Adorning the Heart of the Mother

A six week, self-guided, recorded journey into the Heart of the Mother to connect with our birth story as a Mother through creative expression, contemplation + ritual.

Self-Guided Recorded Class Series Available January 2024!

Have you navigated the rite of passage of becoming a mother? Do you long to translate your experience into your creative voice? 

Or are you contemplating the motherhood journey, and want some creative support along the way? 

Are you pregnant, and want to integrate creative expression into your pregnancy journey to prepare for birth and beyond?

Or do you simply want to connect with the Divine Mother archetype, explore your own birth into this world, and connect with your creative expression?

Join Melissa for a journey of devotion to our creative voice as we explore birth and the Divine Mother as our muses.

Becoming a mother in 2020 was, among many other things, a very isolating experience. I did not have the opportunity to gather with other new mothers, to explore our journeys and to support the normalcy of all that emerges in such a profound rite of passage.

As such, one of the main tools to support my conception, pregnancy and emerging identity as a mother has been little moments of space where I sit with my journal and my watercolors to express myself.

Over the past four years, the creative expression that has come through in these moments has served as my meditation practice, my anchor to my self, my soul expression, and my most cherished regulating tool. With Adorning the Heart of the Mother, I seek to share the tools that I've learned, and to invite other women to explore how we can both be with and express different aspects of our journey.

This transition from Maiden to Mother is something that all of our mothers and grandmothers have done. We may or may not have experienced the aspects of support that we needed, or have/had the time to explore our experience through creative expression. No matter if your children haven't been born yet, were born a month ago or fifty years ago, this is a container to explore your journey as a mother. And if you have not birthed a child yet, even if you do not plan to, there are still fruits of this journey here for you.

Our spirits have a well of content that is ready to be expressed. It sometimes requires the right container of support to evoke and weave such expression from our inner realms to the world. The process of journeying through each week's material will support you in connecting to the totality of your birth story as a mother, and give you practical and spiritual tools to alchemize and support your experience from this day forward. Art, and watercolors in particular, are a wonderful tool to connect with our subconscious and let it pour through via water, color and spirit.

In Adorning the Heart of the Mother, we will explore several areas of Mother and Birth through creative expression (mostly through watercolor painting, writing, and nature ritual). These include, among other things:

• The Basics of Painting with Watercolors
• Honoring the Divine Mother in all her forms
• A painting meditation for conception
• Painting practice guidelines for pregnancy
• Honoring our own birth, our mother and the inner child
• Honoring the birth(s) that we gave to our children
• Caring for the places that still need care; mending and tending the wounds
• Initiation Ritual into the Heart of the Mother
• Tending to our creative fire and our well of resource: tools for nurturing your own  lifelong creative practice

We will each be choosing a form of the Divine Mother to be our own personal guide in our creative journey. She will help to hold us in all aspects of what may emerge, and will resource us with universal Mother energy.

Practical Aspects of Adorning the Heart of the Mother:

Within 24 hours of signing up, you will be receiving a link to the Week 1 lesson via video (private YouTube Channel). You will receive one new video lesson a week for six weeks, with a few bonuses sprinkled in.

We will be exploring our own journey of becoming a mother with the anchor of our journal as a place to express, reflect, and hold our experience. I will be providing various art and writing exercises through the six weeks, which seek to explore these themes. I will also suggest different rituals and ceremonies for us to do in our own time in between class. Each class will include guided creative journeys, meditations, and painting exercises to dive into the themes listed above and more.

A day after receiving each class video, you will receive a letter/worksheet which will articulate additional ways you can explore each week's theme in your own daily practice. At the end of our creative container, you will have danced with the invitation of a daily practice of creative self care for six weeks. Daily practice, in whatever small moments possible, nurtures ourselves as mothers, and helps us to find our own rhythms of self expression. Hopefully, your creative expression will have illumined a healing path for a deeper embodiment of your journey as a mother. 

If you are concerned that you won't have enough time for the content, don't worry! I find that even a few minutes a day is enough to mark a feeling, to express your heart. Part of the medicine of this class is that we are going to be reclaiming the importance of our own creative lives, something that very easily gets absorbed into the all consuming act of mothering.

We will be playing with the idea that the more we nourish ourselves, the deeper well of nourishment that we'll have to draw from for caring for our children and those in our lives. Though this class is designed to be done in six weeks, you are welcome to take much longer. The content is rich, and each week's material could be devoted to for weeks or months!

If your children have left the nest, this class is still an invitation for you. It may be healing to touch back upon your experiences, and tend to the places within you that didn't get tending long ago. I find that our bodies hold memory and experience in the Soma, and all it takes is an invitation and interest to evoke such memory into color, word and form.

You do not need any prior experience with watercolors to do this class. If you don't want to use watercolors, you're welcome to use any other art supplies that you like :) 

There is an optional add-on of a one-on-one session with Melissa, to deepen your participation in the course. You are welcome to request to schedule this session at whatever part of the six week journey you feel would be most supportive.

This class is for you if:

*You want to immerse in daily creative practice

*You want to connect/reconnect with watercolors or other art materials

*You want to dive into a daily practice of journaling

*You want to be a part of a collective field of inspiration

*You want to explore the expressive arts and connect with your creative essence

*You want to invite the energy of the HEART of the MOTHER into your life

*You want to connect with your inner child, curiosity, play and expression

*You seek to live your ongoing birth story as a mother in a more conscious, creative + embodied way

*You would like to begin the journey of motherhood, and want to learn creative tools to support your journey

*You seek to connect with other Mothers to share your creative expression journey through this course

Materials Needed (not included in class fee):

a set of watercolors (or other art supplies that you like)

a paintbrush (if using watercolors)

a journal with paper that can accept watercolor (doesn't have to be watercolor paper per se)

a pencil or pen

(specific brand suggestions available upon request) 

Class Includes:

Six hour + video sessions for you to navigate in your own timing

Six post-class letters/worksheets with inspiration and practice guidelines for each week's theme

Select audio exercises of meditations, journeys and practices that are yours to download and keep forever

Endless inspiration and an invitation to belonging within the Heart of the Mother

(optional add-on) One-on-one session with Melissa

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Disclaimer: Please note that this class provides a fun and intuitive space for the exploration of art and creativity. Melissa is an artist and lover of sharing the joy of creativity. This class is not a substitute for professional therapeutic council. Please consult a Professional Therapist or Art Therapist for any such support. Also, all rights are reserved, and no portion of this course may be reproduced without express written consent of Melissa.

Due to the digital nature of this product, there are no refunds. All sales are final. Please sign up with the email associated with your YouTube account. If you don't have one, it is easy to create and you'll need access to receive the class video material.