Booklet Cover Reveal for My Animal Reflections Healing Oracle deck!

Posted by Barbara Techel

What a fun way to start my Monday morning by approving the cover for the 4 x 6 booklet that will accompany my animal-themed oracle card deck. So yes, it is similar to the cover on the box that holds the cards, but a slight difference with the placement of the title with a yellow banner backdrop and  also stating the booklet as the ‘Guidebook.’ 

This means that now the back cover can be created and the formatting of the booklet will begin. I can almost see the finish line now!

I’m trying to think about when this whole project began. However, many creative projects start long before they make it to the actual creating stage and finally into physical form. But this project has felt like it’s taken a long time to get to this point and that’s because it began as a seed a friend planted in my mind over eight-ish years ago. Having never considered myself an artist, it would take me many years of percolation to arrive at an idea and how I would create my cards. And that would be mixed media collage, which was such a fun process!

And here it is coming to life more and more every day! Feeling grateful and excited!

XO

Barb

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The Early Morning Mouse

Posted by Barbara Techel

I’d just set out on my walk early this morning, the winds blowing strongly from the south and unusually warm for this time of year when I noticed a mouse skitter across the road. Stop. Skitter on again. Stop. And then make it to the other side.

As I got closer it was then I realized it wasn’t a mouse after all! It was a leaf with its edges curled under making it look in a way like feet. Along with the wind that played with that leaf I had to chuckle to myself that I thought it was a mouse!

I then realized my thoughts leading up to that scenario and that I was lost in a vortex of worry. I then thought of Mouse depicted in my Animal Reflections Healing Oracle deck and the message of details.

The mouse on my card, outside the comfort of its home, out in the world exploring. We can sometimes get lost in the worry of all the sadness and chaos of the world or we can choose to look for the good.

It was just the shift I needed as I made the choice to enjoy this unusually warm morning. The geese flying overhead honking their good morning. And all the healing elements of nature.

Update on my deck: 

I believe I have the final tweaks made to the deck now and await the third proof copy to arrive in the mail by the end of the month. The cover for the 4 x 6 booklet is in production and the booklet manuscript is also in production. So I’m getting closer! 

XO

Barb

    

Honoring My Healing with Spider and in the book, “Shadow Animals” with a Special Trinket

Posted by Barbara Techel

Three adjectives I used to describe Spider were creepy, dirty, and sneaky. This is what I shared with my friend and fellow author, Dawn, when she invited me to take part in an exercise she created to help with the fear others may carry about a particular animal which is in her new book that launched yesterday called, Shadow Animals. 

What unfolded during that exercise is in chapter one of Dawn’s book. Like a Spider so beautifully and exquisitely spins a web, I’d come to realize that Spider and the adjectives I’d used were connected to my feelings from trauma as a young child.

I’d then recall how much I enjoyed the book and film as a child, Charlotte’s Web. It was Charlotte, the spider, who was so very kind to Wilbur the pig, reassuring him that everything was going to be okay. Watching that film around the time I’d gone through this exercise I’d realized how Spider had been an ally to me as a child assuring me that despite the trauma, I would be okay too.

When I received an advanced copy of Dawn’s book I realized I didn’t have a totem to honor the teaching I received from Spider. And so I set out to find something to do just that…

And I came upon this gorgeous beaded spider with a mandala as part of her body. She really spoke to me and she arrived today.

A mandala – a symbol in various spiritual traditions, often used for focusing attention and as a spiritual guidance tool to establish a sacred space or aid in meditation seemed so fitting for what Spider guided me in bringing to the surface as another layer of healing.

It’s when we can really be with that scared inner voice, listen with compassion, and allow ourselves to open to the insightful wisdom we carry within that we can shed layers of pain we either know are there or that may be hidden. Once recognized and acknowledged, how often we can set ourselves free from the angst that kept us bound too tight in a web that held us back from being our true self.

So this beautiful spider joins my Joyful Pause Cottage studio among the many other totem animals that have touched me in some shape or form. Welcome. I’m so glad you are here.

XO

Barb