"My way back to myself was by listening to my heart speak, and my way to do that, was by being creative."
~ Maria Sophia Rose
WELCOME
I would Love to share with you my story of how I found
my Golden Thread…
I am a Mother, Sister, Daughter, A Lover, and a Wife.
My life is committed to my own inner enquiry of what it is
to be a woman in this world, at this time.
I believe we all have a Golden Thread that can lead us to discovering our
inner Creatrix that is our gift to share with the world.
I am passionate about supporting others on this journey
of inner dialogue, discovery, and self empowerment,
and I would be deeply honoured if you join me on this profound journey.
I am the founder and director of the Heart2Art Community Arts,
Online creativity coaching and Ansisters Therapeutic Arts circles.
I run the Women's space at Buddhafield festival, facilitate gatherings of women
and opening and closing ceremonies for various festivals and international gatherings.
I would Love to share my journey and how I got to the place I am in,
with the tools I now have, to navigate the labyrinth of life...
My mission
Holding Sacred Space which is a Crucible of Creativity and enables women to find their own Sense of self and purpose.
Supporting Women to liberate their True selves, by standing in the centre of their own mandala, with a ball of Golden Thread in their hands.
Weaving a web of women that support and celebrate each other's exploration into their own Creative power.
Empowering women by enabling them to have tools with which they can navigate the terrain of their own lives and access their personal state of equilibrium.
Enabling women to dive deep where diamonds dwell and dare to find the pearls of creativity that resides within them.
My story
My first initiation was at the age of 13 when I awoke to the complexities of what it is to be human. First Existentialist crisis. The first of many, but a key one because I was blessed enough to have been guided to find Art Therapy and it saved my life.
It showed me a way to find a light in the darkness and a key to many a locked door...
I found that through externalising my emotional world through the magical act of creating art, I could navigate scary and unknown terrain. I had an ally and a compass. This was all I needed to brave the multiverse of my own psyche. :)
It was a profound moment for me when I realised that I had this healing tool at my fingertips. My personal Golden Thread became the very pursuit of learning as much as I could about therapeutic art, this creative container and alchemical elixir.
My Golden Thread was my relationship to my Creativity and that always brought me back to a place of balance in myself.
This journey has taken me to many educational establishments {see official Bio} working in women refuges, orphanages, local councils and more. Using art as a healing tool, exploring cultures around the world I studied at Dartington and Santiniketan , Auroville, Tobias, Revision and Emerson. I travelled the world, exploring the Arts and culture of Europe, Asia, America, Central America, Australia and North Africa, on the mission to learn and share more.
All the while, on the quest to understand the myriad of ways that people throughout the world and throughout the ages, have used creativity as a healing journey.
My next major threshold moment in life was at the age of 21 when I met my father (and 3 extra brothers!) for the first time.
My dad had been estranged from me for my whole life, and sadly still is. However, I did meet him, I did venture to America and track him down, I did learn lots about myself and the joys and agonies of the human heart. I did have an epic adventure and have many stories to tell my beloved children... In many ways I found and met myself through finding and meeting my father.
But I certainly had to lose myself first!!!!
This is a theme throughout all the stories in my life... and it's the main reason I call it THE GOLDEN THREAD.
This cord back to myself through art making is my golden thread, and I believe we all carry this possibility.
Art making is an externalisation of our internal world, and this is why it's so healing.
It's a conscious dialogue with ourself.
It's looking into a mirror and holding a lantern to our inner realms.
It's a companion in a scary world.
The 7 stage Alchemical process begins with dissolution, therefore without that separation, we are unable to begin the transformation.
Without awareness, nothing can change.
Fast forward years, I'm 28, I've just completed my Art Therapy training and my Saturn returned together with my next major life crisis!
I split up with my long term partner. I lost my Job. I lost my home. I lost my best friend. I lost my 'life'! All in one month! I lost my focus, my light and my purpose.
In an attempt to get out of the abyss, I moved to Stroud, to be the apprentice
of a man called Jay Ramsay, whose work I had been deeply inspired by.
I spent 9 months here, a painful, uncomfortable, but essential period of darkness
and gestation.
After 9 months I needed to be born into the light and Australia was the lightest
place that I could think of and so I booked my flight.
Bali was only meant to be a brief interlude but I stayed there a further 9 months.
Which turned out to be my next major initiation…
Bali is a place where magic happens..
Bali is infused with the SACRED.
Ritual is LIFE in Bali.
It is a land where ceremony is intrinsically woven into daily life and every space is a temple. It seems that everyone is an artist in Bali, because it is simply in their culture to give praise, and they do this by creating beauty. The island is abundant with creativity! Beautiful spaces and natural architecture abound in this place and the air is imbued with a sense of celebration and ceremony.
I owe a lot to my time in Bali and consider it my spirit home, that we will continue to return to...
Bali taught me most of what I know about Art and Ceremony being one and this being essential part of daily life. I was living in an ashram studying the 'Way of Mastery' [Course in Miracles] and living a celibate life. Yet , as life would have it, I met the man of my heart and it was clear he would be the father of my children. So, after a few more epic adventures including helping set up retreat centres in Bali and Costa Rica, we returned to the UK to start a family and fulfil a lifelong longing…
The rocky road into motherhood has tested me beyond what I ever could have imagined and I have been stretched beyond what I ever thought I was capable of... From hospitalisation from severe Hyperemesis in both pregnancies, to having two natural home births the Initiation that growing and giving life is! Pregnancy and giving birth gave me deep insight into what it is to be a woman.
To me the giving birth has felt like my own re-birthing. Being held and loved deeply through this wild and sacred journey, by my amazing man has been the most profound healing connected to all my father wounding.
I am in awe of the creative power held within the womb - This feminine power I speak of, is the creative essence that we all hold in our womb space.
I have cultivated an awareness of the feminine from the depth of my being and I intrinsically know the enormous potential that every woman carries in her womb.
I feel that my work is holding space for women to return to this place of knowing.
I cannot promise you a specific outcome, but what I can commit to is being a constant companion as you journey into your own Labyrinth and find your own golden thread...
However that manifests, I will walk alongside you as you embark on this sacred voyage...
"Creativity, like children, is both a pot to be filled and a fire to be lit ."
~Maria Sophia Rose