Mark the end of summer and the beginning of winter by seeing what messages Spirit wants to share about the months ahead. Capture the images you receive in a beautiful mandala you can refer back to all year long. Scroll down for a version of this art activity you can print and use.

I love the energy at the beginning of a new cycle. Samhain is what I like to think of as the witch’s New Year. Personally, I like to start contemplating my New Year intentions at Samhain and mull them over slowly in my heart and mind until January, at which time I like to revisit my intentions and consider if there are any intentions I’d like to change or fine tune.

Another helpful practice I do at this time is pull tarot and/or oracle cards for each month in the year ahead to see what Spirit might like me to consider. I’m a visual learner so I like to capture the messages I receive in images, colors and words that I can see so I refer back to them all year long. Last year, I hung my new year mandala in my office. It was filled with a lot of cheerleader messages from Spirit and I often referred back to it when I felt lost or discouraged. It also contained a few cautionary messages showing me things to watch out for or consider. This year though, the most helpful part of having the messages up on my office wall was the way the messages shifted from month to month. Some months were uplifting and celebratory. Some months were darker and more challenging. The images in my mandala reflected that and it reminded me that things shift and are in constant flux so my fear that I will forever stay stuck in a difficult moment is untrue. There is always something different around the corner.

My highly sensitive nervous system also appreciates this practice because being prepared for what might come eases my anxiety.

I’ve outlined the steps to completing your own Samhain mandala below. It’s the kind of activity you can do alone during your Samhain festivities or together with friends.

Directions for completing the Samhain Mandala

1. Print the Samhain Mandala from the link below.
2. Gather your art supplies and tarot and/or oracle cards. You can use more than one deck if you like. I tend to prefer pulling one tarot and one oracle card for each month so I use two decks but you might like mixing a variety of decks together in one pile and pulling from there or you might prefer to keep it simple and use just one deck.
3. Light a candle and call in your spiritual team. Inform them of your desire to receive messages for each month of the year ahead. Request their help to choose the perfect card from each deck for each month.
4. Cleanse each deck using your favorite method of spiritual or energetic cleanse such as Reiki, prayer, herbs, crystals, salt, etc.
5. Pull a card for each month of the year.
6. In a journal, write down the names of cards you pulled for each month and after looking up the description of the card in the accompanying guidebook, write down any words, ideas or phrases that seem relevant and important. Alternatively, you can forego reading about each card you pull and instead write the words and/or impressions the card you pulled inspire within you as you study it.
7. Starting with the November section of your Samhain mandala, take the tarot card and the oracle card and your written summary of the messages you pulled for November and draw whatever would best represent the overall feelings and messages you received for the month of November.
8. Repeat the process for the remaining eleven months on the mandala.
9. End with a prayer of gratitude.

This art activity is also included in the October 2018 issue of Oriana’s Moonside Companion which is a hand-drawn moon journal with art activities that are thoughtfully designed to help healers and creative entrepreneurs live with magic and intention and nurture themselves, their business and their families. You can subscribe or learn more about it here.

Download Mandala Here

If you do complete this art activity publicly or share photos of the art activity or perform the activity with a group, please respect the work of this artist and creator by mentioning the source and/or providing a link back to this original post. Also, if you end up completing this activity, I’d love to see what you created. You can even post the finished piece on Instagram or Facebook with the hashtag #danasartrituals or email me at support@danadaponte.com and share with me how it went for you.

with love,

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 Climate change is causing Mother Earth and many of her plants and animals to suffer and highly sensitive people often carry the emotional and psychological burden of these times. This spiritual art activity was created to help highly sensitive people express and release some of the grief and loss they feel. It is also created to invite others to help shoulder some of the spiritual and emotional burden of these ecologically troubled times. Scroll down for a version of this art activity you can print and use.

Yesterday I had a vision. I saw a community leading a wise woman to a spot in the forest and asking her to tell them how the trees and the earth were feeling and what they needed. This vision captures how I wish our society operated. I wish, before they sent the bulldozers and monster-sized machines to form and shape the land in a way they feel suits them better, the people making these decisions communicated not only with scientists but with people sensitive enough to feel the environment as well. I wish how the Earth felt was important and I wish her needs were considered more.

One of the reasons I identify as a witch and I explore nature spirituality is because these are the only spiritual paths in my ancestry that I feel embody strongly enough the relationship I want to have with my earth Mother. Deepening my connection with the earth is difficult these days because there are so many places on her body that are hurting and so many of her plants and animals that are dying or suffering in ways that we humans have caused. Witnessing the neglect and the abuse and the death and all the other consequences of humanity’s selfish pursuits is really hard – like gut-wrenching shards of pain kind of hard. No wonder so many of us ignore what’s happening and prefer to look away.

I also understand that so many people can’t connect emotionally or energetically to what is happening to nature and Mother Earth because they are disconnected from themselves. You can’t know and feel the earth and her needs if you don’t even feel and know your own heart and her needs. The more deeply I attuned to my own emotional needs the deeper my sensitivity to Mother Earth and her needs became.

I created the following art activity as a way to inspire an emotional connection to Mother Earth and her plants and animals. I also created it as a way to inspire you or your children to become more aware of how the plants and animals are doing in and around the place you live. The fact that we are losing so much so quickly ecologically speaking is devastating. Even more devastating is the idea that most people won’t care to acknowledge or witness the loss. For those highly sensitive witches and people who are already emotionally connected to nature and the suffering she faces as a result of climate change, I created this activity as a way to express and process the ecological grief you shoulder.

This spiritual art activity is simple but it’s not easy. It’s not easy to face humanity’s darkness. It’s not easy to learn about the wounds we forced Mother Earth to endure. It’s not easy to open the heart to the ocean-sized pools of collective grief that are hanging around us all the time. We are losing landscapes, untouched spaces, magically potent places and entire ecosystems and species. Choosing to feel the pain and loss that accompanies climate change is not for the faint of heart. That’s why I consider highly sensitive people some of the strongest souls I know. People often tell them to stop being so sensitive but sensitivity is exactly what we need more of. We need to feel and feel deeply so our decisions as humans can change and come from a place of deep sensitivity to our earth mother and the abundance of life she nurtures. There has been far too much insensitivity guiding our decisions and politics.

To complete the activity, research and find an environment or species that is struggling to survive in or around the area you live. Learn about humanity’s role in that species’ struggle to survive. If you can, visit a relevant location in nature and try to feel in your heart what the surroundings are experiencing. Print the page I’ve included below and draw what you feel.

This art activity is also included in the September 2018 issue of Oriana’s Moonside Companion which is a hand-drawn workbook with activities that are thoughtfully designed to help healers and creative entrepreneurs live with magic and intention and nurture themselves, their business and their families. You can subscribe or learn more about it here.

Download Art Activity Here

If you do complete this art activity publicly or share photos of the art activity or perform the activity with a group, please respect the work of this artist and creator by mentioning the source and/or providing a link back to this original post. Also, if you end up completing this activity, I’d love to see what you created. You can even post the finished piece on Instagram or Facebook with the hashtag #danasartrituals or email me at support@danadaponte.com and share with me how it went for you.

with love,

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This is an art ritual to perform during the new moon.  It will help you set clear and specific intentions and learn how to use your energy to best reach your goals. Scroll down for printable step-by-step instructions.

This month I started my training to become a certified M.A.P (Manifesting All Possibilities) instructor. As my followers on Instagram and Facebook know, since attending University to become an art and English teacher I’ve never taken any other formal training. The day I started hearing angels was the day they became my teachers and mentors and I’ve spent 20 years letting them teach and guide me to become the healer I am today. Even if learning a particular modality or studying under a certain teacher piqued my interest, I could never commit because it never felt right. Instead, my angels encouraged me to trust my process and stay on my path and continue to grow in my organic, intuitive way with my angels, spirit guides and Divine Mother.

This is why I was surprised a couple months ago, when I was reading a post a fellow Moon Sister shared on Facebook about a new training and I heard clear as a bell the words, “Do This”. I read the post again and thought, “Really? You want me to learn this? Now?” And a clear and emphatic “Yes!” was the response.

I’m only the first week in but I’m starting to see how my M.A.P. training will weave so well with the healing I offer through the angels. I think every intuitive healer is a little different from another and the teams they work with from the world of spirit are as unique as they are. My angels and my team of spirit helpers are very much concerned with two things – our hearts and our subconscious mind because those are the two things most often in the way from us living from Love and in line with our Spirits.

To me, following their guidance when helping clients heal feels like what I imagine studying under psychologists and spiritual gurus might be like. They’ve taught me that happiness comes from listening to my heart and learning how to take tender care of it so that my life can then be lived in full alignment with my Spirit and who I really am. When this happens, what my soul came here to experience and do is honored and fulfilled and I feel a profound sense of joy and love. But listening to our hearts and taking tender care of them can be so hard to do when we’ve experienced trauma or are carrying unhealed baggage from our past and unfortunately everyone is carrying baggage from their past.

We can’t be who our souls long for us to be if we have gaping emotional voids or if an unhealed memory buried in our subconscious mind is in complete contradiction of what we’re trying to achieve or who we’re trying to become. The heart and the subconscious mind will always win. Your conscious mind and will power don’t stand a chance against those two mega powers.

The therapy approach I developed addresses the gaping emotional voids that veer us off track and my clients have experienced amazing results learning how to heal those but now I’ll also be able to easily treat the subconscious mind too. This is so exciting for me since the M.A.P approach is definitely my favorite approach to healing the subconscious mind. It produced massive results for me in the most gentle and easy way and I’m so excited to witness the results it inspires in my clients too. Yes, I know, I’m super excited right now but I can’t help it. I just keep thinking of my Moon Sisters and my clients and I know exactly which ones I’ll be using M.A.P on as soon as I’m ready. If you want to try it out or are ready to address things that may be blocking you from moving forward in some area of your life, you can book a session now and save $50 by clicking the link below and entering the coupon code SUMMERHEALING. This offer will only be available for a limited time.

$50 off a Session Here

If you’re not ready to book a session, you may want to try this art ritual at the next new moon.  It’s an easy step-by-step process that I learned in my M.A.P. training with Colette and Val Streicher and weaved with art and ritual because it’s a perfect fit for new moon or waxing crescent energy.

Before sharing the instructions of this art ritual in more detail, I want to remind you that when engaging in one of my art rituals, there are a few steps I perform before I sit down to do the writing, painting or creating part of my ritual. They include gathering my materials, clearing my mind and my physical space, inviting or calling in my spiritual helpers and setting boundaries or placing a circle of protection and blessing my tools and material. I outline these steps in more detail in my “Beginner’s Guide to Preparing for Art Rituals” which I send, along with other helpful goodies, when you subscribe to my Moon Sisters Art and Ritual Magazine.  If you would like the guide delivered to your inbox, you can subscribe to the magazine on my home page.

This is a relatively simple art ritual and remember, it’s not about the end result. It’s about the process so don’t worry about creating a perfect piece of art. Just relax and step into your inner five year old state of creativity.

This is what I gathered together and used for this art ritual:

• water
• acrylic ink sprays
• markers
• watercolor paper
• watercolor brush
• black ink
• white paper
• gel pens

After you’ve gathered your materials, created your sacred space, cleared, protected and invited Spirit to guide you, it’s time to create the background for your painting. I used acrylic ink sprays on watercolor paper. I started by spraying yellows, greens and blues then I sprayed a mixture of water and bleach. Then I painted with water which lifts some of the color off and leaves the design I painted. I also sprayed over some stencils and played around with effects until I achieved something I liked.

Oh and I also put hand prints all over my background after spraying the palm of my hands with ink. This is my hand after I washed and scrubbed it. I forgot how hard ink is to remove. My husband saw my blue hand at the supper table and made a comment I won’t repeat but let me just say it has something to do with being naughty with a Smurf.

Next I drew the outline of a tree with roots. In my M.A.P. training, Colette and Val Streicher use the symbolism of a tree to outline the three steps of their magnetization process and after you are finished your art ritual you will see how powerful having an actual visual representation of a tree holding your thoughts and feelings is.

Next, it’s time to create the pages you will use for the leaves. You will need 5 – 8 pieces of white paper. I used simple photocopy paper because this isn’t a professional art piece. It’s just for my own personal use and the art I create during ritual is often temporary. I keep it up for as long as it’s relevant but I dispose if it after I no longer need that specific magic working in my life.

I created my decorative paper by once again playing and experimenting with the acrylic ink sprays. I used warm colors since my background was created with cool colors.

When my pages were dry, I ripped leaf-like shapes out of each one. Rip these large enough for you to write one or two words on and rip as many leaves as you’d like to cover the branches of your tree.

This next step of the art ritual is the first step in the magnetization process. Think of the goal you are working towards or the intention you want to set or the prayer you want to send out to Spirit. Then, think of all the results or outcomes you want to experience when that dream becomes reality or if and when that prayer is answered. What results will it create in your life? What will be different? What will you experience more of? What will grow in your life?

With a gel pen or marker, write a word on each leaf you ripped out that describes one of the results or outcomes you want to experience. Trust that you ripped out the number of leaves you did and continue to find a word to fit on each leaf until all the leaves have at least one word written on them.

The next step is the trunk of your vision or intention. It is the solid structure upon which your dream is held. It is focused and confident. Capture your dream, goal or prayer in one sentence and write it on the trunk of the tree. I used a silver marker to write mine and as you can see, I didn’t quite leave enough room to write my long word.

The last step in the magnetization process is to think about how achieving your goal will make you feel. With the black ink, I wrote all the words that captured the emotions I will feel. These feelings are what will feed my dreams and intentions and, in my work, they are what I really want anyway. The great thing about figuring out which feelings I want is I can start focusing on them right away. I don’t need anything in my external environment to change before changing my internal environment of thoughts and feelings.

The last step is to glue the leaves onto the branches of your tree.

When I was done I was left with a beautiful tree that captures my intentions and reminds me to do things now that evoke the feelings I imagine will also come when my intention is manifested. If it doesn’t feel like ease, joy, magic, play, flow and living from my Spirit then it is something I should reconsider, avoid or gives as little attention to as possible. The best use of your time and energy is to focus on feeling the kind of emotions you listed at the roots of the tree. Let those emotions guide you toward accomplishing your goal or making your dreams a reality.
Below are the step-by-step instructions of this ritual in a format you can print for your convenience. If you do perform this ritual publicly or share photos of the ritual or perform the ritual with a group, please respect the work of this artist and creator by mentioning the source and/or providing a link back to this original post. Also, if you end up performing this ritual, I’d love to see what you completed. You can even post the finished piece on Instagram or Facebook with the hashtag #danasartrituals or email me at support@danadaponte.com and share with me how it went.

with love,

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This is an art ritual to perform during the full moon, particularly a blue moon, to receive messages from Spirit.  I created it to offer a simple method of using common watercolors in a sacred way and to help visual thinkers communicate with their angels and/or spirit guides.  Scroll down for printable step-by-step instructions.

As a child, Once in a blue moon is a saying I never gave a lot of thought to. I knew it meant a rare occasion but I never was curious about what an actual blue moon was. Now I know a blue moon is when two full moons happen in the same calendar month. This weekend is the second blue moon of 2018. There haven’t been two blue moons in the same calendar year in a very long time and the next time it will happen won’t be until 2037. Being an infrequent celestial event makes this blue moon feel a little more magical to me. Personally, I think it makes it one of those times where the veil between the seen and unseen is a little thinner which makes it a great time to slow down and connect with Spirit.

In this particular art ritual, I wanted to use the element of water. In my imagination, when I think of the blue moon, I imagine a moon covered in gentle ripples of crystal water. I dream about what it would feel like to bathe in waters that sparkle and feel alive. I imagine those waters being a meeting place where my angels and spirit guides can join me and share their wisdom and insight. Yes, my imagination is a busy bee buzzing from one spiritual adventure to another. But this imagery gave me the perfect idea for the blue moon art ritual I wanted to perform and it centers around water.

Water is my favorite element. It’s one of the most important tools in my art studio. I use it to clean, dilute, blend and bless. In my rituals, I think of it as a conduit or a sacred container. I imagine I can whisper to it and it will carry my whispers in it’s molecules. I imagine I can sing to it and it will shape itself around my song. I imagine it is a secret messenger carrying my prayers to the realm of Spirit. To harness this power, I gathered a jar of water, my blue paints (I used acrylic inks but this art ritual would work just as well with watercolors), some watercolor paper, my brushes and my candle and I created a series of blue moon mandalas that I used to peer into and receive messages from my angels.

Before sharing the instructions in more detail, I want to remind you that when engaging in one of my art rituals, there are a few steps I perform before I sit down to do the writing, painting or creating part of my ritual. They include gathering my materials, clearing my mind and my physical space, inviting or calling in my spiritual helpers and setting boundaries or placing a circle of protection and blessing my tools and material. I outline these steps in more detail in my “Beginner’s Guide to Preparing for Art Rituals” which I send, along with other helpful goodies, when you subscribe to my Moon Sisters Art and Ritual Magazine.  If you would like the guide delivered to your inbox, you can subscribe to the magazine on my home page.

To support my emotions while I performed this art ritual, I used a placed a few drops of doTerra’s Myrrh essential oil in my difuser.  My doTerra oils are just as helpful to my Spirit and emotional well-being as they are to my physical health so I always include them in my art rituals. Myrrh is like a warm hug from Mother Earth. It’s a rich earthy scent that wraps the heart and helps me feel safe, nurtured, warm and grounded. If I’m already feeling airy and like my energy is more above my head then in my body, I like to use an earthy oil during my art rituals to keep me balanced as I attempt to peer into other realms.

Once my oils were going and I could breathe them in, I moved onto the first step in this art ritual which was to gather the materials. This is a simple art ritual. You don’t need a lot of supplies and it shouldn’t take over an hour to complete. This is what I gathered together and used:

• water
• acrylic inks in different blue tones (watercolors are also an option)
• candle
• paint palette
• watercolor brush
• 3 squares of watercolor paper (I cut mine to each be 8″ x 8″)
• compass
• pencil
• masking or painters tape
• writing journal or paper to write on
• white wax crayon (optional)

I started by drawing a circle with my compass on each of my squares. I then used my white wax crayon to trace around the circle. The wax prevents the water I will apply next from expanding past the edges of my circle. I want to keep the water contained within the circle I drew so this little trick helps. It’s not a necessary step but it can be helpful.

Next, I dipped my brush in the water and spread the water around the entire circle ensuring that the whole surface of the circle was wet. You’ll note here that I didn’t tape down my paper which was an oversight. Not taping down the paper causes it to bend and distort its shape when it is wet. You may want to tape down your squares before soaking the surface of your circle.

I then chose the blue paints I wanted to work with and added a tiny drop of each color to a well in my paint palette. I filled each well with water to create a very diluted color. This technique works best with very watery paint. I then dipped my wet paintbrush in one of the wells of blue paint.

I gently touched the wet circle with my wet paintbrush. Because the circle is so wet and the paint is diluted the paint instantly spreads and expands as soon as it touches the circle. I continued to dip my brush in different tones of blue paint and continued to create bursts of blue color within the circle I drew.

I repeated this process until I was happy with how my circle looked. Then I moved onto the next square of watercolor paper and once again repeated the process until all three circles were completed. This step was done with prayer and intention. In my mind, I was talking to my angels and spirit guides and telling them what I wanted to release this full moon and asking them to please come and speak to me in my art. I took my time and entered a relaxed meditative state as I watched the colors bleed and form shapes and images.

I was left with these three circles.

The last step in this art ritual was to grab my writing journal and sit down with each image. One at a time, I gazed into each circle and waited until I saw something familiar. I then wrote about what I saw. I saw whole stories in each circle. The first circle delivered a message about my health and directed me on some next steps to consider as I continue to heal. The second delivered a message about being of service. It reminded me that my art is as much in service of the Divine as my work as a professional intuitive is. I cried as the words “My art is my service” came to my mind.

The third circle was interesting. I saw Jesus in the clouds leading two young children and my body buried under a body of water and my spirit rising up from my body and becoming a butterfly flying out of a cocoon. Then I saw a woman standing over a man’s body as he was lying on a table, as you would do if you were receiving energy healing or Reiki. The woman was receiving a ray of light from Jesus and sending that ray of light to the man laying on the slate. The imagery felt like it was speaking of death and being reborn. I was confused by this last circle. The other two made me cry as they struck deep chords within me. This last one had me stumped. I couldn’t figure out what it was saying. Was a part of me dying? Was I in a process of metamorphosis? I wasn’t really getting anywhere until I realized it was Good Friday and Easter weekend. In my Catholic upbringing, Jesus dies and in three days rises again. I realized this circle was telling that story but was adding two elements. It was showing Mary praying over Jesus’ body when he died and actively sending it light. My angels then asked me to consider what I would have learned about myself that part of the story was shared with me as a child. If I had known what an important role Mary had in the resurrection, would I feel differently about being a woman? Why or why not? If Mary did have a bigger role than my childhood religion shared with me, why might people have chosen to leave that out? And lastly, the final question I heard was, “If there is something from your childhood you would like to resurrect, what would it be?” Wow! I need to sit with all this last circle gave me. It was far richer than I initially suspected it to be.

Below are the step-by-step instructions of this ritual in a format you can print for your convenience. If you do perform this ritual publicly or share photos of the ritual or perform the ritual with a group, please respect the work of this artist and creator by mentioning the source and/or providing a link back to this original post. Also, if you end up performing this ritual, I’d love to see what you completed. You can even post the finished piece on Instagram or Facebook with the hashtag #danasartrituals or email me at support@danadaponte.com and share with me how it went.

with love,

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