Our Blog
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May Community Healing Day is Saturday, May 11
This Saturday, Lisa, Cindy and I are hosting the May Community Healing Hours between 1pm and 4pm. We thought this might be the perfect way to shake off the rainy day blues (so much rain, right?) and enter Mother’s Day weekend the right way. Community Hours were created as a way to offer everyone an accessible option for self-care. We offer a “tasting menu” of two powerful modalities of healing and relaxation- reiki and reflexology- at a special price for this one day only. It’s a wonderful way to explore new modalities that you might be curious about and meet the practitioners. It’s equally useful if you just want a…
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The beauty of beeswax candles, and why ours are so magical…
It’s less than a week to STAR + SPLENDOR’s Working with Intention Candles Workshop, and I am very excited! Excited mainly because I get to teach this one, and I love sharing what I know in ways that can help people! Also, excited because I find candles such a simple and helpful aid in focus, meditation and magical work. It’s a bonus that they are beautiful and create a romantic and mysterious atmosphere. The Art & Alchemy line of intention candles that I carry in the shop are fast becoming the most popular item (y’all love the pink “Beauty” candle with rose gold mica!) These natural, unscented candles are made…
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Living in Splendor
What makes you feel truly abundant? I've been turning my focus to ideas of abundance lately. One might say I have an abundance of ideas about abundance! I find that a lot of writing and thinking on the topic is focused on mindsets about financial gain and money in general, and it's geared toward women. I'm interested in those things, but not as interested I am in having a life that feels really good. I can think of times when I've felt financially taken care of, but my soul was still aching, or I felt an anxious lack of clarity that resulted in the squandering of my resources. Now, to…
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You’re in the flow, kid.
It’s almost warm outside today, and I am thinking about spring, summer, and warmer weather in general. I was looking at photographs I took last year at the beach. I came upon this special one from September, 2018, just after I’d made the decision to leave what had been my dream job at Etsy for seven years and throw myself fully into my skincare and perfuming business, which ultimately became STAR + SPLENDOR. I just knew that I needed to be of service to a different community. I was literally shaking with fear but my courage was more fierce. This photo was taken at my favorite beach in Southampton, Long…
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Making Gold: The Wisdom of the Alchemists
Recently I completed a lengthy project that required months of sustained focus, study and processing. During this time, I vacillated between anxiety about getting it all done, and periods of intense doing that were also surprisingly calming. I’m a Capricorn rising, so it makes sense that I would feel better working. But this was chosen, self-development work, and it had a different quality from vocational work, or something like a college course. It required me to turn inward, learn new skills and ways of being that bring me into alignment with who I really am. Sometimes that was deeply uncomfortable. Those moments of discomfort sprung up in unexpected places, and…
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Remembering to stay soft…
When people are born, they are soft and gentle. When they die they are stiff and callous. When myriad things, grasses, and trees, are born, they are soft and tender. When they die, they are withered. So stiffness and callousness are the company of death. Softness and Suppleness are the company of Life. The powerful army will not win. A stiff tree will break. So stiffness and power stay below. Softness and suppleness stay above. ~ Tao te Ching 道德經
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Winter blues
Hello friends, I’ve been thinking a lot about how this time of year, just after the holidays and lasting through March, can be difficult for a lot of people. For those prone to seasonal affective disorder (SAD), it can often set in once the threshold of the new year has been crossed. The sky remains grey, and there are fewer twinkling holiday lights. Our friends, our family and we have gone back to work. It’s often windy and bitterly cold, and we sit inside all day watching the weather through a closed window. We avoid going outside and dread pumping gas. It may feel like there’s not much to look forward to, with…
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A message of gratitude for you…
Happy New Year to all of my neighbors, friends, family and those of you I haven’t yet met! THANK YOU for making the first month of STAR + SPLENDOR a success! I am truly grateful for the support and kindness of those who’ve visited and reached out so far. Every time you purchase an item from the shop, you are supporting the dream of a maker, and that creates an incredible reverberation of creativity and love that feeds into your own path and purpose. We need more of that in 2019! I’m working on an ambitious schedule of events and workshops for the year and connecting with more inspiring makers…
