Grab a cuppa and join me, now where Do I Start?

Hi everyone, it has been a whirlwind two weeks since I last posted and I am finally coming back down to earth

First, I was at the Hayhouse I Can Do It conference in Sydney a couple of weekends ago and was part of the most inspirational, transformational, relaxing, entertaining and awesome weekend with about 3,000 other people. We were treated to 5 amazing speakers/authors who made us laugh, cry, think and overall inspired me to live a more authentic life.

Saturday began bright and early with us walking into the conference auditorium to the beautiful sounds of the didgeridoo. It is the most amazing sound and it instantly rose the vibration in the whole room and I will never tire hearing one played. If you ever get a chance to hear one live don't miss it.
We started our lectures with Dr Wayne Dyer on his farewell visit to Australia. What can I say but he was everything and more that I had expected from reading his books and listening to his CD's. He is called the father of inspiration and I would whole-heartedly agree with this. Such an amazing man.
In the afternoon Sonia Choquette ran an entertaining workshop that had us all up dancing and singing, letting go of our inhibitions and teaching us to live a spirited life. I just love her books and CD's and she is such a happy soul shining bright.
On Sunday our first speaker was Caroline Myss (who is my idol!) She is a fantastic lady and is so passionate about what she is talking about that you are mesmorised by her every word. She tells it like it is and her lecture was full of wisdom, humour and wit. Her books and CD's have inspired me to live less in your ego and pride and to strive to live more with grace, compassion and love. I can highly recommend her recent book, Defy Gravity.
After lunch we listened to Gregg Braden and his thoughts about 2012 amongst other things. Greg started out as a computer geologist and is now known as a pioneer in bridging science and spirituality. He was absolutely fascinating and really made you think about how each individual can really effect the global energy.
After Gregg we had a lecture/workshop with Dr Brian Weiss. He is a leader is past life regression and had us all doing a past life regression meditation during the lecture. It was amazing.

Sonia Choquette and me

Caroline Myss and Me

During the conference we had a chance to get our books signed and to meet our authors which I must say had me feeling like a school girl groupie at one stage but I collected myself long enough to have a coherent conversation with Caroline, Sonia and Brian and also had some photos taken.




Overall it was a weekend I will always remember.
I listen to Wayne, Caroline and Sonia on Hayhouse radio where they each have an hour long weekly show that I can tap into while I work so they seemed quite familiar by the time we met them. Of course, they didnt know me from a bar of soap (well, Caroline did recognise me from her Facebook page which was a bit of a thrill so we had a great conversation)I came home with an extra bag of books to read (the flight attendants just looked at me funny struggling to carry them on the plane) and a head buzzing.

On to last weekend......

I attended the True Blue Decorative Artists annual conference here in Melbourne of which I taught the two classes that I spoke about in my last post - the iris and the summer rose.


 I love teaching and I was grateful to firstly have people that wanted to do my classes and secondly to have such lovely students. I love seeing people learn new things and gaining pleasure from painting. 


First up was my Summer Rose class . It was only a small piece but there was a lot of technique and we all had the piece finished by the end of class. I used the Atelier Interactives paints and mediums for this one. If you haven't used these paints before they take a bit of getting used to how they work but once you have the feel of them you are OK. I love using them now together with the mediums they offer so much scope to try different things.
At the end everyone was happy with their paintings so it was a good start to the weekend.




On the Saturday was my 6 hour class teaching my Purple Iris. This was a more involved painting using Atelier Interactives paints.







 


The air conditioning played a bit of havoc with the paints and mediums so it took a bit longer than anticipated but we all live close to each other so we are going to put the finishing touches to it one Saturday.








Saturday night we had our conference dinner and entertainment. We all had to dress up in the theme which was Baubles, Bangles and Beads. Everyone had a great night dancing and catching up with friends.

the three winners of our fancy dress - yes she does have a chandelier on her head!

Sunday was another day of painting but I was a student this time and I did a portrait study in oils with Cathy Van Ee. I haven't finished it yet or photographed it yet so will put it up in the next post.

This weekend was a great weekend too and I just love getting together with friends and having a whole weekend just doing what I love without distractions.

Anyway, I just looked at the time and realise that I will be late for work today so back to the grindstone.

Ah well we have to come back to earth some time don't we, even it is just to earn enough money so we can indulge in our passions.  Till next post....

My little quote for today from Dr Wayne Dyer

"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change"

Have a great day everyone
Namaste
Lee