Sovereignty does not look a certain way. It is a state of being that reveals who we are truly, in any given moment. And as we create ourselves as more sovereign, we will create a more sovereign world. 

It is about reclaiming our power, our freedom. Not power from any thing, not freedom from anybody. This is not a "get out of jail card' from responsibility. In fact, quite the opposite: it is the power to have creative choice in any moment, in any situation. It is acknowledging and exercising our freedom to choose what feels right and true for us, irrespective of social pressure, or personal conditioning or even, of our intimate history. And then knowing we have what it takes to accept the circumstances of that choice.

If we feel imprisoned or confined or constricted in any way, it is crucial to remember that it is not about the circumstances or the people on the outside, that these are only a reflection of our own limitations in our inner world. So the question to ask is 'what are we willing to do internally to liberate ourselves? 

And maybe we could also look at in which area of our lives are we giving away our power? Because only if we allow that to happen, are we giving permission to an outside organisation or person to step in. For the reality is: there is no power outside of us. And until we truly realise this, we need to continue our journey of profound healing. 

So let's look more closely at what or who we perceive to be our head of state, or the head of our finances, or the head of our state of health? And how do we choose to respond to these? And with which consciousness?

For to begin to operate in this world in a more sovereign way, let's act as we are designed to be, as a human being: the creative director of our life.

On the surface of the world right now
There is war and violence and things seem dark.
But calmly and quietly, at the same time, 
Something else is happening underground
An inner revolution is taking place 
And certain individuals are being called to a higher light.
It is a silent revolution.
From the inside out. From the ground up.
This is a Global Operation.
A Spiritual Conspiracy.

​There are sleeper cells in every nation on the planet.
You won’t see us on the T.V.
You won't read about us in the newspaper. 
You won't hear about us on the radio.
We don’t seek any glory
We don’t wear any uniform
We come in all shapes and sizes, colors and styles
Most of us work anonymously.
We are quietly working behind the scenes 
In every country and culture of the world
Cities big and small, mountains and valleys, 
In farms and villages, tribes and remote islands.
You could pass by one of us on the street 
and not even notice.
We go undercover
We remain behind the scenes
It is of no concern to us who takes the final credit.
But simply that the work gets done
Occasionally we spot each other in the street
We give a quiet nod and continue on our way.
During the day many of us pretend we have normal jobs
But behind the false storefront at night 
Is where the real work takes place
Some call us the Conscious Army.
We are slowly creating a new world 
With the power of our minds and hearts
We follow, with passion and joy
Our orders come from from the Central Spiritual Intelligence.
We are dropping soft, secret love bombs when no one is looking
Poems ~ Hugs ~ Music ~ Photography ~ Movies ~ Kind words ~ Smiles ~ Meditation and prayer ~ Dance ~ Social activism ~ Websites Blogs ~ Random acts of kindness...
We each express ourselves in our own unique ways
With our own unique gifts and talents.
Be the change you want to see in the world
That is the motto that fills our hearts
We know it is the only way real transformation takes place
We know that quietly and humbly
We have the power of all the oceans combined.
Our work is slow and meticulous
Like the formation of mountains
It is not even visible at first glance
And yet with it, entire tectonic plates 
Shall be moved in the centuries to come.
Love is the new religion of the 21st century
You don’t have to be a highly educated person
Or have any exceptional knowledge to understand it
It comes from the intelligence of the heart
Embedded in the timeless evolutionary pulse of all human beings.
Be the change you want to see in the world
Nobody else can do it for you
We are now recruiting
Perhaps you will join us
Or already have
All are welcome
The door is open...
 ~ author unknown (thank you to Catherine Moullé for sharing this with me)

​It took some time but reality has finally hit me. I have watched images of the state of our current world with tears rolling down my cheeks. The breadth and the depth of what is happening is actually quite unfathomable. And what is ingenious about it is that we are each affected in our unique ways, where we are most vulnerable. For some it may be health, for others, it may be something else. 

Having grown up in Paris, I have been shaped by a very urban environment. As a child, my mother would take me to Notre Dame to light a candle, or visit the Picasso Museum for an afternoon outing. We would holiday to other countries, and for my family, exploring Spain meant visiting Barcelona and its cathedral.  My husband laughs that at a very tender age, I knew the ins and outs of most European casinos including the one in Monte Carlo (there were no age limits then) but not once had I gone camping. 

​So it is no surprise then that today, rather than connecting to the wilderness, I tend to be drawn towards people and the man-made world. Hence my love and appreciation of all that is civilisation; architecture, design, art, history, culture,  cuisine, religion, philosophy, language inducing, thought provoking, the entrepreneurial and the political. 

And here I am watching the loss of all that I find beauty in. It is heart-wrenching. I feel for the cities - Paris, New York, and my own - Sydney - that are left deserted and have no-one to hold. I feel for the people who have lost their livelihood and are struggling to feed their loved ones. I feel for families where many are confined in a small space. And those who cannot afford the technology they need to learn, study, distract or entertain. I feel for situations that breed violence upon women and children (those images were so unbearable, I fast-forwarded but the thought alone is haunting). I feel for businesses who are failing, and I am so relieved to hear about what Bill Gates is achieving. I feel for politicians who are struggling to find solutions and I am so grateful that France has announced they have completely cancelled Africa’s debt. I feel for the people of my beloved India, and countries in the third world where there is no health care, infrastructure nor social security - I cannot even imagine what confinement looks like when you have no home to isolate in?

I hear people say “we are all in this together”; and because I am quite literal in my use of words, I would like to disagree. I think many of us cannot begin to understand what many others are living right now. But if we allow ourselves to feel - and perhaps this is the divine plan of isolation, to have the space to feel - each and everyone one of our heartbreaks, then just maybe, between us, we have the whole world and its many causes, covered.

So I will take all that falls under Human Creativity into my heart, and hold it there tenderly. Perhaps with time, some courage will blossom, enough for me to contribute to that cause even in small ways.
What will you take into your heart?
Feel free to share it in the comments below (I would love to know) and send blessings to that each and every day and see what blooms for you.

I leave you with a quote from Rumi:
“Keep breaking your heart until it opens”

I love this weather - I love how when I open my eyes, there is no sunlight. And I love how when I get out of my warm cozy bed, the air is so crisp, it bites me and I need to reach out for an extra layer; there is something really comforting in that.  

Why are we talking about the weather in this time of crisis do you wonder? Simply to avoid talking about what everyone else on this planet seems to be talking about. I am finding the topic at hand really uninteresting really.

​Artwork by Annelinde Tempelman

​There are many simple ways - practical things that you can easily introduce into your day that help reduce anxiety, which paradoxically is a state which may have you believe is beyond all control. Here are some helpful tips - thanks to the wisdom of Ayurvedic Medicine - that will help you regain some mastery over your emotions. But first, let’s understand the nature of Anxiety.

Anxiety is Fear. It can come in the form of worry, concern or insecurity but all of these are deviations of the human emotion fear. Some people are not aware they have it; they simply rationalise it - concern for the future, worry about health, nervousness about our performance, apprehension about how we are perceived, uneasiness in social situations - as a part of life. Other people feel it so severely that angst begins to determine their choices in life. Yet life does not have to be lived through the lens of fear. In fact, we can live with ease, peace, even, dare we say, joy.

​Artwork by Annelinde Tempelman

Following from our previous chat about ‘Magic’ being on tap, why are we then not living the life of our dreams? Is it not a question of simply envisioning what we would like to experience and then watch it unfold before our very eyes?

Well, it is not quite that simple - an obvious statement if we take a look at the world we are currently living in. Creativity - in other words - manifesting - is much more complex an art than most people would have you believe. Even great artists who have mastered their craft - whatever form it takes and whatever tools they use - are not applying their creativity to the different aspects of their day to day. And why not? For there is no lack of work to be done - we could be applying creativity to our parenting, our finances, our relationships, our work environment, our educational systems, our care of animals, our care of the land… the list is endless.

We are living in extraordinary times, where each day is filled with so much magic that it is palpable in the ether. More than ever, people are alive, whether excited or anxious on the inside, they are engaged in life and actively seeking answers, growth and healing. Momentum is also building on the outside, the pressure to change our ways is adding to this mix, pushing us to consciously make different choices.

This magic is intended, and an integral part of the divine plan for the greater good. It is now readily available in abundance and in many forms: resources, opportunities, synchronicities and assistance should we choose to operate from a higher consciousness within ourselves, our relationships and in our world at large. In a world where gurus are either dying or failing, magic is also awakened in us as direct divine guidance, intuitions, insights, visions and realisations that we receive. Esoteric teachings, psychological tools and spiritual practices are all both easily accessible and commonly accepted. 

But magic happens when we learn to get out of the way. For those of us who like to control situations and have things happen in our way, in our time, in order to feel safe, we are being challenged. Circumstances are transpiring against every cell of our being so that we can let go of the need to control. For magic is a super power beyond what we could imagine nor muster for ourselves: it is a benevolent force that is demanding to come through the core of each one of us.

The only way is to surrender to it. And for a culture that is not designed for surrendering, the easiest way is to switch to right brain activity: to jump right out of the rational mind and into the creative mind. Developing a creative habit such as drawing is an immediate and effective way of placing ourselves in the flow of right brain activity. Drawing is a natural human skill important in all walks of life; in fact, every child in every culture does it. We have all done it, and still do it to some degree when we hand write. It is a visual literacy that is valuable in itself, irrelevant of the outcome, for the magic is harnessed in the process.

Drawing has been recognised as a tool for healing and wellbeing as we drop into the state of mindfulness that is so nourishing for our system. It is also a way of engaging socially and culturally, it can be thought provoking, political even. The Big Draw is a social project, a small charity that  believes in “drawing to learn, not learning to draw”. Through drawing we learn so much about ourselves, our wishes, fears, hopes and triumphs. We meet our champions, even our villains and discover how to defeat them. It is a fast tracked, joyful way of excavating our buried dreams; we mourn the self we abandoned and this mourning process and the tears that come with it, prepare the ground for our future growth.

Drawing is also an effective method to manifest should we choose to engage our heart. For that is how we reclaim our right as creative beings to make of our lives, our work of art. Freeing our creativity is not necessarily for those of us who want to become artists or musicians or writers or film makers. It is for all of us who want to become more whole, to embody more of our humanness, to ignite our passion, to engage more of our consciousness in our lives, no matter what we choose to do for work or play. 

To attune our heart, a meditation practice becomes an essential ingredient to manifesting its desire. We meditate to discover our own identity, our rightful place in the scheme of the universe. Through meditation, we acknowledge and access our connection to an inner power source that has the ability to transform our outer world. This is how we invoke the wisdom, guidance and support of the divine. In other words, meditation gives us not only the light of insight but also the potency we need for expansive change, for transmutation. 

And drawing is the method we use for learning, exploring, entering the flow of the non-rational brain and for giving a physical form to our inspirations. It is the way to access Magic. The way to contribute to a better world. The way - ultimately - to be more free.

As Julia Cameron shares in The Artist’s Way:
“The heart of creativity is an experience of the mystical union; the heart of the mystical union is an experience of creativity…. You are seeking to forge a creative alliance, artist-to-artist with the Great Creator. Creativity is an experience - to my eye, a spiritual experience. It does not matter which way you think of it: creativity leading to spirituality or spirituality leading to creativity In fact, I do not make a distinction between the two.”

Considering re-creating yourself or an area of your life? You can work privately with Natalia via Skype or join her in a playful way within a creative, caring and encouraging circle in her “Spectacular Côte D’Azur Creative Journey”, mindfulness and travel sketching as a metaphor for life, with art tutor Catherine Moullé, 11 - 19 April 2020. 
Details on www.saffronrose.com.

To read this article in the New York Spirit magazine, click here.​

“The most beautiful makeup for a woman is passion” - Yves Saint Laurent

Passion is misunderstood. At worse, it is the root of all evil. At best, it is confused with lust. Most people who seem to have it, appear to use it unwisely. Others utterly lack it. Certainly we have few role models in this domain. Yet all the great masters lived with an abundant dose of it - spiritual teachers, artisans, painters, musicians, sports people, leading professionals in all sectors. It seems like one common denominator in all their greatness is… passion. 

Perhaps we could start by stating that passion is a quality of the soul, not of the personality. Hence we could all have it: it is part of our nature, not our nurture. So if we feel our current life is not passion rich, perhaps, we can find traces of its essence in our early childhood. What were our impulses, our tendencies, even back then? Like a flower who turns to the sun, what were we drawn by? What lit us up and brought us joy? What were our gifts, our qualities? Were we more physically able or more mentally apt? What was our strongest sense? And most importantly, how did we proceed or tackle our pursuits? With what kind of energy?

As adults, we have to consciously re-claim our right to passion, for it is likely to have been judged, rejected or even punished. This requires a tremendous amount of courage. We then have to consciously carve out the space in our lives for it. For we are not used to accommodating it. In fact, we may have built our daily routines without it. This takes strength, to confront the status quo and re-assess our choices.

But to do so, we need to understand the truth about passion. What it is NOT is a quality of the sexual organs divorced from the heart. Rather, it IS the fire that is awakened and burns in the heart when sexuality has found its rightful place. And what it LOOKS like when it is alive is a remembering of our purpose. When our heart is on fire with divine passionate purpose, there is boundless energy pulsating through us, that we need to receive, contain and channel into our ‘craft'. It feels like the entire creation has stepped in to assist us in reaching our goal, in manifesting our heart’s desire. Dare we aspire to this fulfilment? 

Each of us, in our very own unique way, is a conduit of an expression of the divine that is waiting to come through -  hence, no-one can live our life purpose for us - even if they have similar talents or a comparable offer. For our purpose is more than a job. it is the reason we are here and our way of being, living and giving on this planet. 

Alana Fairchild puts it beautifully in her Mother Mary Oracle Cards:
“Your purpose is to become what you are - that is why no-one can steal your purpose or live your life for you. Each of us needs to find our own way home to our heart, and to liberate our passion to love our particular life path to the fullest.

Within every human heart there is a divine passion growing and awaiting liberation: to desire, to give, to create, to connect, to express, to heal, to feel alive, to thrive - all of these are valid and come from a place within our hearts that grows stronger as we mature spiritually. 

As the light within grows we cannot help but search for that which inspires us, that brings some kind of meaning and connection to our lives. Once you have connected with the passion of your heart, to live that passion becomes as natural and essential and unquestionable as breathing. Trust in what your heart shows you over time, just like the blossoming red rose, knowing that in time the fullness of the passion will be so alive in you that you cannot possibly miss what you are meant to be doing, how you are meant to be living. The beauty and perfume of that manifestation will lift the spirits of others.”

To complement this interpretation, Fabio Fabbri shares his understanding of Passion. This is the perspective of a mature man, an Italian man, and a man who has devoted many years to the study and the teaching of Yoga:
“Passion is a quality of the heart, one that you pour into something that you do whole-heartedly. So it describes your approach. It could also be cultural, hence learned. But I can say that my nature is high intensity, I approach everything with that, even slightly obsessively, whether I like something or dislike something. I experience passion in everything I do; it is my main motivation. I have noticed that if I make a choice from my head instead of my heart, I fail miserably.

My earliest memory of feeling passion is from when I was 6 years old, playing soccer on the road with my friends, dodging cars, falling, scratching our knees. But we all loved it, we didn’t stop for any reason, we just kept going. We all wanted to become soccer stars! I can say that as a more mature man, this has not changed much or I don’t manage it any better. But my advice to younger men would be to nourish it, to channel it, not to let the rational mind suppress that instinctual, almost romantic side. But passion can be a double edged sword; it can be either a curse or a great gift depending on how you conduct it. Discipline is key here to channeling this force with wisdom; without that, your emotions run your life.”

So to sum up how to harness Passion, we need the following:
a. Meditation or self awareness as to how it feels to live with this force, and how to hold it
b. Maintain healthy boundaries in our relationships and activities
c. Conscious choice as to what to channel it into - our heart’s deepest desire
d. Discipline so as to stay focused and not be distracted by our emotions, including any fears that may creep into our heads ‘about the consequences’ of approaching life this way

Passion in life is closely intertwined with creativity, here is another little bit of guidance from Elizabeth Gilbert in her book Big Magic:
“What is your favourite flavour of shit sandwich? Every single pursuit - no matter how wonderful and exciting and glamorous it may initially seem - comes with its own brand of shit sandwich, its own lousy side effects. Everything sucks, some of the time. You just have to decide what sort of suckle you’re willing to deal with. So the question is not so much ‘what are you passionate about?’, the question is ‘what are you passionate enough about that you can endure the most disagreeable aspects of the work?…. Because if you love and want something enough - whatever it is - then you don't really mind eating the shit sandwich that comes with it.”

Need help navigating all of the above to re-create yourself or an area of your life? You can work privately with Natalia via Skype or join her in a playful way within a creative, caring and encouraging circle in her “Spectacular Côte D’Azur Creative Journey”, travel sketching as a metaphor for life, with art tutor Catherine Moullé, 11 - 19 April 2020. 
Details on www.saffronrose.com.

To read this article in the New York Spirit magazine, click here.

​Artwork by Annelinde Tempelman

“Everything you can imagine is real” - Picasso

We all secretly (or not so secretly) long for the same thing: to share more of who we are, and the talents we have, with the world, and be appreciated in return. But to do that, we need to be willing to become something we have never become before, to live in a way that we have not lived before and express what we have not expressed before. “To become who we are here to become, do what we are here to do and be who we are here to be for others as well as for ourselves” as the intuitive Lee Harris puts it.

The problem is we don’t know what ‘that’ is nor what ‘that’ looks like, so how can we step into a territory that is so unfamiliar? The key lies in imagining it. If we can imagine it, we can eventually become it. Our imagination is our most powerful and creative tool for life transformation.

But few of us can manifest our wishes simply by imagining them into existence. No amount of wanting or imagining will get us our ideal job or dream house or heal our headache if we don’t take practical steps to make those things happen. Yet at the same time, imagination always precedes transformation. Every important change we have made in our life, inner or outer, started with an act of imagination. 

So what is imagination really? 
Imagination is not a place in itself, it is a competence we all have, even if we doubt we have it. According to ancient tantric teachings, imagination is not just powerful; it is power itself. It is the way we access the realm beyond ordinary consciousness, as traditional shamans have always done. Imagination is our ability to take ourselves to the ‘spiritual playground’, where our souls hang out with other divine beings and they make things happen together. So it follows then, that our ability to create images not available in the physical world, to our sensory system, is our greatest faculty for evolving human consciousness. In order to transform ourselves and our planet, we need to be able to leap out of the common, the familiar, and project a new idea into the unknown, and then let it take its course. 

For instance, we can begin to imagine a future different from the past, or a sense of self different from the one we have known until now. Yes we are shaped by our karma, our memories, and the impulses conditioned into our cells. And yes we are also undeniably influenced by the collective, the culture and the physical circumstances that we partake in. But no matter how difficult it may be to take distance from these factors, our imagination can still help us begin to replace our internal patterns; in a way not too dissimilar to gardening really: we choose to sow seeds of a different quality from our current harvest. Ultimately, we aim to re-imagine our sense of who we are and how we relate to this world, and consequently, change our experience of life. 

On the way to that final destination, acts of imagination can connect us to that place called ‘flow’ where inspiration strikes - as the first line of a song, or a colour combination, or the composition of a painting, or a realisation about our relationships, or a direct recognition of who we truly are. Mozart, for example, is known to have heard music playing so succinctly
that he simply took dictation. Imagination links us to infinite possibilities. 

Elizabeth Gilbert mentions this in her book: Big Magic: Creative Living beyond Fear:
“I believe that our planet is inhabited not only by animals and plants and bacteria and viruses, but also by ideas. Ideas are disembodied, energetic life-form. They are completely separate from us, but capable of interacting with us - albeit strangely. Ideas have no material body, but they do have consciousness, and they most certainly have will. Ideas are driven by a single impulse: to be made manifest. And the only way an idea can be made manifest in our world is through collaboration with a human partner. it is only through a human’s efforts that an idea can be escorted out of the ether and into the realm of the actual.”

So how do we do access this state?
1. Mindfulness - practising regularly will lead us more and more to this being the default of how we approach each day: an open-minded head space beyond ordinary thought, beyond memory, beyond judgement. 
2. Creativity - having a regular creative habit strengthens our imagination and vice versa.
3. Nourishment - we need to nourish our minds just as we nourish our bodies. This means filtering out ‘junk food for the mind’ such as noise and sensory pollution, and consciously choosing to expose ourselves to what we find beautiful and inspiring.
4. Stillness - a regular necessity for all creatives: uncluttered minds means that we have carved out the space needed for quiet time; for pondering and pottering, for stillness and for no particular goal. 

It is worth mentioning two great thinkers, psychologist Carl Jung and Alejandro Jodorowsky both used “active imagination” in their own way, to integrate conscious and unconscious elements in their patients’ psyche. They achieved this by allowing their inner characters to play out their secret conversations and fantasies. By consciously acting these out, the hidden aspects of themselves would find their voice, heal and grow. 

Imagination, thus, can influence outcomes in the “real” world; each one of us can en-vision genuine and effective acts for our personal lives as well as for the collective, reassured that these are not simply indulging in plain fantasy or rambling thought constructs. By harnessing the power of our imagination, we can use it for creating beauty and truth. It can change our inner state, for sure, but it can also change the world.

Need help navigating all of the above and re-creating yourself or an area of your life? You can explore your creativity in a playful way, in a stunning setting in the French Alps, with an encouraging circle of people. Join Natalia on her “Picturesque Alpine Creative Journey”, travel sketching as a metaphor for life, with art tutor Catherine Moullé, 7th to15th September 2019. 
Details under ‘Travel’ on www.saffronrose.com.

To read this article in the New York Spirit magazine, click here.

Why am I so passionate about Travel Sketching?
During our last Quintessential France Creative Journey in April 2019, I asked our participants this question: ""why is it that people who spend time sketching go about the rest of their day making different decisions and hence begin to transform their life?"

And this is what a couple of the very wise women came back to me with - written straight from their personal experience: 

Hera says:
"When we physically put something to paper that is expressed from our hearts and created by our hands, the creative right and left brain work together in harmony.
The process (mentally and emotionally) reinforced through repetition, requires us to just action and push through our own left brain logic, mental fears and emotional blocks, inner judgements and criticisms. Rhythms in doing are activated instead of the usual rational mind stopping us from either starting or completing something that is close to our heart. So doing a drawing from start to finish creates a sense of inner fulfilment which is a Segway into yet another decision we are ready to take into reality. 

Also, our feminine creative power and our right brain have been weakened through years of conditioning, hence there’s a lot of resistance when the left brain logic (masculine) is being asked to let go of the reigns. With consistent acts of creativity, and being in the flow, our feminine creative right brain is given the ultimate freedom of expression. And this is an opportunity where we learn to be kind to ourselves, not to care for anyone’s opinion, honour our own and enjoy both the experience and the outcome.

There’s a lot people that could pick apart my work, but I love what I created. It was my expression and it's about me putting myself out there. It’s about having the confidence and the voice to support that, and embracing vulnerability, and the importance of having the appropriate company that’s nurturing and holds space when sharing it. 

All the inner critic stuff and self consciousness is really 'how will society take what I’ve done and is it up to standard? and where does it stack up?', and 'if it’s not making money, is it good enough?' It’s like working in the corporate environment really....
 
On a personal note, this challenging, fun and highly creative trip especially during Easter/Spring season, brought an inevitable sense of blossoming!"

And Marina says:
"Perhaps sketching/drawing helps us to take a closer look at our world and to notice in greater detail the mysteries of being alive".
​