Julie Ann Stevens

Into Your Heart Julie Ann Stevens

At certain times, we become aware that the soil of our lives has radically changed and no longer holds us in a pattern we might describe as life-giving. Work, relationships, and health are stressed to breaking points which cannot be plastered over or forced back into the way things were. Our go-to responses fail us or are no longer aligned with who we have become. Our thinned out culture tends toward despair at times like these. I certainly did until I learned to go deeper with the creative practices that ground Into Your Heart. My Into Your Heart workbook will give you a creative way through the dark hallway you are in on your path to being made new. You'll receive exercises to help you observe your own stream of consciousness and recognize patterns within that block your natural response of love. You'll learn to release these patterns as your creativity draws you into participation with the flow of life. You will be gently invited to go deeper at your own pace by the spacious artwork and beautifully-guided conversations of the workbook. There are eight sessions of art, meditations, and exercises to support you and help you: - Access your inner wisdom and experience self-compassion.- Receive insights to welcome daily stressors and circumstances beyond your control with greater equanimity and vitality.- Expand your capacity to be present to reality just as it is with a daring level of awareness. This work comes out of my own experience in a "dark hallway" of transformation. When I chose to leave a marketing role with a global consulting firm in 2010 at the age of 51, I intended to have another role within a year. Instead, I found myself on a path not of my own making as I failed to realize the plan I had in mind. I started painting and studying Contemplative Spirituality in this hallway and nine years later, it's become part of my new vocation. In 2016, after completing the Living School for Contemplation and Action founded by Richard Rohr, I found myself selling my Loring Park condo and relocating to Watson, Minnesota where I made my art studio on the edge of a cornfield. The artwork, meditations and exercises for "Into Your Heart" were born out of my two and a half years of life on the Western Minnesota Prairie?a time I recognize as both Godforsaken and God-filled. In 2019, I sold my prairie home and studio and moved back to the city where I continue on my path as a Contemplative Artist and Facilitator. I also begin the inquiry of what it also means to be a Contemplative Ecologist in these times when we must ask: "Are my actions contributing to further thinning of the soil we all share, or enriching and deepening the potential for all who share our common home to live in dignity? What are we willing to give up for all creation to receive an equal right to flourish?"I am grateful our paths have intersected here and wish you expanded capacity for beauty and joy as your Inner Landscape is revealed to yo