! They went straight into my mom's hands while she and my great-gran baked together and these treasures are highly coveted, just not by me. I would love to get to eat more of said secret recipe desserts though! My afore mentioned uncle also has some delicious secret recipes of his own that he's been passing along to one of my cousins. His creations are drool worthy and he makes them for me as his present whenever we get together, but again I'm more interested in eating them than making them.

3) In a box? With a fox? Where would you have dinner if you could partake in a fictional feast?
Have any of you read the Tiger Saga by Colleen Houk? Amongst all the adventure and running around, two of the characters end up being guests at a fairy kingdom. I believe it happened in the third book, Tiger's Voyage... Anyway, the feast was all vegetarian, mostly vegan and made mainly out of nuts and flowers, plus it was a gorgeous location amongst fairies. That's one of the fictional feasts I would most like to attend. Or you know, if you want something more mainstream. I would not decline an invitation to Beast's castle as long as Lumier makes sure to tell the kitchen staff it has to be vegan :D

4) A feast for the senses. Comfort food goes beyond just eating, what kitchen scent is at the top of your list?
One of my favorite kitchen scents, interestingly enough, is fresh brewed coffee. I do not like coffee at all, but that scent smells like mom and I love it! I also love the smell of fresh baked goodies, but who doesn't?

5) Most memorable or strangest meal you’ve ever eaten?!
Hmm, this is a tough one, like I said food is not all THAT important to me, so I don't think of it as memorable. What makes a meal memorable is being with my loved ones, or in a particularly great place. I remember places and people and conversations way more than the food we had. But now that I think about it I guess one of the most memorable meals I've had was the one I technically never had... When I was in pre-school or first grade, I went to a friend's house to play restaurant. She had just gotten this amazing new set of dishes that were tiny but as functional as the real ones in the kitchen. We invited lots of plashes to our restaurant and served the food her mom had left on the stove for our dinner. We played for hours and we kept eating out of those tiny plates throughout the entire time. By the time they made us clean up and get ready for dinner we were stuffed and couldn't figure out why! LOL
     As for strange,  I'm not that adventurous with food, unless it's vegan but then I know I'm not really eating something strange. 
I guess my strangest snacks were when in grade school I would pick these blue, trumpet-like flowers straight from a tree during recess to drink their sweet nectar and munch on the petals haha. As you can tell, I miss being a fairy, I love flowers, to talk to, to photograph, paint and to eat! So there you have it. Now you know a little bit more random information about me and I managed to make myself hungry so I'll hop along to find some snacks. 

Happy Peace Day!

©Bree Castillau http://www.colibreephotogrart.com/spiritual-art

Yay today is Peace Day! And for some reason it’s become very important to me this year. Something about it deeply resonated with me this time, to the point I felt compelled to create an image for it and share it in the form of a postcard with all my friends around the world. By now, I've almost mastered not questioning why things get stuck in my system and just go with the flow, so I did. And the image above is what came to me, with the feeling that Love and Peace for everyone is the only dream we need to collectively catch...

I don't know what it is, but there's something about 2016's Peace Day, because even In my town there is going to be a specific, super fun gathering to celebrate it this evening! I'm definitely not missing out on it, we will focus around a sacred drum circle to spread peace and healing around the world.  We’ll begin with a candlelight ceremony to build our intentions for healing and harmony across the globe and after the drumming, we will be in a peace meditation with crystal singing bowls. I know this is a little "out there" for a lot of people, but it's right up my alley and sounds like the perfect way to celebrate Peace and spend the last official full day of Summer <3

Honestly, much as Earth Day, Peace day should be celebrated every day, but it's so easy for most of us to get caught up in our daily lives and forget about sending loving thoughts to the planet on a daily basis, that it’s nice to get at lest a yearly reminder to stop and focus on creating the world we want to live on, even if just for a day. Collective positive thoughts on Peace and tolerance do make a difference. 

Image from Elizabeth Harper's https://www.sealedwithlove.com

I guess now that my pen-pal friendships have deepened and I've met so many new people around the globe who are all trusting in each other, opening the hearts to be generous and get to know other cultures without judgement or limitations, make Peace day resonate more with me now than it’s done before. Because despite of what people are saying about the negativity of 2016, all I’ve felt is Peace, Love and Acceptance from people who have never even met me in person and from those loved ones around me. And I wanted to acknowledge and celebrate that. 

What does Peace mean to you? How do you envision world Peace?

Oh and before I forget, Happy Fall Equinox everyone! Halloween season starts in 9 days and I couldn't be more exciting for all the Fall fun and Halloween magic coming up. Hope you all have a wonderful start of the season now that the energy is fully shifting and we're moving out of the latest retrograde!!

Home-Camp and Sisterhood

August is a very special month for members of my beloved IGGPPC as it is the month of Iggle camp! 

For five days we “get together” and watch movies, tv shows, play games, go on scavenger hunts, bake and craft TOGETHER! But since this is a pen-pal event and we all live in different parts of the globe it's more of a virtual camp. Although this year we did have a lot of activities promoting getting out and moving around, form going out to catch pokemon to Yoga challenges on different locations around each of us.  I know it ’s a very strange concept and hard to grasp for "outsiders", but if you’re in, I swear it’s super fun! You can read all about it here.

What makes camp different from our day to day experiences in the community is that, instead of being separated into age groups and everyone doing monthly activities at their own time, we all try to do things live and interact as a group. We also get sorted into troops so you get to meet all sorts of new friends from every age-range. This year I was sorted into Troop Firebolt which is all about Harry Potter, so not a good match for me lol. I honestly don't know how troops are created or how campers get assigned to them, but despite my lack of enthusiasm for my troop's theme I had a great time with wonderful and magical friends. And fortunately there are a whole lot of activity options that don't involve Harry Potter :P

I've been told I'm a Hufflepuff so I went with it for my troop's ID

Camp crafts are always my favorite and below are some of the ones I created this year. I also learned to make friendship bracelets (not pictured.) Believe it or not I've never made them before! Now I'm excited to swap with some of my friends :D But I think my favorite craft this year and the one I can totally see a use for, for more than just fun, was stamp carving! It was awesome, and so much easier than when I tried it in middle school. This time it came out right!

I also got to escape the “camp grounds” (my place) and go chase the Hello Kitty Truck that finally made an appearance in MA. 

How cute is this?!

I was still participating in camp while out in line for the truck though, being out gave me a great opportunity to get a lot of items for my scavenger hunt and go practice yoga outdoors. 

Plus my outfit was a camp closet-challenge of being a character in red. Can you all guess who my character was?

This year, August became extra special, because apart from all the fun above described, after more than half a year since I found out of it's existence, I finally got to join a new community which is the OTSPSS which stands for On the Same Page Secret Sister. A project devoted to sending cheer to someone else and letting them know someone's thinking lovingly about them for six months. It’s meant to lift up spirits, create a sense of community and sisterhood and bring a monthly, dependable ray of sunshine to look forward to even if you're month happens to be lackluster otherwise! It’s such a beautiful project with a very encouraging and positive community and I’m so, so happy I finally made it in! 

It’s a super fun project really. Think secret Santa but throughout the year in 6 month-long sessions. Half the fun is trying to figure out who your sister is and of course in the process getting to know someone new and hopefully build a strong friendship with them. Each session you get two new people to interact personally with. The sister that showers you with love and the one to whom you are her sister and you get to shower with joy.

I sent out my first package over a week ago and I’m already almost done planning for September and this past weekend I received my very own package from my sister which is super exciting! I honestly don’t know which part is more fun. But either way August was a great month for letter writing, new friendships (even if they're distance ones) and late summer campy fun!

Can’t wait to see what the next season brings :D

Is This a Test?

August has been crazy! Running around trying to squeeze as much summer fun before the season ends while creating, editing and submitting work to different and new art opportunities. Going to Manhattan to deal, for my very first time, with professional printers while producing more images still, trying to figure out school stuff and all while being very sleep deprived!

If you remember back in March my apartment was flooded, which I know is something I manifested and there was a lesson there to be had ( if you missed it you can catch up here.) What I didn’t get into was how absolutely awful my building’s new management is. They did the bare minimum back then to help and things have just gotten worst over these months. 

I don’t want to be putting more negativity out there so let’s just say they have made living in the building less than desirable... 

I looked into moving earlier this summer but things didn’t line-up and the message from the Universe seemed to be clear: Stay put for another year. To be honest though, signing the new lease felt wrong! But what could I do if no other options fell into place and obstacles to move kept popping up? At leas my little unit has always seemed like a safe heaven to me and I love it or I did until this month. The entire month, under feeble excuses like changing light fixtures that did not need changing, these people kept coming into my place, getting everything dirty, leaving my door unlocked for who knows how long while I was out of town and breaking parts of my closet that fell on me as I walked in to check on things! 

To top it all off they were banging, drilling and knocking on my door at ridiculous hours, that as tenants we could be sued for noise disturbances at those hours, which resulted in my before mentioned sleep deprivation.I tried talking to them but it didn't seem to be of much use, they clearly have no regards for alternate life schedules. It got so bad, all I could do was cry at some point and I thought I was really going to go crazy! 

Why would the Universe make me stay under such terrible conditions? I was even starting to pack despite still having about 10 more months on the lease and then it clicked! The lesson!! There is ALWAYS a lesson to these things and I needed to find it in order for them to go away. 

Last month at my intuition workshop our teacher was telling us a story of how she would butt heads at her former job with a really aggravating guy. It was getting insufferable, until one day it dawned on her that it was a reflection of her, when she accepted this and let go of the issues he brought up in her, gave them up for healing, the annoying guy "magically"  got moved to another area where she never had to see him again! My answer lied within this story.

So for the past week I’ve been trying to switch my perspective (granted I needed a little sleep before I could be more zen about things haha.) I’m not 100% positive on what my lesson is yet, but I greatly suspect is one about adaptability and more than anything flexibility. 

I’m working on figuring things out but my first order of business was, still is, to send Love and Light to these people. It’s so hard when people are disrespectful, rude, insensitive, etc. not to get mad and instead send them as much Love as possible, believe me I know! But getting caught up in negative emotions just gets us trapped in vicious cycles, some of these cycles even make you believe your apartment sucks and you're gonna end up in a psychiatric wing somewhere; While when we send Love and focus on learning something, we heal ourselves and change others for the better eventually. 

So Love and Light to the entire new management and maintenance team in my building while I figure out what else are they here to teach. Maybe that’s all there is to it,  a “practice test” to put into use everything I’ve been learning this year. What do you think?

Image from Elizabeth Harper's Sealed with Love

Trust

Hello everyone! Sorry I didn’t get to post sooner! July was incredibly busy and amazing!! Beyond any predictions I could have had and was so packed with different adventures, that I'm sure when I look back at it in years, it’ll probably make the list of one of the best summer months ever! But it wasn’t without its challenges, and the one lesson that kept up coming was TRUST. Which was very insightful since I thought my only predominantly recurrent lesson was patience haha.

Here's how the lesson presented itself in different forms through out my main adventures:

I started the month still at DisneyWorld with one of the most important members of my soul-family having a blast. But throughout our week of fun we had some communication issues and a recurrent theme of lack of trust, especially me towards him. We talked some issues through where he did mention I never trust him but we brushed most things under the rug so as to focus only on the fun. But as the time came to say goodbye I couldn’t help that familiar fear of the unknown from creeping into my heart. When were we gonna see each other again? Would he keep his word of not disappearing? What if the distance became too much to bare? Etc... These questions have always been there haunting me for years, but it wasn’t until this month that it clicked how much it is connected to trust issues! I need to learn to trust that it will all work out and that he will keep his word. Ghaa!! So hard! LOL

The second week of July I had to leave for a class field- trip to CT for a Native American museum. This is only about 2-3 hrs from my place and was supposed to be a one day thing. But the meeting point for my class was super far from me and I would have had to wake up dangerously (for me) early, so my mom decided to get us a room in the area and turn my class into a 2.5 days mini-adventure. Never being one to pass a trip of any kind I jumped on board knowing it was mostly about class and not driving without sleep. I'm still forever grateful and I'm SO lucky! Because as it turned out the class ended up being a bust :-/ The teacher was over an hour late! The whole group was already there but we couldn’t get in without our teacher since he had the tickets and group reservation. I then ended starving because as I was going to get a snack while we waited, our teacher showed up and decided to rush us so we could make it to an awesome-sounding seminar, but he got side-tracked, talked about things we had already covered in class and we missed the seminar and the local Tribe Chief cancelled on the rest of our activities because she was sick. At the end our trip only consisted of waiting outside the building and then wandering through certain areas of the museum :/ I was so upset at first and forgot again to TRUST the Universe to have my back. Thanks to this failed class trip, I got a super fun weekend away with my mom and because the class was a bust we were done earlier so I had more time to go out and take pictures which is my main art medium so yay! It was all for a reason, sometimes I still forget…

A week after that I went to a week-long retreat in upstate NY for intensive classes on Intuition and healing. And what’s the key source to develop those intuitive gifts? Thats right trust!! Every time during class I dismissed something or thought I had made it up and doubted my abilities I got things wrong (usually the thing I dismissed was the right answer,) but when I just went with it and removed the fear of looking stupid, I did excellent! That’s when I started to hear the Universe’s shouts for me to just trust, trust, trust! 

To make the lesson even clearer for me I got a chance to learn how to fly in a trapeze, and let me tell you it was the most absolutely horrifying thing I’ve ever done voluntarily! But I HAD to do it to get those pictures of a new experience hehe. Even though while I was up high leaning over the edge I truly regretted it. The whole thing was a giant trust-exercise. You have to trust that the people holding on to the ropes of the harness are not gonna let go, you have to trust your body will have the strength and balance to climb a 30ft high, rickety ladder; once you’re up you have to lean your entire weight out of the platform and trust the person behind you pushing your hips further forward really has you and can hold your weight, then you have to grab the bar and jump off into thin air, and to get down you simply let go of the bar trusting everything will be ok!! It’s super scary and like a girl there said on her first try “It just doesn’t seem natural to just let go and jump at the nothingness beneath you.” And it so doesn’t! But if that doesn’t show you to trust I don’t know what will. 

Apparently I only listen to what the Universe is trying to teach me through travel and crazy experiences :P But hey! How awesome is it that less than two years ago the doctors said I did not have more than two days to live and now I’m swinging on a trapeze?!

I’m still struggling with this lesson, I’ve heard it and I’m processing but bad habits are hard to break lol. When it hits me that my true, close, local friends are down to one it’s hard to trust more are on the way since I’m such an introvert, it’s hard to trust my body is working for me and will release all the chemo weight on bad days when I can’t find anything to wear, it’s hard to trust things will work out with a certain someone when he just goes MIA for weeks at a time! It’s hard to trust the Universe’s plans when I get a red light for submitting my art to certain things I’m excited about and pushed to finish projects that are overwhelming and yet I can feel that if I just let go and trust things will just fall not place, I wonder why it’s so hard?

And what could've triggered this lack of trust, maybe it's always been there hidden from the conscious mind and it's now being brought to the Light to be healed... I guess it's time for me to keep practicing jumping off the trapeze platform, how about you? <3

Image from Elizabeth Harper's Sealedwithlove.com

June's Inside the Theme

I can't promise I will do this #Insidethetheme thing every month, but while I wait for my newest Family and Disney-venture to start (tomorrow! aahh!) I thought I'd give it another go since it's a fun way to let you know a little bit more about myself and connect to other members of the Iggle community ;)

This month's theme was all about crafts which was totally in sync with the creative energies at work in my life and it provided new ideas for me to try out! How perfect is that?! So without further ado here are my answers for the month.

1)What is your favorite type of craft, and why is it so amazing?

I'm such a restless spirit that, true to my hummingbird tendencies of trying out all the pretty flowers, I like or would like to try all the crafts that do not involve sewing/knitting or cooking. But I probably do tend to favor paper ones like scrapbooking, ATC's, DIY stationary, etc. Although, don't leave me alone at a Michael's 'cause I will want to take up EVERY craft as my new hobby!

2)What would your preferred weapon in the Craftamageddon be?

I would like to go with paper and micron pens but that could fall into the Fine Arts realm so if we're being strict about just crafts then probably washi tape! You can washi everything to make it better :)

3)Where on a scale from “Look At This Pair Of Shoes I Just Made” to “What Do You Mean You Own A Pair Of Scissors?” do you consider yourself? Do you have any funny craftastrophe stories?

I usually create more art than crafts but sometimes the line between these two is so blurry, and like I say I like to try all the crafts haha, so I guess I'm closer to the Shoe making side of the scale, as long as I don't really have to make shoes! LOL

My creative process is in itself a "Craftastrophe" hahaha, I'm constantly covered in glitter, glue and paint and manage to cut myself more than the paper :P So I can't recall a particularly funny story, I do find my attempts at creating a cup on the pottery wheel laughable if that counts...

                          

4)3 Things You Would Bring To A Deserted Island, Craftamageddon style! (Because why wouldn’t you bring a glue gun and washi tape as opposed to survival necessities and loved ones?)

Only three? Hmm.. ok a giant pack of multicolor paper (that counts as one right?) Scissors and... WASHI tape!!

5)Show us a DIY project you are (sort of mildly) proud of

Ok so I showed you my most recent new crafts for this month on my previous post and I'm sort of mildly proud of them hehe, but I'm sharing these others from the past month I really liked, hope you like them too <3

Paper "Feather Smudging fan" for my Native American class

Glass bottle I stained for a friend

Angel silk scarf I painted for my mom

Aaannndd, that's it for this month! Hoped you all liked my little ramblings for June. 

Love, Light and Laughter to all of you <3

Transitioning Upwards!

Another month almost over and I have no idea where time has gone, how does this even happen?..

This month has been a really interesting one and seemed to just be building off the energies of last month. My social life dropped down to zero! And still it was one of the busiest months yet. Ever since my apartment flooded energies have been moving and redirecting themselves. 

I seem to be in a transitional period again and, talking to my few Spiritual friends, they’ve all noticed that recently.

The influx of creative energy that washed over me last month intensified throughout June and a lot of old art projects have been getting finished and new ideas born. I also tried new techniques and crafts that could eventually, potentially become something. 

A restless energy has also been lingering around making me itch for adventure. I want to go somewhere, anywhere! Try new things, make a change of some sort. I noticed this amongst my friends too, It could be the energies of the solstice influencing us but whatever it is, there is something in the air…

As part of this transition state I'm in, I’ve become more attuned with the seasons, my sleep patterns adjust to each season lately but now that the warmer months are here it’s more obvious, since I get tired and uninspired on cloudy, cool days and can’t wait to take over the world on sunny days (which is extremely weird for me.) My body seems to also be changing with the season, I’m tanner and my hair curlier without me even going outside! It’s very interesting to notice all these changes in oneself.

Of course as with any other transition I’m “losing” a lot of friends again. I’m not too worried since I go through this every few years. Of course there are the souls that stay with me no matter what and for them I am always deeply grateful, but most of them live very far away from me and my local "new" friends are the ones usually rotating. I started the year with about 10 friends, now most of them have transitioned themselves into acquaintances or occasional friends to go out with while the rest have totally disappeared, only one or two have remained true friends. Like I said, with every transition this happens and it makes sense since, with every transition you change, your interests and priorities change and you suddenly can’t connect to people in a different "wavelength" no matter how much you care about them, it's almost as if magically there's nothing to talk about for either party. But the fact that I understand the why or that it’s happened before doesn’t make it that much easier. I still long for a tribe of souls where we are all on the same page and can play together without judgement and lift each other up. 

Has anyone else found themselves in a recent transitional state and has had some of these “symptoms”? I’d love to hear thoughts and experiences! :)

Of course on the positive side of things my beautiful, generous pen-pals have kept that need for human connection and friendship fulfilled.  But why can’t they live close to me so we can hang out for real?! Lol 

Also as usual if you ask and fully trust in the Universe you will receive!  My sense of adventure has been satiated by having to go to a destination wedding (my cousins’s) and even though the situation makes me sad I get rewarded by  going somewhere haha and more importantly seeing some family I haven’t seen in years! As well as spending some days in DisneyWorld with my guy bff! Since he’s between 2-10 years old and I’m 5 it’s gonna be the most perfect time ever!! So thank you Universe for listening to my pleas and manifesting so fast <3 <3

Also I was featured in a Fine Art blog on a post about wild life photography! Check it out here. 

So I guess what I can take out of this month is to go with the energies and don’t resist changes and transitions, There was a reason for that “adventure” vibe as it got manifested twice in very different ways. And the transition makes me a better healer and intuitive by being tuned into the seasons and their energies and by phasing people out that don’t resonate with me to make room for those to come. In the meantime things balance out in life always and since I didn't have a lot of social contact at the beginning of the month I get to finish its last week surrounded by those few souls that have always been there for me and are my true family whether it’s by blood or not. 

Love and Light to all of you and happy 4th of July!