Stars by Laly Bigeard...

Eight moons ago, on a crisp winter evening, we made a little fire in our backyard to sit with the full moon. We ate our dinner around the fire and then made s'mores - one of Laly's favourite treats. She wrote love letters to the moon on the concrete patio with some of the fallen charcoal. While we were sitting around the fire, she began humming her song Stars, to the moon. We hadn't yet booked a time to record it in the studio but it was essentially ready for the big wide world.

While she was humming the song and dancing around the fire with her charcoal stick, inspiration came to me for her music video. I said, "Let's get some sparklers and you can dance in the moonlight while singing your song, I think this could be the video!" With a beaming smile she ran and got some sparklers, put on her dark blue jumpsuit and off we went into the night. Would we step on something slimy? Possibly, but she did not care! I filmed her with my phone while she danced to the song in her head, the vision of the music video coming to me as I filmed. I had Coldplay's Yellow in my mind as inspiration - remember the one continuous shot of Chris Martin walking in the rain on the beach as dawn broke?

We did 4 takes, and that was that! I wanted it to be as organic and playful as possible, just like her song. I had no idea if it would work but the moment was captured, and that's all that mattered for me at that moment. We giggled and laughed and it was the most wonderful memory-making time together, mother and daughter. I told her it might not be great, and it's on the phone so the quality isn't the best but she didn't care, she felt the buzz of it and knew it would become whatever it would become.

After we recorded the song in the recording studio in August, I started thinking again about how I could turn that footage into a music video. I wasn't confident about my editing skills at first - it's been over 20 years since I sat at a film editing suite at university, and technology has advanced so much since then. I decided to ask around for a video editor, and I did end up paying someone to put it together for me but I wasn't quite happy with the end result because I realised I already had a strong vision for it and needed to create it myself. So this past month while I had the time, I decided to give it a try myself. It was fun to learn a new software, expanding my photography skills into the moving world. And I am really happy with the result, it's the closest to what I envisioned that beautiful night, and even with the limited quality of the phone, not to mention it being shot at night, with no other equipment, I am really pleased with it.

It is now on you tube! I have a separate channel for Laly but it's on my account so she can't access it herself, and comments have to be modified by me before they are public so that she's as protected as possible but still able to share her creativity with the world.

I really hope you like it too, feel free to share it with your friends and family and online if you feel moved to. She's already working on her next song and it's a heart melter.

With love,

Pia xx

A Butterfly In My Hair...

Provided to YouTube by CDBaby All This, Yes · Pia Jane Bijkerk Spirit & Flight ℗ 2016 Pia Jane Bijkerk Released on: 2016-04-29 Auto-generated by YouTube.

Vibeke curates a beautiful blog called A Butterfliy In My Hair, and the other day she shared with me on patreon the you tube video she made to share my piano piece called All This, Yes with her readers. I love it, and so appreciate all the sharing so please have a listen, and head to her beautiful blog for more inspiration. These gentle, quiet worlds in the ether, they truly are gifts that I hope we can all acknowledge and be grateful for, like butterflies they need our full attention in the moment, they are our magic. xx

The Sweetest Gift...

“Quietly while you were asleep, the moon and I were talking…” beginning lyrics to The Sweetest Gift composed & sung by Sade.

As an Everyday Alchemist, it would come as no surprise to you that over the past year I've been experimenting on myself. Well not just myself - to be more specific, I've been experimenting with the moon too, observing and playing with my connection to it. And what I've discovered has the power to change everything. It already has for me. I am in the midst of putting together something so incredibly grand, I can barely contain my excitement, but these things take time -  because rather than just come up with a theory, I need to know it actually works. I also know that the moon is currently on trend (which makes me laugh just writing it! That something which has existed for all of time as we know it could be suddenly popular) - there are a number of books popping up about it, especially around abundance because that’s another trend ... and you know how I feel about doing anything 'on trend'! But I also won't dismiss something just for the sake of rebelling, instead I will seek out the resistance. What is important for me to continue this everyday alchemy is that in the process, I make sure that what I've come up with works for the whole - for each of us, for humanity, for Earth.

The first step of this is what led you to reading this right now - my new email. We have become so disconnected from the moon, which is our original time maker along with the sun, that we don't even know what phase it's in. Especially for those of us who live in the city, or are always busy doing (pointing a loving finger towards myself here too, with a busy 7 year old at my heels!). So with this email, I'll be sending it at the beginning of each new moon phase, just so we know at a glance what phase it's in. There will not be any information about the meaning or symbolism behind the phase, or anything along these lines. This is just simply to connect us to the moon, to get to know it a little more intimately, and in time I’ll let you know why.

Along with the moon phase illustration, I'll be adding a quote that resonates with me at that time. And this will not be a throwaway quote with no context - it will be from something I have read, from someone who I value, and there will be a deeper intuitive connection as to why I have chosen that particular remark at that particular time, so there will always be a link for you to discover more if it resonates with you and you find yourself yearning to hear, read or learn more. I will not comment on it, I will simply leave it up to you. I hope you’ve enjoyed this first one as much as I have had listening to the entire interview (I have listened a number of times, there is not one remark that does not resonate with my entire being, it’s a powerful interview that I hope you get as much out of as I have).

With each email, sometimes this will be all there is  - my moon phase illustration and a quote. Other times, there will be images and links below to work I have just produced (like you would have seen below the quote and is what led you here). As with all that I do, I like to create things that ignite one of our five senses at a time - sight, taste, touch, smell and sound. At the moment I am all about the sound: my wonderful collaborative podcast with Shona Smith as well as my monthly downloadable piano compositions on Patreon, & sight: my photography feature stories published in magazines, in my new books, and around the world via my personal clients. Some of these also involve taste and touch and smell too, if you choose to cook or craft something from what I've shared through my visual storytelling. And the reason I am so inspired to ignite our senses is because I know these senses are the ways to our hearts, to connecting us to our intuition and learning to trust and use it everyday. This will always come through my work, and is accessed directly each week with my mentoring clients as well as each month on Patreon.

Please share this post with your friends and family and encourage them to subscribe to the email - there will always be much to connect to, and it will be an opening for many beautiful conversations between those you love.

Thank you to every single one of you who are here right now, reading these words - you've made such a powerful impact on encouraging me to share my everyday alchemy, I value your presence so much and it’s my hope that this gratitude flows back to you through my work.  

With love, 

Pia

A Deck for Wonder-Walking by Amy T. Won

My friend across the pacific and fellow artist + heart wanderer Amy Won has just launched her long-awaited kickstarter campaign offering her 2nd edition deck of 32 wonder-walking cards, and I had to share this with you because I know so many of you will love this as much as I do…

"This is an invitation to the human experience: A call to open our eyes and see more, feel more deeply, and observe closer.”

I absolutely love the way Amy sees the world around her. I have been enamoured with her enchanting watercolours and creative outpourings for years, and I’m so excited for her to be creating this collection and sharing it far & wide. Amy has featured my piano composition titled “All this, yes” from my Spirit & Flight album as her background music to her launch video which is so beautiful, I am honoured. Check out her video here.

Amy has poured her heart and soul into this project, she has an incredible eye for detail and an understanding of what we seek to experience in our everyday…

Only days into her campaign Amy has reached more than halfway to her goal, and it’s easy to see why when you peruse her page, there is so much to enjoy. I’d love to see her reach beyond her goal to enable her to offer her stretch goals, one of which is a printed version of her beautiful Journal of Wonder-Walking, currently available as an ebook.

I’ve learnt over the years that most people have no concept of how much of our individual time and energy goes into projects like these. I once had someone comment on my first foray into crowdfunding when I self-published Little Treasures: Made by Hand that they were disappointed that once I had reached my crowdfunding goal I was still promoting it and encouraging sales. Rarely having received comments like that in the past, I was dumbstruck and felt guilty for a long time, as if I’d done something terribly wrong by believing in my work and wanting to share and expand it. I began a journey to understanding that most people don’t know how much work, skill and personal funds go into these creations, and that most artists who take the brave steps towards something like crowdfunding or self-publishing, will never receive enough money to pay for their own time because of the current value system of the world, but are incredibly grateful for whatever they receive to pay for the hard costs like printing, framing, and any services they need to outsource. Because I’ve lived this all my life, I couldn’t comprehend that others who have not lived this, did not know this. So hook, line and sinker, this commenter got me! I finally snapped out of it, but learnt a valuable lesson: I gained a knowing from my core that I will always give my all in what I do, and I am allowed to receive money for it too! And so it’s with absolutely pleasure that I encourage and share the work of other artists and creators whose work I adore and know how beneficial it is to our everyday expansion. I know that by investing in work like Amy’s, we are building the world we want to live in…

“In a world of vicarious living, we can choose instead to discover life for ourselves… I believe that a reconnection begins with a walk and a wonder.”

A big congratulations to Amy for bringing this beautiful work into the world, and I wish with all my heart that you reach your goal so that people around the world can experience their surroundings in a new way. Click on the button below to learn more…

And to visit Amy’s wonder-filled instagram, please click here.

I’m also delighted to let you know that Amy & I are in the midst of collaborating on something amazing together! Which, once we both get through our current projects, we will announce. I’m incredibly thrilled to be working with her and can’t wait to share our news. xx