Book Two is available on-line now! Though you may find Book One still available on Amazon (publisher’s edition), Vibrum will be sold online exclusively from my website. You’ll also find copies in Bloomsbury and Treehouse Book Stores in Ashland and hopefully others soon). My self-published version of Book One: New Moons is also available here and is a better quality book than you’ll get on Amazon. Just sayin’…

For Rogue Valley residents there are three events planned for the launch throughout October:

Sunday, Oct. 1, 3-5pm: Cedarwood Barn -7912 Wagner Creek Rd, Talent, OR

Monday, Oct. 2, 7-8pm: Bloomsbury Books – 290 E. Main St., Ashland, OR

I’ll also be speaking at a luncheon at Bayberry Inn as a twist on Ashland’s Mystery Weekend scheduled for mid-Oct. Here’s the links to get a ticket for the luncheon or to see what Bayberry Inn’s package weekend includes:

https://oregonwellnessretreat.com/cosmic-mystery-luncheon

4-day inclusive: https://oregonwellnessretreat.com/cosmic-mystery-weekend

This piece, entitled, “What Innocence Sees” in my current show, has sold!

South Stage Cellars – Opening Night – Sat. Sept. 2nd, 4-6pm

125 S. 3rd St., Jacksonville, OR

Show dates: 8/24/23 – 10/5/23

Starting at 6pm Opening Night- Rogue Suspects – Eagles Tribute show! ( $20 cover to sit out in the garden). That’s where you’ll find me once the music starts!

What a summer it’s been! My show at Paschal Winery was well received and I enjoyed treating the audience at the opening to a song I sang with Anjalisa Aiken singing harmony and John Mazzei on piano.

Next up will be my Book Launch for my second novel, Vibrum: Book Two of the Seed Songs series! I’ll send info on that very soon!

Hi All:

Here’s the latest painting hot off the easel…literally hot, as I painted much of it out on my back porch. This is a departure from the imaginal style that has become more the norm for me over the past ten years. It was an interesting journey because the inspiration for the painting was from a more fantastical, imagined image I painted 30 years ago.  I wanted to do a new version showing the energy flows between the trees and the woman, but once I started painting her and getting all the shadow details, it didn’t seem to be the direction the painting wanted to go. This is one of those cases when I had an idea of where to go with the work but along the journey, I had to adjust and adapt to what was actually presenting and let go of my preconception. The image nevertheless conveys the reverence and reverie I was wanting to capture and I believe the sensitive viewer will resonate with the feeling of that connection and communion between her and her surrounds.

I’ve not put out a blog for many moons. There are numerous reasons, but suffice it to say that many of us have entered a new phase, and the world at large certainly has. For the last two years I’ve been writing my second novel, which is now finished. I hope to find a new publisher in the coming months, and if I don’t find a good fit with a publisher, I’ll self-publish again. I have options and am being patient about the process. I hope those of you who read New Moons will want to read Book Two of the series, which starts 9 years after the end of Book One. I’m excited to share it! The working title is Vibrum (a word that landed in my brain one day, and that is explained deep in the story).

Before I sign off, I want to acknowledge the profound shifts happening in the world, and the challenges we’re being called to address. One of my more potent life lessons lately is how strongly (and righteously) I can hold a position and that in doing so how it sets up a dynamic that doesn’t foster substantive motion or change or growth. I am catching myself breathing through those moments when my need to be right about the way things should or could be get caught and stuck. It’s one thing to have hope and vision about how things could be better, but it’s quite another to take a step out of the ego’s certainty about things and see how things look from an unlocked perspective. And, of course, the state of the world at this time is undeniably fraught with challenges of all kinds, so its all the more easy to get intense about things.

Recovering Eve is essentially a testament to relaxing and staying open to the beauty that is around you and letting it  purify, nourish  and re-size you. This is vital because when the next personal challenge shows up you’ll be a little freer of the small ego-self (your person-hood size) and have better access to an expanded consciousness which is less likely to close down on conclusions, which doesn’t deny anything, which can access force-lines and allies and available energy to bring to bear on the situation. I know many of you also have personal practices and I commend you for it. My own practice is allowing me to experience new perceptions, new options that haven’t occurred to me previously, and enlarging my repertoire of what might be possible.

Blessings from Home,

Nancy

This painting is fresh off the easel.

It depicts the process of welcoming new energies emanating from the universe to change us.  It’s my best effort to express the multiple flavors and dimensions of influence flowing in and through us if we don’t shut ourselves down in resistance. The woman is relaxed and open even as she is morphing into new form. It seems to me the human race is going through this sort of process and that it is wise to embrace the new energy that is available now.

It’s been quite a while since you last heard from me and quite a while since I had a painting to share. There’s a jolly good reason for that though…

Over the last year or so, I have written the second novel of the Seed Songs series! The manuscript is complete and now at the editor’s. Can’t say yet when it will be published, but I wanted to share this first major milepost of the completion process with you. The Title of Book Two is: Vibrum. The meaning of the word is explained in the climax of the story.

If you’ve read Book One and liked it, I hope you’ll go to my website and/or Amazon and write a review.

I look forward to publishing this next novel and hope you’ll read it!

Here is a sketch of one of the marvelous creatures to be introduced in this second book of the epic story. While not a major character, he does play a pivotal role.

This painting is from the early ’90’s, when I was struggling emotionally with an inner conflict that took a while to unpack and sort out. With the help of a therapist I had a pivotal dream that showed me something important.  I realized at that time that I used the “Encourager” voice mostly in service to others, but not enough with myself. My “Creative” voice was strong, but the “Critical” voice was dominating my inner dialogue and I was suffering from it. After the dream where I grappled with a super-villian and pitched him out the window, I painted this image to remind myself to keep three of the major inner voices or key perspectives in balance. The critical voice or perspective brings the quality of discernment, and there are times when that’s important in navigating situations and relationships.

Thanks to my friends, Wendy and Ward, who purchased this painting after I had integrated the lesson and no longer needed it as a visual reminder. I just received this photo of it, and it’s like seeing an old friend. It’s like a mile-marker of how far I’ve come. I still have emotional tides and storms but there’s a growing interconnection I feel now that sees me through them like a beautifully rigged sailboat.

Like everyone else, I listen to people, read things on the internet and glean what information I need to make my decisions. I’m leaning into interesting changes, as perhaps you are as well. I find I’m listening with a wider and wider sense of inclusion to other sources including birds, the wind, the water, my body, my blood and bones, and my deepest connection to source. Some decisions I make are superficially sourced, but when I’m informed by my deepest source, there’s a knowing. It arrives effortlessly, and it’s clear and without debate. It’s just there.

My most recent example is the sense that getting vaccinated against covid is not for me. There’s just a “no”. My head does have some reasons but the knowing was there, a signature quality I’ve come to trust when listening to that deepest, connected place.

I’m sharing my most recent painting because it depicts cosmic connection. It is Gaia personified as water, breathing in the cosmic emanation and breathing out evolution. We are in the midst of such a massive wave of evolutionary change it is challenging to trust and remember that LIFE HAS US, that parts of us are constantly being recycled, and one of these days the whole shebang will get recycled. So be it. I catch myself getting caught up and then I remember that the way I use my attention and my breathing, what I listen to and the quality of my listening can make all the difference in the quality of my life experience.

We all need messages of encouragement, acknowledgement and caring. It felt like the right time for me to create some new art cards using prints of my artwork that include positive messages. Here’s a sample:

I see your inner beauty emanating out into the world.

Just as a forest weaves an underground network, never doubt that we are interconnected through love and care!

We each light the way for someone coming behind us. Thank you!

We are at the brink of so much change! Take heart! Many of us are disheartened and upset, understandably. We are being called to step into new roles, give voice to our values, our hearts, our concerns. There are many who are leaving this world, and consequential choices to be made about our lives going forward.

I have found inspiration in the body of work and the practice of Patricia Albere and the Evolutionary Collective (https://evolutionarycollective.com), and the work of her ground-breaking colleague, Dr. Carl Calleman, author of numerous books, the latest being – The Nine Waves of Creation. Check them out!

And, while you’re at it, I encourage you to take a peak at my updated and improved website (www.nancyashmead.com).

Thank you for your interest and on-going connection. If you haven’t yet read my novel, New Moons, you’ll get a chance to order it on Amazon at the end of May, when Black Rose Publishing publishes their version of it. Or, you can still get a copy straight from me by ordering it from my website.

May your life take on a higher resonance than ever before.

Creatively Yours,

Nancy

I hope this finds you breathing a little easier after the US Elections…I pulled a couple cards from the Traveler Oracle Deck on November 3, which was Election Day, and one was Shifting Ground. The results weren’t in yet on Election Day, but the cards suggest how best to relate to current circumstances as a Nation (collective) and as individuals. The cards can help us orient and move with the energies playing out on our national stages and in our person lives. Let me know your thoughts

This year has been one of challenge within change for all of us. What I have found crucially important is to be very discerning about when I use “soft focus” to observe the phenomena of the larger scale motions, machinations, mayhem and momentous flux worldwide and when to use “sharp focus” in particular situations, personal choices and creative expressions.  How do I take into account the larger tidal flow of the times  and society  (the impersonal sea of circumstance I live within) and be responsible for the personal realm of my own body, mind, soul and interactions with others.  The bounce and balance between these perspectives is a theme in my life and perhaps in yours as well.

Some of my mentors and teachers are commenting on this period as one of profound proportion in terms of evolution of the human species and it’s relationship to everything else. I’ve felt it coming, and you probably have too. Though turmoil is rampant and suffering easy to see on a daily basis, so are signs of hope and beauty, courage and vision.

We are NOT ALONE! For all our apparent feelings of loneliness, all we have to do is turn to someone, or lean against a tree, watch the stars, swim in fresh water, appreciate the birds and beasts we share the planet with and we discover we’re not really alone. And that’s not even counting all the energetic wildlife that wafts through the universe and our lives – some benign, some helpful, some not.

I have recurring dreams where I’m demonstrating to others how to fly. In these dreams the thing I have to do in order to float in the air is relinquish and relax. By letting go, I find I begin to float in thin air and its a wonderful feeling. And, the funny thing about being the vibrant dreamer I am, is that I end up feeling lighter after those dreams, so I do believe they offer me something real. That lightness of being is the secret of being vitally alive and free. Trust also an important element in letting go…trust that something has me, that I don’t have to make a big effort to fly, that  actually the opposite is true.

While I work on The Seed Songs – Book Two: Sounds Like Home, there’s a piece about the sacred symbolism of birds and feathers, and I won’t say more here, but I will share a painting I created about 6 months ago as inspiration and encouragement to see to your own lightness of being so that you are free from things that keep you bound up, miserable, worried, bothered. This doesn’t mean denying your feelings about anything, to be clear. What it means is: have the feelings and let them flow through you, but don’t freeze your focus, keep it moving freely. You can retain your integrity and take courageous stands without tying up your energy in that way.

May your journey be fueled by love and reverence for life,

N.