![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/48960985-d180-4c83-b26e-fef36848b418/sketchbook+detail.jpg?format=original\")
Palimpsest - detail from many layered new accordion book inspired by the river [/caption] \n \n\n\n\n\n “This moment, too, is surrender, this blazing,...\n
this ecstatic exploding
that always and never arrives.”\n
I am sure we all have experienced things which start off difficult or even impossible, but they actually end up being highlights and peak experiences of truly being alive and awake.
The surrendering to this moment. The letting-go of remembering to RE-member. The deepening appreciation for what is important and essential. The letting go of oh, so much. And the surrendering again and again like Innanna. Just when you think there is nothing more to give up, there is and you can. Wonder-full.
What are you letting go of in your life? What have you found is surprisingly wonderful, that started off as something difficult or impossible?
So to that end, I am planning some new events; toying at the edges as many have asked, pleaded even, for this. And with weather like this, it’s all possible. Even on a cloudy day in Devon, things appear pretty gorgeous and delightful. So here is where you come in: can I ask whether you be interested in a one day, or weekend course – in my not-quite done but done enough to run-a few very special in-person - workshop art studio? It overlooks Hay Tor and is a 5 min walk from Totnes town. And you, as a VIP, have first pick!
Are you interested? I am envisaging a potential weekend in July or August of this year. So please let me know your thoughts, asap.
More to follow of course, but this is very delightful to be in this garden and orchard haven right in Totnes.
You are very welcome to DM my Instagram @Katheryn_Trenshaw, get in touch via my website contact form HERE or through FB here. Oh and of forward this to any friends you may think may be interested in my content or offerings.
\n![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/a96ca9ba-def3-4ee3-9d24-1e8e35892dee/P1150810.JPG?format=original\")
Owl feather birthing new creative beginnings in Devon [/caption] \n \n\n\n\n\n \n ![\"\"/](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/daa01199-9c8f-49c3-849d-59b75fb95f9d/INSTAGRAM-POLL+.jpg?format=original\")
\n \n\n\n\nThank you so so much!
\nSubscribe to this Blog and occasional newsletter, Share events and this blog generously with all your peeps and on Social Media
To connect with In Your Own Skin project: See the trailer and more info, And maybe Book a course, buy and REVIEW (5*) the In Your Own Skin book* ISBN 978-0-9905420-0-1 Please support your local bookshop, Donate to the project to keep it going, OR organise to host screening with Q&A community event at YOUR local cinema.
Here is the lovely little new SURVEY. Please share your wishes and Thank you!
And Thank you so so much!
#perspective #simplicity #wellbeing #silence #rest #spacesinbetween #poetry #presence
\n\n “This moment, too, is surrender, this blazing,...\n
this ecstatic exploding
that always and never arrives.”\n
I am sure we all have experienced things which start off difficult or even impossible, but they actually end up being highlights and peak experiences of truly being alive and awake.
The surrendering to this moment. The letting-go of remembering to RE-member. The deepening appreciation for what is important and essential. The letting go of oh, so much. And the surrendering again and again like Innanna. Just when you think there is nothing more to give up, there is and you can. Wonder-full.
What are you letting go of in your life? What have you found is surprisingly wonderful, that started off as something difficult or impossible?
So to that end, I am planning some new events; toying at the edges as many have asked, pleaded even, for this. And with weather like this, it’s all possible. Even on a cloudy day in Devon, things appear pretty gorgeous and delightful. So here is where you come in: can I ask whether you be interested in a one day, or weekend course – in my not-quite done but done enough to run-a few very special in-person - workshop art studio? It overlooks Hay Tor and is a 5 min walk from Totnes town. And you, as a VIP, have first pick!
Are you interested? I am envisaging a potential weekend in July or August of this year. So please let me know your thoughts, asap.
More to follow of course, but this is very delightful to be in this garden and orchard haven right in Totnes.
You are very welcome to DM my Instagram @Katheryn_Trenshaw, get in touch via my website contact form HERE or through FB here. Oh and of forward this to any friends you may think may be interested in my content or offerings.
\n\n \n\n\n\nThank you so so much!
\nSubscribe to this Blog and occasional newsletter, Share events and this blog generously with all your peeps and on Social Media
To connect with In Your Own Skin project: See the trailer and more info, And maybe Book a course, buy and REVIEW (5*) the In Your Own Skin book* ISBN 978-0-9905420-0-1 Please support your local bookshop, Donate to the project to keep it going, OR organise to host screening with Q&A community event at YOUR local cinema.
Here is the lovely little new SURVEY. Please share your wishes and Thank you!
And Thank you so so much!
#perspective #simplicity #wellbeing #silence #rest #spacesinbetween #poetry #presence
\n![\"\"/](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/5849e466-5901-4572-be3d-4b42defae2b1/mom+In+Your+Own+Skin+portrait.jpg?format=original\")
\n \n\n\n\nAnd, with this renewal and rebirth, there is something reassuring to my nervous system. This fresh opportunity at trusting life’s new beginnings and endings. A new season. A new chance. Letting go and making room. So it is with all of us. 100% guaranteed to be dying one day, so how to live well while we are alive. For my mother Cynthia, it was capturing the essence of the spaces in between in exquisite poetry.
For me, making a ridiculous labour of love documentary seems to be a big part of the answer to that.
And if you are in the UK, there is also a new chance to see the In Your Own Skin film. Another celebration event, this time in Chagford on Dartmoor.
\nWe are beyond delighted to have been asked to be a part of the prestigious Chagford Film Festival. A little place that is mighty and gorgeous right on Dartmoor in one of my favourite places. I will be there to share the film and host a dynamic Q&A. I recently had the chance to offer 3 screenings a week with Q&As at the amazing Rancho La Puerta in Baja and it was met with stunning enthusiastic support. Come and experience what all the buzz was about and how we are all interconnected. What would you share?
\n\n “We are all Interconnected.”\n\n \n
We humans are also a kind of ecotone, reaching between worlds of earth and air. And as we embrace our original natural vitality, we re-member and come home to presence. I believe more and more that our stories live interstitially as well… in the spaces in between. All we have to do is listen. And this listening helps us re-member and come home to true selves.
\n\n “In Your Own Skin achieves the seemingly impossible: connecting us all to the world, to each other and to ourselves. This gem of a movie reminds us that our superpower is not in being shiny but in being authentic and vulnerable. I wish everyone in the world could see this film, and you will too.”\n\n
When I was preparing to leave England this most recent time knowing it was almost surely the LAST time I would see my mom, I wanted to bring her a gift so I created and painted a WISHES book with pockets to hold “essentialisms” for her. At the end of a life, prayers, wishes, and love are all that matter. I dare say this is also true throughout a life as well because we RARELY know when it will end, but we always know it WILL END. This book was and is an extension of my love for her. So now I extend these wishes and that love to all of you:
\n![\"\"/](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/2c6f9874-d2b3-4232-8d35-204f46b0d983/sketchbook+detail.jpg?format=original\")
\n \n\n\n\nA life is extraordinary. The chances of us ever even being born are 1 in 4 trillion - equivalent to throwing a lifesaver off a ship in the middle of the ocean and a turtle poking its head through that same lifesaver. Amazing. And that is completely ordinary. All of us will die. Cynthia, one of the best poets and people, has also died.
Life is very short and sometimes far too long. I’m grateful that Cynthia lived and died on her own terms. Sovereign and queen to the end.
Pulsars die too-but when they do – they become STARS!
I wish all of these things for all of you.
How will you live your wild and precious life? How do you tap into your creativity? What do you love most about the margins and the ecotones?
\n![\"\"/](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/2afe074e-f327-4ba7-a7fe-b18e01df0d7d/In+Your+Own+Skin+Chagford+Film+Fest+Square+withIYOS+web+600x600.png?format=original\")
\n \n\n\n\n![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/028f4dd3-6fbe-4904-9a32-0e42ab781ae9/art+retreats+in+devon+horizontal.png?format=original\")
Living Awake Creativity Course Preview video [/caption] \n \n\n\n\nSubscribe to this Blog and occasional newsletter, Share events and this blog generously with all your peeps and on Social Media , See the trailer and more info, And maybe Book a course, buy an In Your Own Skin book* ISBN 978-0-9905420-0-1 at your local bookshop, Donate to the project to keep it going, Book your seats at the fabulous Chagford Film Festival to avoid disappointment if you are in the UK, OR organise to host screening with Q&A community event at YOUR local cinema.
And Thank you so so much!
*if you can, be a star and order through your local independent book seller
\n![\"Vulputate](\"https://assets.squarespace.com/universal/images-v6/configuration/placeholder/3x4-placeholder-image-6.jpg\")
\n \n \n ![\"Elit](\"https://assets.squarespace.com/universal/images-v6/configuration/placeholder/3x2-placeholder-image-3.jpg\")
\n \n \n ![\"Aenean](\"https://assets.squarespace.com/universal/images-v6/configuration/placeholder/3x4-placeholder-image-9.jpg\")
\n \n \n ![\"Cursus](\"https://assets.squarespace.com/universal/images-v6/configuration/placeholder/1x1-placeholder-image-4.jpg\")
\n \n \n ![\"Pellentesque](\"https://assets.squarespace.com/universal/images-v6/configuration/placeholder/3x4-placeholder-image-7.jpg\")
\n \n \n ![\"Porta\"](\"https://assets.squarespace.com/universal/images-v6/configuration/placeholder/1x1-placeholder-image-5.jpg\")
\n \n \n ![\"Etiam](\"https://assets.squarespace.com/universal/images-v6/configuration/placeholder/3x2-placeholder-image-8.jpg\")
\n \n \n ![\"Vulputate](\"https://assets.squarespace.com/universal/images-v6/configuration/placeholder/1x1-placeholder-image-1.jpg\")
\n \n \n ![\"Elit](\"https://assets.squarespace.com/universal/images-v6/configuration/placeholder/3x2-placeholder-image-2.jpg\")
\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n ![\"\"/](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/477d7753-fe90-4f1b-80ec-e924d8dcc9f9/CFF-new-logo-2.png?format=original\"){kind=logo}
\n \n\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\nAnd, with this renewal and rebirth, there is something reassuring to my nervous system. This fresh opportunity at trusting life’s new beginnings and endings. A new season. A new chance. Letting go and making room. So it is with all of us. 100% guaranteed to be dying one day, so how to live well while we are alive. For my mother Cynthia, it was capturing the essence of the spaces in between in exquisite poetry.
For me, making a ridiculous labour of love documentary seems to be a big part of the answer to that.
And if you are in the UK, there is also a new chance to see the In Your Own Skin film. Another celebration event, this time in Chagford on Dartmoor.
\nWe are beyond delighted to have been asked to be a part of the prestigious Chagford Film Festival. A little place that is mighty and gorgeous right on Dartmoor in one of my favourite places. I will be there to share the film and host a dynamic Q&A. I recently had the chance to offer 3 screenings a week with Q&As at the amazing Rancho La Puerta in Baja and it was met with stunning enthusiastic support. Come and experience what all the buzz was about and how we are all interconnected. What would you share?
\n\n “We are all Interconnected.”\n\n \n
We humans are also a kind of ecotone, reaching between worlds of earth and air. And as we embrace our original natural vitality, we re-member and come home to presence. I believe more and more that our stories live interstitially as well… in the spaces in between. All we have to do is listen. And this listening helps us re-member and come home to true selves.
\n\n “In Your Own Skin achieves the seemingly impossible: connecting us all to the world, to each other and to ourselves. This gem of a movie reminds us that our superpower is not in being shiny but in being authentic and vulnerable. I wish everyone in the world could see this film, and you will too.”\n\n
When I was preparing to leave England this most recent time knowing it was almost surely the LAST time I would see my mom, I wanted to bring her a gift so I created and painted a WISHES book with pockets to hold “essentialisms” for her. At the end of a life, prayers, wishes, and love are all that matter. I dare say this is also true throughout a life as well because we RARELY know when it will end, but we always know it WILL END. This book was and is an extension of my love for her. So now I extend these wishes and that love to all of you:
\n\n \n\n\n\nA life is extraordinary. The chances of us ever even being born are 1 in 4 trillion - equivalent to throwing a lifesaver off a ship in the middle of the ocean and a turtle poking its head through that same lifesaver. Amazing. And that is completely ordinary. All of us will die. Cynthia, one of the best poets and people, has also died.
Life is very short and sometimes far too long. I’m grateful that Cynthia lived and died on her own terms. Sovereign and queen to the end.
Pulsars die too-but when they do – they become STARS!
I wish all of these things for all of you.
How will you live your wild and precious life? How do you tap into your creativity? What do you love most about the margins and the ecotones?
\n\n \n\n\n\nSubscribe to this Blog and occasional newsletter, Share events and this blog generously with all your peeps and on Social Media , See the trailer and more info, And maybe Book a course, buy an In Your Own Skin book* ISBN 978-0-9905420-0-1 at your local bookshop, Donate to the project to keep it going, Book your seats at the fabulous Chagford Film Festival to avoid disappointment if you are in the UK, OR organise to host screening with Q&A community event at YOUR local cinema.
And Thank you so so much!
*if you can, be a star and order through your local independent book seller
\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n\n\n![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/2f7aa5f6-6e88-471c-9daa-6000fe93635f/IMG_4959.jpeg?format=original\")
Dandelions are superheroes in the garden and on our plates [/caption] \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n “The parallels between foraging for wild food and the message of the documentary film In Your Own Skin are striking. ”\n\n
I have personally experienced a transformation in my lifetime from viewing weeds as unwanted plants to seeing them as valuable sources of nourishment and beauty. I now cultivate dandelions for their bitter salad greens and flowers for syrup. I also grow nettles for tea and as a super iron-rich spinach-like vegetable. Later in the season, I collect their seeds to dry and use as a rich soup topping in the winter. Every spring, I freeze wild garlic pesto for the year. These small, sustainable foraging techniques not only provide nourishment but also re-wild our lives, which is so desperately needed. Every small thing we do, like the butterfly effect, can make a huge difference.
The parallels between foraging for wild food and the message of the documentary film In Your Own Skin are striking. We have learned to appreciate the value of dandelions, and we can also learn to appreciate the value of each other's stories and diversity. Weeds are not just annoying plants to be destroyed, but rather a source of nourishment and beauty. Similarly, people with different backgrounds are not to be feared or discriminated against but rather celebrated for their unique qualities.
It's common to feel ashamed or embarrassed about parts of ourselves that we don't consider beautiful or functional enough or perfect enough. In our current cultural climate, there is so much focus on external appearances and hyper achieving behavior along with a narrow definition of beauty. It's crucial to remember that our depth of presence and authenticity are our most radiant qualities. The documentary film In Your Own Skin celebrates the beauty of revealing hidden truths and encourages us to embrace our personal uniqueness, which invariably becomes universal. This, in turn, liberates us all.
\n\n “Foraging for wild food is a magical experience that never ceases to amaze me.”\n\n
Foraging for wild food and the message of In Your Own Skin have many parallels. We can learn to appreciate the value of things we once considered unwanted and embrace the beauty of diversity. The documentary film reminds us to celebrate our personal uniqueness, which in turn becomes universal and liberates us all. The upcoming event at the Barn Cinema promises to be an enlightening and inspiring experience. I encourage everyone to attend and join the celebration of foraging and the beauty of diversity.
Enjoy a recipe below.
\n![\"\"/](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/37271a37-0eaa-48a2-b9bd-69d23edac86d/dandelion+syrup+rcipe+card+png.jpg?format=original\")
\n \n\n\n\n[Here is a fun little video of the fields of golden dandelions at Dartington Estate in Devon where I foraged]
Totally spoilt for choice.
What is YOUR favorite foraging experience, plant or recipe? Please share the wealth.
\n![\"In](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/1770053816427-2DG5R0QF2P6NKUPGC44A/In+Your+Own+Skin+Chaford+square.png\")
\n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n \n ![\"UnEarthing](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/1737048330412-IMD5H0A7ZDC3SPJASO33/IMG_8626.jpeg\")
\n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n \n Teign Contemporary - an artists and poets collaboration. This is the first of a series of art and poetry exhibitions from 2025 - 2026. I will be sharing 4 original works created as a part of this dynamic inspiring project. My particular interest is more in the realm of perspective and micro’ macro ways of seeing from presence and listening in the landscape as part of the wildness in this body.
![\"UNEARTHING](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/1737048096026-EG0ALOTRZCU1Y5AMUPOG/IMG_8392.jpeg\")
\n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n \n Teign Contemporary - an artists and poets collaboration. This is the first of a series of art and poetry exhibitions from 2025 - 2026. I will be sharing 4 original works created as a part of this dynamic inspiring project. My particular interest is more in the realm of perspective and micro’ macro ways of seeing from presence and listening in the landscape as part of the wildness in this body.
\n “The parallels between foraging for wild food and the message of the documentary film In Your Own Skin are striking. ”\n\n
I have personally experienced a transformation in my lifetime from viewing weeds as unwanted plants to seeing them as valuable sources of nourishment and beauty. I now cultivate dandelions for their bitter salad greens and flowers for syrup. I also grow nettles for tea and as a super iron-rich spinach-like vegetable. Later in the season, I collect their seeds to dry and use as a rich soup topping in the winter. Every spring, I freeze wild garlic pesto for the year. These small, sustainable foraging techniques not only provide nourishment but also re-wild our lives, which is so desperately needed. Every small thing we do, like the butterfly effect, can make a huge difference.
The parallels between foraging for wild food and the message of the documentary film In Your Own Skin are striking. We have learned to appreciate the value of dandelions, and we can also learn to appreciate the value of each other's stories and diversity. Weeds are not just annoying plants to be destroyed, but rather a source of nourishment and beauty. Similarly, people with different backgrounds are not to be feared or discriminated against but rather celebrated for their unique qualities.
It's common to feel ashamed or embarrassed about parts of ourselves that we don't consider beautiful or functional enough or perfect enough. In our current cultural climate, there is so much focus on external appearances and hyper achieving behavior along with a narrow definition of beauty. It's crucial to remember that our depth of presence and authenticity are our most radiant qualities. The documentary film In Your Own Skin celebrates the beauty of revealing hidden truths and encourages us to embrace our personal uniqueness, which invariably becomes universal. This, in turn, liberates us all.
\n\n “Foraging for wild food is a magical experience that never ceases to amaze me.”\n\n
Foraging for wild food and the message of In Your Own Skin have many parallels. We can learn to appreciate the value of things we once considered unwanted and embrace the beauty of diversity. The documentary film reminds us to celebrate our personal uniqueness, which in turn becomes universal and liberates us all. The upcoming event at the Barn Cinema promises to be an enlightening and inspiring experience. I encourage everyone to attend and join the celebration of foraging and the beauty of diversity.
Enjoy a recipe below.
\n\n \n\n\n\n[Here is a fun little video of the fields of golden dandelions at Dartington Estate in Devon where I foraged]
Totally spoilt for choice.
What is YOUR favorite foraging experience, plant or recipe? Please share the wealth.
\n\n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n \n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n \n Teign Contemporary - an artists and poets collaboration. This is the first of a series of art and poetry exhibitions from 2025 - 2026. I will be sharing 4 original works created as a part of this dynamic inspiring project. My particular interest is more in the realm of perspective and micro’ macro ways of seeing from presence and listening in the landscape as part of the wildness in this body.
\n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n \n Teign Contemporary - an artists and poets collaboration. This is the first of a series of art and poetry exhibitions from 2025 - 2026. I will be sharing 4 original works created as a part of this dynamic inspiring project. My particular interest is more in the realm of perspective and micro’ macro ways of seeing from presence and listening in the landscape as part of the wildness in this body.
![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/4b54b602-efa3-4b34-aaef-d910bbb10a4f/IMG_7283.jpg?format=original\")
We are a WE Kaleidescope [/caption] \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n “We have to help heal each other’s pain.”\n\n
For me, having lived through an incredibly complicated and rare cancer has definitely taught me a lot… more than I ever could have guessed. And certainly more than I wanted in some ways too. I never, for instance, really wanted what became a kind of Masters thesis-worth of knowledge about breast cancer, its treatments, statistics, side-effects and complications. But hey, wisdom, hard won all the same.
So, more now than ever, I am passionate about the distinction between healing and curing a person. One can be very healed and whole and still dying. One could also be cured of something, but not healed per se.
In fact, one could argue without anyone actually being able to prove otherwise, that we are all indeed going to die. And, therefore, it becomes pretty essential how we live and how we spend our 4000 weeks or so on this earthly plane.
Since ‘being ill’ with the whole cancer malarkey thing, my life and my interests are curated and honed increasingly on what is essential, and therefore wholing/healing – for me, for you, for all of us. It’s actually very simple. But not necessarily easy.
This is the stuff of facing difficulty; of facing discomfort directly – and not shrinking back. This is daring to live with eyes wide open, creating work and spaces to illuminate the dark and broken places in all their magnificence. It is about celebrating our lives, well lived even as they are fading fast.
I know I have wasted too much of my life already: trying to look good, trying to not need to ask for help, trying to get it right, perfect or beautiful…
\n\n “Where the wound of love bleeds & never heals… I wait for you there.”\n\n
And here, too, is to the stranger we will never meet who actually did the stitching up; to the stranger who lifted you up again after a fall off your bike; or who gave you a hard whack on the back on the train to keep you from choking.
When I traveled around the world, interviewing people for the In Your Own Skin project and listened deeply to them, without judgement, often, if not always, what people revealed most was what they loved. Here’s to all of us. We are a great whole WE.
Real strength is the ability to give and receive love. To open and be opened. Wholing and healing ourselves as we integrate the disowned parts one-by-one into being.
Blessings on your healing WHOLING life journey.
—————
What helps you find ground again when you feel lost?
What makes you most whole?
What is our responsibility to each other?
What are the values that guide us in our work and lives?
Speaking of we:
If you are in the UK, Be sure to book if you want to come and enjoy an evening connected in a great WE of gorgeous beings with drinks, poetry, surprise film short and the fab feature IN YOUR OWN SKIN film plus Q&A Friday 28th April at The Barn Cinema in Dartington. If you want us to come to your part of the world, please get in touch.
Here is an Interview with the rather gorgeous Ali Donkin, Dartington’s Film Programmer https://youtu.be/5eKKYhG8CXU
#perspective #simplicity #wellbeing #silence #rest #spacesinbetween #poetry #presence
\n\n “We have to help heal each other’s pain.”\n\n
For me, having lived through an incredibly complicated and rare cancer has definitely taught me a lot… more than I ever could have guessed. And certainly more than I wanted in some ways too. I never, for instance, really wanted what became a kind of Masters thesis-worth of knowledge about breast cancer, its treatments, statistics, side-effects and complications. But hey, wisdom, hard won all the same.
So, more now than ever, I am passionate about the distinction between healing and curing a person. One can be very healed and whole and still dying. One could also be cured of something, but not healed per se.
In fact, one could argue without anyone actually being able to prove otherwise, that we are all indeed going to die. And, therefore, it becomes pretty essential how we live and how we spend our 4000 weeks or so on this earthly plane.
Since ‘being ill’ with the whole cancer malarkey thing, my life and my interests are curated and honed increasingly on what is essential, and therefore wholing/healing – for me, for you, for all of us. It’s actually very simple. But not necessarily easy.
This is the stuff of facing difficulty; of facing discomfort directly – and not shrinking back. This is daring to live with eyes wide open, creating work and spaces to illuminate the dark and broken places in all their magnificence. It is about celebrating our lives, well lived even as they are fading fast.
I know I have wasted too much of my life already: trying to look good, trying to not need to ask for help, trying to get it right, perfect or beautiful…
\n\n “Where the wound of love bleeds & never heals… I wait for you there.”\n\n
And here, too, is to the stranger we will never meet who actually did the stitching up; to the stranger who lifted you up again after a fall off your bike; or who gave you a hard whack on the back on the train to keep you from choking.
When I traveled around the world, interviewing people for the In Your Own Skin project and listened deeply to them, without judgement, often, if not always, what people revealed most was what they loved. Here’s to all of us. We are a great whole WE.
Real strength is the ability to give and receive love. To open and be opened. Wholing and healing ourselves as we integrate the disowned parts one-by-one into being.
Blessings on your healing WHOLING life journey.
—————
What helps you find ground again when you feel lost?
What makes you most whole?
What is our responsibility to each other?
What are the values that guide us in our work and lives?
Speaking of we:
If you are in the UK, Be sure to book if you want to come and enjoy an evening connected in a great WE of gorgeous beings with drinks, poetry, surprise film short and the fab feature IN YOUR OWN SKIN film plus Q&A Friday 28th April at The Barn Cinema in Dartington. If you want us to come to your part of the world, please get in touch.
Here is an Interview with the rather gorgeous Ali Donkin, Dartington’s Film Programmer https://youtu.be/5eKKYhG8CXU
#perspective #simplicity #wellbeing #silence #rest #spacesinbetween #poetry #presence
\n![\"\"/](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/3d3c7d20-9585-4c17-bc20-494b28c7e96f/Japanes+Garden+Dartington.png?format=original\")
\n \n\n\n\nAnd, with this renewal and rebirth, there is something reassuring to my nervous system. This fresh opportunity at trusting life’s new beginnings. A new season. A new chance.
\n\n “We are all Interconnected.”\n\n \n
We humans are also a kind of ecotone, reaching between worlds of earth and air. And as we embrace our original natural vitality, we re-member and come home to presence. I believe more and more that our stories live interstitially as well… in the spaces in between. All we have to do is listen. And this listening helps us re-member and come home to true selves.
This homecoming has less fear and less shame and more presence. Following the roots of curiosity and discovery back to the origins of our life passions again and again. Re- membering and growing, our re-enchantment with the world.
How do you tap into your creativity? What do you love Most about the margins and the ecotones?
Come and play and splash around in the margins in Devon. Come and feel that interconnection with a whole bunch of other gorgeous beings on the spectacular DARTINGTON Estate at the film Premiere in The Barn Cinema. Drinks and hanging out from 7pm, then the film with a bonus featurette and Q&A. What’s not to love?
\n Living Awake Creativity Course Preview video [/caption] \n \n\n\n\nSubscribe to this Blog and occasional newsletter, Share events and this blog generously with all your peeps and on Social Media , Book a course, buy an In Your Own Skin book* ISBN 978-0-9905420-0-1, Donate to the project to keep it going, Book your seats at the fabulous Barn Cinema if you are in the UK, OR organise to host screening with Q&A community event at YOUR local cinema.
And Thank you so so much!
*if you can, be a star and order through your local independent book seller
\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n\n\nAnd, with this renewal and rebirth, there is something reassuring to my nervous system. This fresh opportunity at trusting life’s new beginnings. A new season. A new chance.
\n\n “We are all Interconnected.”\n\n \n
We humans are also a kind of ecotone, reaching between worlds of earth and air. And as we embrace our original natural vitality, we re-member and come home to presence. I believe more and more that our stories live interstitially as well… in the spaces in between. All we have to do is listen. And this listening helps us re-member and come home to true selves.
This homecoming has less fear and less shame and more presence. Following the roots of curiosity and discovery back to the origins of our life passions again and again. Re- membering and growing, our re-enchantment with the world.
How do you tap into your creativity? What do you love Most about the margins and the ecotones?
Come and play and splash around in the margins in Devon. Come and feel that interconnection with a whole bunch of other gorgeous beings on the spectacular DARTINGTON Estate at the film Premiere in The Barn Cinema. Drinks and hanging out from 7pm, then the film with a bonus featurette and Q&A. What’s not to love?
\nSubscribe to this Blog and occasional newsletter, Share events and this blog generously with all your peeps and on Social Media , Book a course, buy an In Your Own Skin book* ISBN 978-0-9905420-0-1, Donate to the project to keep it going, Book your seats at the fabulous Barn Cinema if you are in the UK, OR organise to host screening with Q&A community event at YOUR local cinema.
And Thank you so so much!
*if you can, be a star and order through your local independent book seller
\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n ![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/6b813c9c-82ce-4c9c-ac1e-1e062848b6bb/MOA+from+Sweden%27s+portrait+incapacitating+Depression+from+In+Your+Own+Skin+Banner+hanging+at+Dartington+www.inyourownskin.org+jpeg.jpeg?format=original\")
Larger than life and radiant Moa from Sweden - “incapacitating Depression” from In Your Own Skin Portrait Banner hanging at Dartington Gallery 8 March - April 16 2023 . Behind the Scenes with Moa video here. [/caption] \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n “Having abandoned the flimsy fantasy of certainty, I decided to wander.”\n\n
To loosen that grip, and also increase well-being, it helps to practice. And one of the big practice fields for me for years has been the approaching of total strangers to invite them to take part in the In Your Own Skin project. Inspired by the work of social worker Brené Brown, along with neurobiologists and other researchers, who discovered that if you want to look at happiness you need to look at shame, I set off out into the world, armed with body paints and video and still cameras to record people discussing their hidden truths.
I had set up appointments with some people I particularly wanted to include, but most of them were complete strangers who I just walked up to and asked. Literally, people in the street.
After lengthy and often very deep and moving conversations, I agreed with them a word or phrase that represented their hidden truth and painted it onto their skin. I then photographed them to create the portraits that feature in the project.
A single story tells many stories.
During the process, I connected deeply with over 200 people from more than 30 countries and all walks of life, and each of these powerful moments released a generous contribution to the world; a buoyant reminder of living fully and the beauty and strength that comes from facing and embracing our vulnerability.
And, speaking what is invisible points us toward something essential: Interconnecting us all. We are a living paradox and the sooner we learn to dance with this, the sooner we can live more fully alive.
\n\n “There is some strange intimacy between grief and aliveness, some sacred exchange between what seems unbearable and what is most exquisitely alive.”\n\n
The In Your Own Skin production process, by its very nature, also helped me to abandon the fantasy of certainty. I never knew how people would react or respond, or what they would share if they chose to be part of this mad and wonderful process. There were, of course, many mishaps. People disappeared, or did not show. Equipment packed up. Technology let us down. Hard drives crashed. Data was lost. So much… And yeah, that too was part of the wonder and the adventure.
This, then, is the antidote to the fantasy of certainty and the ‘resilience strengthening’ of that Wanderer part of us.
More info and to book film here.
![\"\"/](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/d6524982-7cd3-4898-8720-037544f1d440/leaf+pattern+www.katheryntrenshaw.com.jpg?format=original\")
\n \n\n\n\nBut why are you wandering off into a neurobiology tangent, you might ask? Well, because I love the vagus nerve. And ‘vagus’ comes from the Latin term for wandering because it extends and wanders through the brain and down through the whole of the body.
\n![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/9da3b52e-14a7-49ff-bcd1-86de94e71794/vagus+nerve.jpg?format=original\")
Vegus nerve. Wandering nerve. [/caption] \n \n\n\n\nThings that make your vagus nerve happy include dancing, walking near the sea, listening to a river or experiencing the smell of a forest. And perhaps most important of all is to cultivate curiosity and openness to awe.
\n![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/9c34db16-73cc-425a-a6c8-c058229043cb/wandering+Vegus+health+bunting+art+www.katheryntrenshaw.com.JPG?format=original\")
Wandering Vegus Health bunting art by Katheryn M. Trenshaw [/caption] \n \n\n\n\nThings small. Things simple. Things sticky.
As in: things you can love to do regularly and often because you love them. Anything we can wander into with awareness, no matter how small, helps our well-being. For example, wander for five minutes down to the stream and just be. Or dance to a single track of music in the living room. Or smell the Earth and blossom in your garden. How does this feel?
\n\n “Risk and Reward\n
Feeling deeply is dangerous.
Doing anything else is tragic.”\n
This brings us neatly, or untidily, to the doodle. Just let the pencil wander and make marks and see what comes. Creative writing and journalling and visual journalling are also both powerful ways to practice this.
You can come and find out more about this in the Spring on my courses. I’m offering a limited number of places in person, and in the not-too-distant future online places as well for those of you further afield. Please DM me if you are interested or would like to be put onto the waiting list.
And please let me know, in this vast panoply of becoming, what is your favourite form of wander?
\n\n “We are part of this universe. We are in this universe. But perhaps more importantly, then both of these facts is that the universe is in us… My atoms come from the stars. There is a level of connectivity. That’s really what you want in life. You want to feel connected. You want to feel relevant. You want to feel participant. Just by being alive.”\n\n
![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/01453b92-b55a-4d6f-badd-28a2c1a0eb5b/Living+Awake+Creativity+Course.jpg?format=original\")
Living Awake Creativity Course Preview video [/caption] \n \n\n\n\n\n “Having abandoned the flimsy fantasy of certainty, I decided to wander.”\n\n
To loosen that grip, and also increase well-being, it helps to practice. And one of the big practice fields for me for years has been the approaching of total strangers to invite them to take part in the In Your Own Skin project. Inspired by the work of social worker Brené Brown, along with neurobiologists and other researchers, who discovered that if you want to look at happiness you need to look at shame, I set off out into the world, armed with body paints and video and still cameras to record people discussing their hidden truths.
I had set up appointments with some people I particularly wanted to include, but most of them were complete strangers who I just walked up to and asked. Literally, people in the street.
After lengthy and often very deep and moving conversations, I agreed with them a word or phrase that represented their hidden truth and painted it onto their skin. I then photographed them to create the portraits that feature in the project.
A single story tells many stories.
During the process, I connected deeply with over 200 people from more than 30 countries and all walks of life, and each of these powerful moments released a generous contribution to the world; a buoyant reminder of living fully and the beauty and strength that comes from facing and embracing our vulnerability.
And, speaking what is invisible points us toward something essential: Interconnecting us all. We are a living paradox and the sooner we learn to dance with this, the sooner we can live more fully alive.
\n\n “There is some strange intimacy between grief and aliveness, some sacred exchange between what seems unbearable and what is most exquisitely alive.”\n\n
The In Your Own Skin production process, by its very nature, also helped me to abandon the fantasy of certainty. I never knew how people would react or respond, or what they would share if they chose to be part of this mad and wonderful process. There were, of course, many mishaps. People disappeared, or did not show. Equipment packed up. Technology let us down. Hard drives crashed. Data was lost. So much… And yeah, that too was part of the wonder and the adventure.
This, then, is the antidote to the fantasy of certainty and the ‘resilience strengthening’ of that Wanderer part of us.
More info and to book film here.
\n \n\n\n\nBut why are you wandering off into a neurobiology tangent, you might ask? Well, because I love the vagus nerve. And ‘vagus’ comes from the Latin term for wandering because it extends and wanders through the brain and down through the whole of the body.
\nThings that make your vagus nerve happy include dancing, walking near the sea, listening to a river or experiencing the smell of a forest. And perhaps most important of all is to cultivate curiosity and openness to awe.
\nThings small. Things simple. Things sticky.
As in: things you can love to do regularly and often because you love them. Anything we can wander into with awareness, no matter how small, helps our well-being. For example, wander for five minutes down to the stream and just be. Or dance to a single track of music in the living room. Or smell the Earth and blossom in your garden. How does this feel?
\n\n “Risk and Reward\n
Feeling deeply is dangerous.
Doing anything else is tragic.”\n
This brings us neatly, or untidily, to the doodle. Just let the pencil wander and make marks and see what comes. Creative writing and journalling and visual journalling are also both powerful ways to practice this.
You can come and find out more about this in the Spring on my courses. I’m offering a limited number of places in person, and in the not-too-distant future online places as well for those of you further afield. Please DM me if you are interested or would like to be put onto the waiting list.
And please let me know, in this vast panoply of becoming, what is your favourite form of wander?
\n\n “We are part of this universe. We are in this universe. But perhaps more importantly, then both of these facts is that the universe is in us… My atoms come from the stars. There is a level of connectivity. That’s really what you want in life. You want to feel connected. You want to feel relevant. You want to feel participant. Just by being alive.”\n\n
![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/817ee290-152b-4814-aad7-bbe4e1478e22/Katheryn+M.+Trenshaw+with+In+Your+Own+Skin+banner+portrait?format=original\")
Katheryn with giant In Your Own Skin portrait banner of the very gorgeous very pregnant Samantha from India [/caption] \n \n\n\n\nSo with that in mind, I offer up a contribution to all of these things and more. Connection with care, embracing the unity of diversity, the perfection of imperfection and the wonder of being a human being and being here for however long. I give you…drum roll…. the birth of In Your Own Skin documentary at long last.
\n![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/e66a4f79-a37c-4bbf-9e91-3bf5ea7ac419/In+Your+Own+Skin+film+collage+title.png?format=original\")
In Your Own Skin film is born! [/caption] \n \n\n\n\nAnd thank you so much for everything.
\nShare the event and this blog generously with all your peeps and on Social Media , buy an In Your Own Skin book* ISBN 978-0-9905420-0-1, Donate to the project to keep it going, Book your seats at the fabulous Totnes Cinema if you are in the UK, OR organise to host screening with Q&A community event at YOUR local cinema.
And Thank you so so much!
*if you can, be a star and order through your local independent book seller
\nSo with that in mind, I offer up a contribution to all of these things and more. Connection with care, embracing the unity of diversity, the perfection of imperfection and the wonder of being a human being and being here for however long. I give you…drum roll…. the birth of In Your Own Skin documentary at long last.
\nAnd thank you so much for everything.
\nShare the event and this blog generously with all your peeps and on Social Media , buy an In Your Own Skin book* ISBN 978-0-9905420-0-1, Donate to the project to keep it going, Book your seats at the fabulous Totnes Cinema if you are in the UK, OR organise to host screening with Q&A community event at YOUR local cinema.
And Thank you so so much!
*if you can, be a star and order through your local independent book seller
\n![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/1580238658044-1RNOVVJL5QBVYAO6HITQ/fullsizeoutput_1d.jpeg?format=original\")
3-D frost on the ground [/caption] \n \n\n\n\nThis time of year seems more empty, yet so much is happening. This is a time when plants die or slow or go into hibernation. Deciduous trees are dormant, while their nourishing roots are full of sugary sap,
All this will change in Spring when the ground warms up again. The sap will rise, supplying energy for new shoots and leaves. Magic. Simple. A natural cycle.
We all need rest to regenerate our lives and appreciate the sweetness in our roots. It’s so easy to lose sight of this in the non-stop world of social media, anxiety producing news, and the “bigger, better, faster, more“ model.
It’s easy to forget that these natural cycles, like difficulties and pains and bereavements, are also natural and normal and important for living awake and authentically.
For myself, it has been quite a big bereavement to feel as if I have ‘lost’ the last 4 1/2 years of my life dealing with the whole cancer malarkey. When in fact, there has been a sweetness that has intensified and continued to nourish my soul.
So much has happened whilst I’ve been forced to be ‘still’ and tend to what needed to be attended to. Appreciating space, silence, simplicity, and nothing.
Clearing by Martha Poselthwaite
Do not try to save
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to this world
so worth of rescue.
And so my dear friends, I encourage you to appreciate the natural cycles in your life. Appreciate the last throws of winter and the resilient making pauses that create a truly dynamic wholehearted life.
To this end, I am just about to go on a two-week silent retreat to regenerate and refresh my batteries. This is a natural reset to remember the importance of silence and nothing.
Here’s to appreciations for natural cycles and spaciousness. Rock on resting, digesting and sacred wholing pauses.
What ways do you find your pause commitments in your life?
What’s one small thing could you do today to celebrate taking a pause?
How do you incorporate the sound of silence?
\nThis time of year seems more empty, yet so much is happening. This is a time when plants die or slow or go into hibernation. Deciduous trees are dormant, while their nourishing roots are full of sugary sap,
All this will change in Spring when the ground warms up again. The sap will rise, supplying energy for new shoots and leaves. Magic. Simple. A natural cycle.
We all need rest to regenerate our lives and appreciate the sweetness in our roots. It’s so easy to lose sight of this in the non-stop world of social media, anxiety producing news, and the “bigger, better, faster, more“ model.
It’s easy to forget that these natural cycles, like difficulties and pains and bereavements, are also natural and normal and important for living awake and authentically.
For myself, it has been quite a big bereavement to feel as if I have ‘lost’ the last 4 1/2 years of my life dealing with the whole cancer malarkey. When in fact, there has been a sweetness that has intensified and continued to nourish my soul.
So much has happened whilst I’ve been forced to be ‘still’ and tend to what needed to be attended to. Appreciating space, silence, simplicity, and nothing.
Clearing by Martha Poselthwaite
Do not try to save
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to this world
so worth of rescue.
And so my dear friends, I encourage you to appreciate the natural cycles in your life. Appreciate the last throws of winter and the resilient making pauses that create a truly dynamic wholehearted life.
To this end, I am just about to go on a two-week silent retreat to regenerate and refresh my batteries. This is a natural reset to remember the importance of silence and nothing.
Here’s to appreciations for natural cycles and spaciousness. Rock on resting, digesting and sacred wholing pauses.
What ways do you find your pause commitments in your life?
What’s one small thing could you do today to celebrate taking a pause?
How do you incorporate the sound of silence?
\n![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/1575417488855-L0NBI5OKDTL3QXXQ23AO/Lilli+and+Katheryn+at+Rancho+La+Puerta.jpg?format=original\")
www.katheryntrenshaw.com/blog/2019/12/3/what-is-on-your-radical-well-being-menu-right-now-in-your-life [/caption] \n \n\n\n\nOn Saturday night, I had the honour of standing up in the breathtaking art strewn dining room of Rancho la Puerta and introduce the theme that I am co-presenting this week with my co-conspirator Dr. Lilli Rosenberg from Victoria Canada:
Living Awake: Grief, Grace and Gratitude
I am here to create comfort with discomfort, maybe flirt or even fall in love with awkwardness, and have the most important conversations we are NOT having. All this to grow sexy radical Well-being in our day to day lives and relationships: with ourselves, with each other and with this place.
We will explore Many topics around this, and here are some highlights to inquire into in your own life:
Spiritual Intelligence is our compass ‘at the edge’…
Living Awake requires that we venture to the edge of what we know… and embrace uncertainty. Spiritual Intelligence (SQ) provides a deep sense of what life’s struggles are about, enabling us to respond (rather than react) to the difficulties in our lives. Although this intelligence is a universal human potential, SQ requires awareness, attention, and proper cultivation in order that it may contribute beneficially. In this presentation, Lilli will outline the tenets and principles of spiritual intelligence, and explain how our innate capacities for grief, grace, and gratitude are integral for SQ’s growth and development.
Lilli with Katheryn
Living awake: the art of becoming comfortable with discomfort:
We tend to resist, and understandably, try not to feel difficulty, pain or discomfort. We can become more resilient and healthy as we learn how to live more fluidly. We increase our ability to live response-ably to life’s natural disruptions. Life offers us a huge range of experiences: grieving, living, dying, celebrating, which, though challenging in different ways, are not a problem. From in depth lifelong study and Katheryn’s own experiences with the ‘Big C’, discover how being with what is actually happening and humour heal., Explore the increased grace and awakeness of becoming more comfortable with discomfort. Come dance with paradox.
Katheryn with Lilli
Learned Happiness
The concept of happiness is surely the sun at the centre of our conceptual planetary system, and has proven just as difficult to look at directly. Considering how powerful a motivational force the quest for happiness is, it remains a surprisingly misunderstood concept. Misguided beliefs and common misconceptions about happiness are one of the greatest sources of unhappiness. Through this presentation on Learned Happiness, Lilli provides an accessible framework to comprehend happiness, since, like the sun, it is essential to our well being that we recognize the importance of its presence or absence in our lives. While our innate aspiration for happiness influences all the multi-layered facets of life, its cultivation requires appropriate awareness and attitudes. Our conscious intentional attention to grief, grace, and gratitude are well-researched predictors for the growth of essential happiness.
Lilli with Katheryn
Grace: Love letter to living and mortality, and Radical well-being
Life isn’t safe. We have a practical need to feel safe, unconsciously. And life does not align itself around our preferences or our survival strategies. In this session Katheryn will invite you to explore living more fully alive through remembering natural cycles and being inspired to make more clear, important and essential choices about what we do and how we live our lives through our appreciation that we are, indeed, mortal.. We will also explore a delicious ‘Radical Well-being menu’ to invite fresh new ways to live more fully awake. Come be curious and open to inspiration, creativity and fresh perspectives.
Katheryn with Lilli
So here we are, mortal and alive. What is on your Radical Well-being Menu right now in your life? Put another way, “What did you LOVE to spend your time immersed in when you were 5?\"
For me, part of LIVING AWAKE is creating art that touched the heart, disrupts fixed ideas, and invited suriosity. This is part of my Radical Well-Being Recipes. What are yours? What are you waiting for?
WHEN I AM AMONG TREES by Mary Oliver
When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks, and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,”
they say, “and you, too, have come
into the world to do this, to go easy,
to be filled with light, and to shine.”
\nOn Saturday night, I had the honour of standing up in the breathtaking art strewn dining room of Rancho la Puerta and introduce the theme that I am co-presenting this week with my co-conspirator Dr. Lilli Rosenberg from Victoria Canada:
Living Awake: Grief, Grace and Gratitude
I am here to create comfort with discomfort, maybe flirt or even fall in love with awkwardness, and have the most important conversations we are NOT having. All this to grow sexy radical Well-being in our day to day lives and relationships: with ourselves, with each other and with this place.
We will explore Many topics around this, and here are some highlights to inquire into in your own life:
Spiritual Intelligence is our compass ‘at the edge’…
Living Awake requires that we venture to the edge of what we know… and embrace uncertainty. Spiritual Intelligence (SQ) provides a deep sense of what life’s struggles are about, enabling us to respond (rather than react) to the difficulties in our lives. Although this intelligence is a universal human potential, SQ requires awareness, attention, and proper cultivation in order that it may contribute beneficially. In this presentation, Lilli will outline the tenets and principles of spiritual intelligence, and explain how our innate capacities for grief, grace, and gratitude are integral for SQ’s growth and development.
Lilli with Katheryn
Living awake: the art of becoming comfortable with discomfort:
We tend to resist, and understandably, try not to feel difficulty, pain or discomfort. We can become more resilient and healthy as we learn how to live more fluidly. We increase our ability to live response-ably to life’s natural disruptions. Life offers us a huge range of experiences: grieving, living, dying, celebrating, which, though challenging in different ways, are not a problem. From in depth lifelong study and Katheryn’s own experiences with the ‘Big C’, discover how being with what is actually happening and humour heal., Explore the increased grace and awakeness of becoming more comfortable with discomfort. Come dance with paradox.
Katheryn with Lilli
Learned Happiness
The concept of happiness is surely the sun at the centre of our conceptual planetary system, and has proven just as difficult to look at directly. Considering how powerful a motivational force the quest for happiness is, it remains a surprisingly misunderstood concept. Misguided beliefs and common misconceptions about happiness are one of the greatest sources of unhappiness. Through this presentation on Learned Happiness, Lilli provides an accessible framework to comprehend happiness, since, like the sun, it is essential to our well being that we recognize the importance of its presence or absence in our lives. While our innate aspiration for happiness influences all the multi-layered facets of life, its cultivation requires appropriate awareness and attitudes. Our conscious intentional attention to grief, grace, and gratitude are well-researched predictors for the growth of essential happiness.
Lilli with Katheryn
Grace: Love letter to living and mortality, and Radical well-being
Life isn’t safe. We have a practical need to feel safe, unconsciously. And life does not align itself around our preferences or our survival strategies. In this session Katheryn will invite you to explore living more fully alive through remembering natural cycles and being inspired to make more clear, important and essential choices about what we do and how we live our lives through our appreciation that we are, indeed, mortal.. We will also explore a delicious ‘Radical Well-being menu’ to invite fresh new ways to live more fully awake. Come be curious and open to inspiration, creativity and fresh perspectives.
Katheryn with Lilli
So here we are, mortal and alive. What is on your Radical Well-being Menu right now in your life? Put another way, “What did you LOVE to spend your time immersed in when you were 5?\"
For me, part of LIVING AWAKE is creating art that touched the heart, disrupts fixed ideas, and invited suriosity. This is part of my Radical Well-Being Recipes. What are yours? What are you waiting for?
WHEN I AM AMONG TREES by Mary Oliver
When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks, and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,”
they say, “and you, too, have come
into the world to do this, to go easy,
to be filled with light, and to shine.”
\n![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/1568236070509-2Y5EFZN9A5NYG3M02RJC/Connecting+in+apple+trees+at+Hollyhock+-+Darshan+Alexander?format=original\")
Connecting in apples trees at Hollyhock. © Darshan Alexander [/caption] \n \n\n\n\nThe letting go of a ripe apple falling from the tree as fruit. The cycle is complete for now as an end and a beginning simultaneously. There is grief perhaps and also the graceful rightness of things ending as they do and so they must, to make way for cyclical changes and new beginnings, as well as delicious apple treats. Gratitude and Thanksgiving naturally arise and we can enjoy the end of the search and simply, gracefully perhaps, vulnerably and tenderly, surrender our searching and live fully awake.
What are you harvesting this autumn? What crops are culminating? What are you more curious about than afraid of? What is your harvest now?
Here’s to your life’s harvest and the embrace of natural cycles.
\n “If an apple blossom or a ripe apple could tell its own story, it would be, still more than its own, the story of the sunshine that smiled upon it, of the winds that whispered to it, of the birds that sang around it, of the storms that visited it, and of the motherly tree that held it and fed it until its petals were unfolded and its form developed.\n
”\n
\n “In the Lakota/Sioux tradition, a person who is grieving is considered most waken, most holy.There’s a sense that when someone is struck by the sudden lightning of loss, he or she stands on the threshold of the spirit world. The prayers of those who grieve are considered especially strong, and it is proper to ask them for their help.You might recall what it’s like to be with someone who has grieved deeply. The person has no layer of protection, nothing left to defend. The mystery is looking out through that person’s eyes. For the time being, he or she has accepted the reality of loss and has stopped clinging to the past or grasping at the future. In the groundless openness of sorrow, there is a wholeness of presence and a deep natural wisdom.”\n\n
The letting go of a ripe apple falling from the tree as fruit. The cycle is complete for now as an end and a beginning simultaneously. There is grief perhaps and also the graceful rightness of things ending as they do and so they must, to make way for cyclical changes and new beginnings, as well as delicious apple treats. Gratitude and Thanksgiving naturally arise and we can enjoy the end of the search and simply, gracefully perhaps, vulnerably and tenderly, surrender our searching and live fully awake.
What are you harvesting this autumn? What crops are culminating? What are you more curious about than afraid of? What is your harvest now?
Here’s to your life’s harvest and the embrace of natural cycles.
\n “If an apple blossom or a ripe apple could tell its own story, it would be, still more than its own, the story of the sunshine that smiled upon it, of the winds that whispered to it, of the birds that sang around it, of the storms that visited it, and of the motherly tree that held it and fed it until its petals were unfolded and its form developed.\n
”\n
\n “In the Lakota/Sioux tradition, a person who is grieving is considered most waken, most holy.There’s a sense that when someone is struck by the sudden lightning of loss, he or she stands on the threshold of the spirit world. The prayers of those who grieve are considered especially strong, and it is proper to ask them for their help.You might recall what it’s like to be with someone who has grieved deeply. The person has no layer of protection, nothing left to defend. The mystery is looking out through that person’s eyes. For the time being, he or she has accepted the reality of loss and has stopped clinging to the past or grasping at the future. In the groundless openness of sorrow, there is a wholeness of presence and a deep natural wisdom.”\n\n
![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/1525724320169-KUC7FKZM826MTHB5PDEC/At+the+Stillpoint?format=original\")
Katheryn Trenshaw - \"At the Stillpoint\" [/caption] \n \n\n\n\nOn the way home we stopped by a lovely glade in the woods and we were all enjoying splashing around in the river, cooling off on an unusually hot day and laughing. As we stood and relished the sunshine on our happy faces, the dragonflies all alighted on us. We each were blessed with 3 – 6 of them on our arms and heads. I had never seen anything like this before or since, but the experience never left me. It felt like a blessing. I felt simply and wholly beloved on the earth. And like there was nothing left to do. Only be.
\n\n “And did you get what you wanted from this life even so?\n
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.”\n
On the way home we stopped by a lovely glade in the woods and we were all enjoying splashing around in the river, cooling off on an unusually hot day and laughing. As we stood and relished the sunshine on our happy faces, the dragonflies all alighted on us. We each were blessed with 3 – 6 of them on our arms and heads. I had never seen anything like this before or since, but the experience never left me. It felt like a blessing. I felt simply and wholly beloved on the earth. And like there was nothing left to do. Only be.
\n\n “And did you get what you wanted from this life even so?\n
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.”\n
![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/1525724545800-7XM91Z4FFQP6DXN805XR/1015PracticeofAwe.jpg?format=original\")
Katheryn Trenshaw - \"Practice of Awe\" [/caption] \n \n\n\n\nThis is one of the most magical places on the planet for me. Bright pink and green carpets of heather flow over the land while pungent earthy peat and coconut scented Gorse fill the air. Stone circles and megalithic sites pierce the moody skies. And strong winds clear cobwebs from my heart and carry ravens to me and my meditative space here.
What does the raven ponder as she lands atop the holed stone of the Men-an-tol Stone Circle in Cornwall which inspires this image? Does she wonder at all how it was made? Does she try and figure out the logistics of how it was carved and placed and the uses for which it was constructed? Or does she just sit atop the stone and enjoy the breeze, the warm air, the damp mist rising from the heather and peat below her? Does she simply follow her instincts? Do ravens feel awe? I have the feeling that it may just be us human animals who have forgotten and maybe lost our way a bit from here…and we are trying to find our way home.
\n\n “Creativity is the practice of awe.”\n\n
This is one of the most magical places on the planet for me. Bright pink and green carpets of heather flow over the land while pungent earthy peat and coconut scented Gorse fill the air. Stone circles and megalithic sites pierce the moody skies. And strong winds clear cobwebs from my heart and carry ravens to me and my meditative space here.
What does the raven ponder as she lands atop the holed stone of the Men-an-tol Stone Circle in Cornwall which inspires this image? Does she wonder at all how it was made? Does she try and figure out the logistics of how it was carved and placed and the uses for which it was constructed? Or does she just sit atop the stone and enjoy the breeze, the warm air, the damp mist rising from the heather and peat below her? Does she simply follow her instincts? Do ravens feel awe? I have the feeling that it may just be us human animals who have forgotten and maybe lost our way a bit from here…and we are trying to find our way home.
\n\n “Creativity is the practice of awe.”\n\n
![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/1550244320312-F3YWWW3095RE1U8T2S94/IMG_90121-580x580.jpg?format=original\")
Day of Our Dead [/caption] \n \n\n\n\nAnd today is Hallowmas followed swiftly by The Day of the Dead, or like I now prefer to call it, The Day of OUR Dead. Traditional people all around the world take a day (or 5) each year to simply honor their family’s and community’s dead. These are simple, powerful, fun and important rites in cultures that are not death phobic like much of the “modern” world of forgetting. And I am here, on Halloween eve, honoring MY dead. I am so grateful for the wealth these folks have given me, and I thank them for their unique gifts and for being in my cells still. I honor my father for his passion and tremendous courage that he instilled also in me. I honor my friend Nigel who inspired in me a special brand of beauty through song. I honor my great grandmother who valued education for women well before her time. And on and on the gratitudes flow. It is deeply comforting and extremely enlivening. It’s a bit like having a party in fact.
It is said that the veil is the thinnest between the worlds on this day of the year. And with that, I feel the access we hold to bridge our lives more fully with the inevitable and beautiful connection our living holds to our dying. This guaranteed death is inspiring. This inevitable death awareness helps, if we let it, to become better people with greater presence.
One way you can be more present and tap into these hidden treasures is to be more real and authentic .You take off some of your masks to reveal hidden treasures. Paradoxically, uncovering the naked truth in our stories and our vulnerability holds some of the deepest richest most beautiful treasures you possess. When you remove some of your masks, you liberate beauty. Your well honed “defense system” served you well when you needed it, but now it constricts and hinders your truest expression and vitality. It seems like a paradox, but it is really simply more of inclusiveness. If you want to be free, you have to be willing to be true and perfectly imperfectly real.
In living with the FACT you and we all WILL die, guaranteed, you are liberated to stop waiting… for what would be, should be, could be… and become free to be here now as you are. The vitality that this holds is vast and easy to underestimate. Hidden Treasures again.
“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy – the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”
-Brene Brown
With the deconstruction of your stories, you are able to remember/reclaim/reveal what is true. Hidden Treasures, like gold and diamonds, are found just beneath the mask.
What are your hidden treasures you are willing to reveal this Hallowmas?
\nAnd today is Hallowmas followed swiftly by The Day of the Dead, or like I now prefer to call it, The Day of OUR Dead. Traditional people all around the world take a day (or 5) each year to simply honor their family’s and community’s dead. These are simple, powerful, fun and important rites in cultures that are not death phobic like much of the “modern” world of forgetting. And I am here, on Halloween eve, honoring MY dead. I am so grateful for the wealth these folks have given me, and I thank them for their unique gifts and for being in my cells still. I honor my father for his passion and tremendous courage that he instilled also in me. I honor my friend Nigel who inspired in me a special brand of beauty through song. I honor my great grandmother who valued education for women well before her time. And on and on the gratitudes flow. It is deeply comforting and extremely enlivening. It’s a bit like having a party in fact.
It is said that the veil is the thinnest between the worlds on this day of the year. And with that, I feel the access we hold to bridge our lives more fully with the inevitable and beautiful connection our living holds to our dying. This guaranteed death is inspiring. This inevitable death awareness helps, if we let it, to become better people with greater presence.
One way you can be more present and tap into these hidden treasures is to be more real and authentic .You take off some of your masks to reveal hidden treasures. Paradoxically, uncovering the naked truth in our stories and our vulnerability holds some of the deepest richest most beautiful treasures you possess. When you remove some of your masks, you liberate beauty. Your well honed “defense system” served you well when you needed it, but now it constricts and hinders your truest expression and vitality. It seems like a paradox, but it is really simply more of inclusiveness. If you want to be free, you have to be willing to be true and perfectly imperfectly real.
In living with the FACT you and we all WILL die, guaranteed, you are liberated to stop waiting… for what would be, should be, could be… and become free to be here now as you are. The vitality that this holds is vast and easy to underestimate. Hidden Treasures again.
“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy – the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”
-Brene Brown
With the deconstruction of your stories, you are able to remember/reclaim/reveal what is true. Hidden Treasures, like gold and diamonds, are found just beneath the mask.
What are your hidden treasures you are willing to reveal this Hallowmas?
\n![\"\"/](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/1550244814214-KY8VZV1WK5XU566K3W7U/IMG_0014-580x386.jpg?format=original\")
\n \n\n\n\nNew York City last week was no exception to this. Within 12 hours of arriving, I found myself in a pickle on the underground along with my son and a dear old friend Becky. The situation was rather serious and “impossible”…some even said doomed. They said it couldn’t be done. They said New Yorkers would be too impatient. But Johnny from New Jersey who works on the number seven underground proved all the naysayers wrong.
And before I share more, let me just be the first to put my hand up and say, “I know it was a bit stupid. But who knew?”
Here is what happened:
We were traveling into Manhattan on the number seven underground train that happens to travel over ground for almost all of the journey. Because are still in the middle of making the IN YOUR OWN SKIN film, I was experimenting with filming against the glass to capture the passing scene. I was filming on the doors as it happens. The underground slowed and stopped. The footage was great! And as the doors started to open, I wanted to film just a second longer before removing the camera/iphone. There was a thick solid black plastic seal into which the doors slid. I took note of this and felt confident that this buffer would push my phone back if it went too far along. And as you may have guessed, the best laid plans are never simple. My brand new iphone was sucked right into the wall of the underground. We did not know if it had fallen two stories to the street below, on to the railroad track or if it was actually stuck inside the wall, but this was not good. Our plans were put on hold as we tried to figure out what to do.
We exited at the next underground station at Crown Street, and proceeded to go to the office and see if we could get help. The woman in the office all but laughed at us and said it was not possible. I was not prepared to take her pessimism on board just yet. Not knowing what to do next, we went back to the No 7 underground train realizing that we better chase the train we were on. The only chance we had, we realized, was to find the same train and the same car on that train and sweet talk the controller who has a little office in the middle of the train to help us.
There were three very lucky things that happened in a short period of time… actually I’m sure there were many more than three… but three stick out. 1) My friend realised that there was probably only one entirely pink number seven subway train. 2) I have had the presence of mine to note the actual number of the car on the train into which the phone had been sucked in my journal. And of course 3) Johnny the train conductor and ultimate hero of our story.
\n![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/1550244766920-ZVTMT27LUH1VIV9BWJ3U/IMG_1427-580x386.jpg?format=original\")
My heroes and phone rescuers from No 7 NYC Subway [/caption] \n \n\n\n\nTo our delight, at the end of the line, Johnny had summoned two other very calm and confident men in uniform with lots of tools. They joined us on the platform as we proceeded down to the number 2026 car and found the place where the phone should be inside the wall. They have a special key to take off the stainless steel plate of the wall and we could clearly see the phone at the bottom. I was overjoyed and squealed with delight like a little girl with happiness. Only then did we realize that this was not so simple and far from done…because the phone/camera was lodged behind the heating unit of the car. But far be it for a little thing like that to keep three men on a heroic journey from succeeding. Tools and plans and even a coat hanger were produced from impossible places. Ultimately an ultra-high-powered magnet (which risked erasing the phone) was put into operation to fish the still filming phone out. Hoorah! Photos were taken and amazed and delighted faces were struck by all of us.
The phone had recorded the whole incident, survived all those door openings and had captured all the audio as well. Various underground employees came and went as we continued on our rescue mission. One colorful forthright woman came in just as the phone was being pulled out and asked what happened. We told her the nutshell version and she simply said, “You’re not from here are you?”
“Nope.”
And I knew that there was a bit of naive protection over us from not presuming the worst. And that our hanging onto the possibility that it could be done was powerful and strong. People are ultimately kind, and three men in uniform in the New York subway couldn’t possibly fail. Huge thanks to Becky, Orion and most especially Johnny from No 7!
Ciao!
\n\n \n\n\n\nNew York City last week was no exception to this. Within 12 hours of arriving, I found myself in a pickle on the underground along with my son and a dear old friend Becky. The situation was rather serious and “impossible”…some even said doomed. They said it couldn’t be done. They said New Yorkers would be too impatient. But Johnny from New Jersey who works on the number seven underground proved all the naysayers wrong.
And before I share more, let me just be the first to put my hand up and say, “I know it was a bit stupid. But who knew?”
Here is what happened:
We were traveling into Manhattan on the number seven underground train that happens to travel over ground for almost all of the journey. Because are still in the middle of making the IN YOUR OWN SKIN film, I was experimenting with filming against the glass to capture the passing scene. I was filming on the doors as it happens. The underground slowed and stopped. The footage was great! And as the doors started to open, I wanted to film just a second longer before removing the camera/iphone. There was a thick solid black plastic seal into which the doors slid. I took note of this and felt confident that this buffer would push my phone back if it went too far along. And as you may have guessed, the best laid plans are never simple. My brand new iphone was sucked right into the wall of the underground. We did not know if it had fallen two stories to the street below, on to the railroad track or if it was actually stuck inside the wall, but this was not good. Our plans were put on hold as we tried to figure out what to do.
We exited at the next underground station at Crown Street, and proceeded to go to the office and see if we could get help. The woman in the office all but laughed at us and said it was not possible. I was not prepared to take her pessimism on board just yet. Not knowing what to do next, we went back to the No 7 underground train realizing that we better chase the train we were on. The only chance we had, we realized, was to find the same train and the same car on that train and sweet talk the controller who has a little office in the middle of the train to help us.
There were three very lucky things that happened in a short period of time… actually I’m sure there were many more than three… but three stick out. 1) My friend realised that there was probably only one entirely pink number seven subway train. 2) I have had the presence of mine to note the actual number of the car on the train into which the phone had been sucked in my journal. And of course 3) Johnny the train conductor and ultimate hero of our story.
\nTo our delight, at the end of the line, Johnny had summoned two other very calm and confident men in uniform with lots of tools. They joined us on the platform as we proceeded down to the number 2026 car and found the place where the phone should be inside the wall. They have a special key to take off the stainless steel plate of the wall and we could clearly see the phone at the bottom. I was overjoyed and squealed with delight like a little girl with happiness. Only then did we realize that this was not so simple and far from done…because the phone/camera was lodged behind the heating unit of the car. But far be it for a little thing like that to keep three men on a heroic journey from succeeding. Tools and plans and even a coat hanger were produced from impossible places. Ultimately an ultra-high-powered magnet (which risked erasing the phone) was put into operation to fish the still filming phone out. Hoorah! Photos were taken and amazed and delighted faces were struck by all of us.
The phone had recorded the whole incident, survived all those door openings and had captured all the audio as well. Various underground employees came and went as we continued on our rescue mission. One colorful forthright woman came in just as the phone was being pulled out and asked what happened. We told her the nutshell version and she simply said, “You’re not from here are you?”
“Nope.”
And I knew that there was a bit of naive protection over us from not presuming the worst. And that our hanging onto the possibility that it could be done was powerful and strong. People are ultimately kind, and three men in uniform in the New York subway couldn’t possibly fail. Huge thanks to Becky, Orion and most especially Johnny from No 7!
Ciao!
\n![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/1550245578959-AQNRWRYCP4QDIIMYVWHX/IMG_5078-580x435.jpg?format=original\")
Photographic portraits being prepared to ship of to the National Portrait Gallery Photographic Portrait Competition. [/caption] \n \n\n\n\nI have this idea that as we are ALL dying and we really do not know when…its best to be getting on with the ol’ bucket list. And so, to that end, I have taken the risk of submitting some of the In Your Own Skin Portraits to the National Portrait Gallery Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Competition. I have NO idea what the outcome will be. I DO know that it is important to risk doing the things we say we love and cherish. And play the big full authentic game rather than play small. And so, with nearly 1 minute to go…(I swear my self-saboteur was THAT close) I got my online entry submitted and the rest fell into place. This of course was with a little help from my wonderful assistant and photographer Steven who printed the photos for me exquisitely.
Here’s to taking risks to live our dreams!
What risk can you take today that you have been meaning to do for ages?
Have a beautiful day!
\nI have this idea that as we are ALL dying and we really do not know when…its best to be getting on with the ol’ bucket list. And so, to that end, I have taken the risk of submitting some of the In Your Own Skin Portraits to the National Portrait Gallery Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Competition. I have NO idea what the outcome will be. I DO know that it is important to risk doing the things we say we love and cherish. And play the big full authentic game rather than play small. And so, with nearly 1 minute to go…(I swear my self-saboteur was THAT close) I got my online entry submitted and the rest fell into place. This of course was with a little help from my wonderful assistant and photographer Steven who printed the photos for me exquisitely.
Here’s to taking risks to live our dreams!
What risk can you take today that you have been meaning to do for ages?
Have a beautiful day!
\n![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/1550245788065-PRMGUB9IDD0EMHIA9BH4/KT0290c-She_Carries_Her_Moon_Always-2.jpg?format=original\")
She Carries Her Moon Always by Katheryn M Trenshaw (2 color original Lithograph) [/caption] \n \n\n\n\nBegin where you are. Where else IS there?
If pain, sorrow, regret, confusion or fear are appearing in your present experience right now, do not turn away, do not use the labels ‘dark’ or ‘negative’, do not assume any kind of cosmic deviation or ‘sin’. For these are sacred and intelligent life-movements, all, undivided from the vastness of creation, waves of the limitless ocean of Self. They are your beloved children, all, forgotten movements of yourself, longing for your warm presence – a moment of undivided attention. “Remember me!” they cry, one last time, and will you ignore them today? Or will you finally accept your birth right? Will you remember that everything you long for is already appearing, disguised as everything you reject?
Will you remember that you cannot be anywhere other than Home?
-Jeff Foster
When I created this She Carries Her Moon Always Lithograph, I remember how exciting it was to represent the irrepressible power of our radiance…especially in the dark. Here is to living in the full embrace of all our your aspects: warts and all, beauty and all, power and all, vitality and all. Here is to living in your own skin and coming home at long last.
\nBegin where you are. Where else IS there?
If pain, sorrow, regret, confusion or fear are appearing in your present experience right now, do not turn away, do not use the labels ‘dark’ or ‘negative’, do not assume any kind of cosmic deviation or ‘sin’. For these are sacred and intelligent life-movements, all, undivided from the vastness of creation, waves of the limitless ocean of Self. They are your beloved children, all, forgotten movements of yourself, longing for your warm presence – a moment of undivided attention. “Remember me!” they cry, one last time, and will you ignore them today? Or will you finally accept your birth right? Will you remember that everything you long for is already appearing, disguised as everything you reject?
Will you remember that you cannot be anywhere other than Home?
-Jeff Foster
When I created this She Carries Her Moon Always Lithograph, I remember how exciting it was to represent the irrepressible power of our radiance…especially in the dark. Here is to living in the full embrace of all our your aspects: warts and all, beauty and all, power and all, vitality and all. Here is to living in your own skin and coming home at long last.
\n\n “There are times when we stop. We sit still…We listen and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper. ”\n\n
![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/1550248093660-DIZIJ4GCMLUJYRH5N43L/IMG_3366.jpg?format=original\")
Devon under a soft blanket of snow, 2013 [/caption] \n \n\n\n\nI do. And I am willing to take the risk. And so far, after 12 years of this particular yearly ritual of going away on silent retreat, I find it more and more necessary to recharge my battery and gain perspective on what really matters. You might call it rejuvenation, a mini-death, a reality check, hell or heaven…but for me this is an essential part of my wellness. And as I make my last preparations for the retreat, I am so filled with gratitude! My breath deepens…and of course there is a predictable habitual bit of fear thrown in the mix. This too shall pass…
If you know me well, you will know that I am a pretty energetic, gregarious person. I am often busy…for all sorts of reasons: I am a mom, I am involved in my local community and several international organisations, I have dynamic international projects going, and I am making an independent film at the moment. It’s enough to make any head spin. I am busy. Most of us are. I am also more busy than I really am…if you see what I mean. My busy –ness is my business and it is down to me to take responsibility for what is the essential. What do I need to actually do and want to do? What is naturally and intelligently arising as a priority? And what is just making me busy as a habit of avoiding my depth of presence that comes from culturally acquired fears and scarcities?
And most of us were taught fear. It came into our bodies with our mother’s milk. It became a part of the voices we carry in our heads but rarely admit to any but our most trusted peeps. And, in silence, we are left alone with all the voices in our heads spinning away with no vices to gag them. Cut off the vices and the voices have a party. And in my experience, once these internal voices have had a bit of fun, I am left with more open access to the more essential depth of presence that is always and already there. Deep well-being that includes all of me is already there. Bliss! This is living while we are alive. I have a choice every millisecond, and I chose life year after year.
So, ironically, I make this pilgrimage to silence so that I can remember who I already am deep in my essential core. It works for me. And I want to share the wealth.
How can you take/create/make silence and stillness in your day today? What are your experiences with silence and stillness? What practices in your day to day life support this remembering of the essential?
I would love to hear your experiences.
Have a great week!
\n\n “There are times when we stop. We sit still…We listen and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper. ”\n\n
I do. And I am willing to take the risk. And so far, after 12 years of this particular yearly ritual of going away on silent retreat, I find it more and more necessary to recharge my battery and gain perspective on what really matters. You might call it rejuvenation, a mini-death, a reality check, hell or heaven…but for me this is an essential part of my wellness. And as I make my last preparations for the retreat, I am so filled with gratitude! My breath deepens…and of course there is a predictable habitual bit of fear thrown in the mix. This too shall pass…
If you know me well, you will know that I am a pretty energetic, gregarious person. I am often busy…for all sorts of reasons: I am a mom, I am involved in my local community and several international organisations, I have dynamic international projects going, and I am making an independent film at the moment. It’s enough to make any head spin. I am busy. Most of us are. I am also more busy than I really am…if you see what I mean. My busy –ness is my business and it is down to me to take responsibility for what is the essential. What do I need to actually do and want to do? What is naturally and intelligently arising as a priority? And what is just making me busy as a habit of avoiding my depth of presence that comes from culturally acquired fears and scarcities?
And most of us were taught fear. It came into our bodies with our mother’s milk. It became a part of the voices we carry in our heads but rarely admit to any but our most trusted peeps. And, in silence, we are left alone with all the voices in our heads spinning away with no vices to gag them. Cut off the vices and the voices have a party. And in my experience, once these internal voices have had a bit of fun, I am left with more open access to the more essential depth of presence that is always and already there. Deep well-being that includes all of me is already there. Bliss! This is living while we are alive. I have a choice every millisecond, and I chose life year after year.
So, ironically, I make this pilgrimage to silence so that I can remember who I already am deep in my essential core. It works for me. And I want to share the wealth.
How can you take/create/make silence and stillness in your day today? What are your experiences with silence and stillness? What practices in your day to day life support this remembering of the essential?
I would love to hear your experiences.
Have a great week!
\n![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/8ca71a57-a72f-4194-96f4-8b9adbd106ce/Corvids+Communion_painting_Katheryn_Trenshaw_25.jpg?format=original\")
Corvid’s Communion - Mixed media on paper. 94cm x 96cm, framed (anti-glare glass) [/caption] \n \n\n\n\n\n \n [caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"467\"]![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/ce2a6aaa-6b8c-48cc-af24-dcf25e7ffb16/Wabi+Sabi+triptych+by+Katheryn+Trenshaw.jpeg?format=original\")
Wabi-sabi Triptych - Acrylic and multi-media on board. 89cm x 68cm, framed [/caption] \n \n\n\n\n![\"Autumn](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/1598803728300-94MWPCAF8LXZF2OB1K4Y/image-asset.jpeg\")
\n\n \n\n \n\n \n \n ![\"The](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/1598807826239-TLCKA3X7OJRNKKLEH0JN/image-asset.jpeg\")
\n\n \n\n \n\n \n \n ![\"Choose](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/1605636339005-KXP5FWW72I8KV6KNEPU8/%3Cuntitled%3EChoose+Love%2C+Choose+Life.jpg\")
\n\n \n\n \n\n \n \n ![\"At](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/1605636369170-918IHIE2QG2X8559QZI9/%3Cuntitled%3EKT1050--At_the_Stillpoint.jpg\")
\n\n \n\n \n\n \n \n ![\"Ecstasy](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/1605636398212-Z28TYI1OMR1O6LDO1B9R/%3Cuntitled%3EKT1283--Ecstasy+of+Belonging.jpg\")
\n\n \n\n \n\n \n \n ![\"Births](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/1605636452434-S4AS1X4N6FW242BNPYSH/%3Cuntitled%3EKT1033--Births+Blessing+Way.jpg\")
\n\n \n\n \n\n \n \n ![\"Surrender](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/1605636498028-JAL4SJQUVVYUUPN7CI37/%3Cuntitled%3EKT1292--Surrender+to+Oneself.jpg\")
\n\n \n\n \n\n \n \n ![\"Spiralling](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/1605636538275-DBY1CPYS9K1IXM6D0FBK/%3Cuntitled%3ESpiralling+into+Starlight.jpg\")
\n\n \n\n \n\n \n \n ![\"At](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/1605636596896-RRAZH1D54L1G90383EZV/%3Cuntitled%3EAt+the+Edge+of+Light+You+Must+Step+into+Darkness.jpg\")
\n\n \n\n \n\n \n \n \n “Katheryn Trenshaw uses colour and depth to convey the joy, the pain and the range of the experience of being human. When you see her work, you can see through it to the artist herself, and can sense a woman who has loved and experienced much in her life. You can also see through her work to see yourself- your own pain, journey and triumphs. Owning a piece of Katheryn’s work is like owning a mirror for the human race.”\n\n
![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/b853328b-6e84-44cb-8a70-b9385f38787f/white+block+2.jpg?format=original\")
* Wabi-sabi is an ancient Japanese aesthetic that honours all things worn imperfect and impermanent and it seeks to find beauty and perfection in the imperfections. [/caption]",
+ "content": "\n\n \n\n \n\n \n \n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n \n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n \n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n \n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n \n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n \n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n \n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n \n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n \n \n “Katheryn Trenshaw uses colour and depth to convey the joy, the pain and the range of the experience of being human. When you see her work, you can see through it to the artist herself, and can sense a woman who has loved and experienced much in her life. You can also see through her work to see yourself- your own pain, journey and triumphs. Owning a piece of Katheryn’s work is like owning a mirror for the human race.”\n\n
In Your Own Skin is a worldwide art project inviting authenticity and happiness, connecting us all by revealing our hidden truths.
In the film, video portraits capture the unique moment when a person shares a secret, summarized in a long-hidden word or phrase that is then painted onto their skin. Each of these powerful moments releases a generous contribution to the world, a buoyant reminder of living fully and the beauty and strength that comes from facing and embracing our vulnerability.
—————
We would love to come and run Community Events- Screening with Q&A- in the works in your hood:
-And we are running a seried of “secret” screenings at the prestigious Rancho La Puerta in Baja California in 2026
Come join us in the sunshine and the Cuevas at Professor Park in Tekate.
\n– Susannah Darling Khan, co-director The School of Movement Medicine
– Jackie Juno, performance poet and author
– Malcolm Stern, psychotherapist, TV presenter, & author of The Courage to Love
– Lizzie Hubbard
– Jamie Catto, musician and film-maker
– Matt Harvey, author, performer
– Matt Harvey, author, performer
– Starhawk, author and filmmaker, The Fifth Sacred Thing
\n “Katheryn Trenshaw’s In Your Own Skin Project confirms my faith in deep essential human beauty and the innate benevolence in us all. It is an inspiring visual anthem to humanity.”\n\n
Social worker Brené Brown, along with neurobiologists and other researchers, discovered that if you want to look at happiness you need to look at shame. To help free myself and others from our shame, so we can live more authentic, resilient lives, I went out into the world, armed with body paints and video and still cameras, to record people discussing their hidden truths. I then painted that word onto their skin and photographed their portraits.
While creating the project, I met with over 200 people from more than 30 countries and all walks of life. Each of these powerful moments releases a generous contribution to the world, a buoyant reminder of living fully and the beauty and strength that comes from facing and embracing our vulnerability. This in turn grows our intimacy and presence.
Each photograph and recorded exchange documents a personal story that resonates across cultures. We find what we have in common, what makes us human.
\n![\"\"/](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/d6a1fe37-df88-435d-b214-5b356db00313/Lizzie+Hubbard+endorsement+IYOS.png?format=original\")
\n \n\n\n\nThe project is made up of hundreds of individual images but they are all part of one giant human poem - all unique, but all part of the same poem forest. In the 1950s, it was discovered that a variety of Aspen tree, the Pando, while it looks like tens of thousands of trunks and crowns, is actually one living organism - they all have the exactly the same DNA. So while we see them as many, they are actually one. Just like us.
We are living in unprecedented times of political, economic, ecological, social and emotional transition. In Your Own Skin portraits and stories reveal a living transformative story in a world searching for hope, wisdom and resilience - what keeps us connected and whole from the inside out.
\n![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/6a419225-7251-4854-80d1-3fc3d103138e/depression+portrait.png?format=original\")
Hanging Larger than life banners available to hire as part of the In Your Own Skin project [/caption] \n \n\n\n\nParadox talks about In Your Own Skin
Juliet Russell on In Your Own Skin
We are delighted to have been selected to be a part of the Chagford Film Festival 25th September 2024.
\n![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/1692360551122-LVZHF0RDJYSBMHVIYIEA/image-asset.jpeg?format=original\")
Schedule a screening party to celebrate unity in diversity and the wonder of being human. [/caption]",
+ "content": "\n \n\n\n\nIn Your Own Skin is a worldwide art project inviting authenticity and happiness, connecting us all by revealing our hidden truths.
In the film, video portraits capture the unique moment when a person shares a secret, summarized in a long-hidden word or phrase that is then painted onto their skin. Each of these powerful moments releases a generous contribution to the world, a buoyant reminder of living fully and the beauty and strength that comes from facing and embracing our vulnerability.
—————
We would love to come and run Community Events- Screening with Q&A- in the works in your hood:
-And we are running a seried of “secret” screenings at the prestigious Rancho La Puerta in Baja California in 2026
Come join us in the sunshine and the Cuevas at Professor Park in Tekate.
\n– Susannah Darling Khan, co-director The School of Movement Medicine
– Jackie Juno, performance poet and author
– Malcolm Stern, psychotherapist, TV presenter, & author of The Courage to Love
– Lizzie Hubbard
– Jamie Catto, musician and film-maker
– Matt Harvey, author, performer
– Matt Harvey, author, performer
– Starhawk, author and filmmaker, The Fifth Sacred Thing
\n “Katheryn Trenshaw’s In Your Own Skin Project confirms my faith in deep essential human beauty and the innate benevolence in us all. It is an inspiring visual anthem to humanity.”\n\n
Social worker Brené Brown, along with neurobiologists and other researchers, discovered that if you want to look at happiness you need to look at shame. To help free myself and others from our shame, so we can live more authentic, resilient lives, I went out into the world, armed with body paints and video and still cameras, to record people discussing their hidden truths. I then painted that word onto their skin and photographed their portraits.
While creating the project, I met with over 200 people from more than 30 countries and all walks of life. Each of these powerful moments releases a generous contribution to the world, a buoyant reminder of living fully and the beauty and strength that comes from facing and embracing our vulnerability. This in turn grows our intimacy and presence.
Each photograph and recorded exchange documents a personal story that resonates across cultures. We find what we have in common, what makes us human.
\n\n \n\n\n\nThe project is made up of hundreds of individual images but they are all part of one giant human poem - all unique, but all part of the same poem forest. In the 1950s, it was discovered that a variety of Aspen tree, the Pando, while it looks like tens of thousands of trunks and crowns, is actually one living organism - they all have the exactly the same DNA. So while we see them as many, they are actually one. Just like us.
We are living in unprecedented times of political, economic, ecological, social and emotional transition. In Your Own Skin portraits and stories reveal a living transformative story in a world searching for hope, wisdom and resilience - what keeps us connected and whole from the inside out.
\nParadox talks about In Your Own Skin
Juliet Russell on In Your Own Skin
We are delighted to have been selected to be a part of the Chagford Film Festival 25th September 2024.
\nSign up with your email address to receive Blog and occasional newsletters.
\n![\"](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5aef40c1cc8feda235a99bb6/26b0ca77-a540-4877-adff-8174b4834313/IMG_5394.jpeg?format=original\")
wabi-sabi door by Katheryn M. Trenshaw [/caption]",
+ "content": "Sign up with your email address to receive Blog and occasional newsletters.
\n