Festive Season Reimagined by Pia Jane Bijkerk

I’m delighted to let you know that my new publication, Festive Season Reimagined is at the printers and will be ready for shipping from October 29!

For those who don’t already know the journey of this book, I wrote the beginnings of it in 2016 and released it as an ebook which was titled The Everyday Alchemy Festive Guide. It was in response to my deep yearning to move through this time of year in a very different way. I was tired of feeling drained by the frenzy of the season, with all the rushing around, consuming, and the general expending of so much valuable energy. This year I decided to embark on creating my own printed version as I had a lot more content to add to it since I'd learnt from another 2 years of experiencing the festive season in this new way. Would you like to see some of the inside pages? Here is a sneak peek…

Here is some insight into the contents…

“In this beautiful 80 page handbook, author + artist Pia Jane Bijkerk has created a visually inspiring & intuitively formed anthology of ideas for those among us looking to connect deeper as the year completes its cycle, no matter where we live in the world.”

I created this book for parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and essentially, for the child within. It will open up a path of discovery in finding  fresh ways  of experiencing the festive season with great joy  and a sense of renewal, without stimulating  over-consumption and stress. Nature has always been the foundation of all that I create, and you will notice this among the pages. This is one of my favourite new images for the book…

As with all books I create, this one is highly illustrated, combining my photography, stories and sharing ideas of my own as well as those from creative souls around me. I’m releasing a small eco-conscious print run which I am printing locally.

It will retail for $30 AUD, but I am making the first 50 available now for pre-order at a special price of $25. The book will have a soft launch at my next speaking event at the Turn Out fete at the Locomotive Workshop in Everleigh, Sydney on October 27, where I’ll be speaking about the power and importance of intuition in our lives. I’ll be signing books at the event, so for those who have pre-ordered, you can let me know you’ll be at the event and I’ll have your copy available. For those who are not able to come along to the event, you can still pre-order with shipping, and I’ll send it off to you on November 1. It is also available for independent retailers, just send me an email if you’d like to purchase them at wholesale.

And for Patreon members, all receive a 10% discount code they can use across my website for the duration of their patronage. For those not yet a member, you can find out more here.

Thank you to all who have supported me in this project over the last couple of years, through purchasing my original ebook, sharing my work with your own social media networks, and becoming part of my patreon collective to enable me to keep creating freely and wholeheartedly.

I’ll spread the news on social media over the next 2 weeks - lifting my hiatus while I release this into the world. I’d love your help in letting people know about it, so if you would share it on your social media and friends, I’d be so grateful. This is a book I have produced independently, which means I rely completely on us as individuals to share it, purchase it, and support it any way we can. I would love to be able to continue making these types of work and in the future I’d love to grow the collection to include work by others.

Okay that’s it from me for now. Let me know if you have any questions!

With Love,

Pia xx

Social media hiatus: RECOMMENDED...

Three weeks ago I decided to delete my instagram and facebook apps off my phone, to see how I would feel and if it would help to create space and clarity and focus. The affect was IMMEDIATE. And I knew in that moment more than ever how addictive these platforms have become and how much energy I’ve given them. Within hours I felt the shift, and in these three weeks I’ve been able to focus on all my projects, including a new podcast as well as writing new content for my first mini book, Festive Season Reimagined, which will be ready to print next week! It will be available for signing & purchase at Turn Out - a fete for growns up in Sydney which I’ll be speaking at on Saturday October 27, 2018. If you’d like to come along and hear me talk (passionately!!) about the power & importance of intuition in our everyday lives, you can register here, it’s free and I’ll have the Festive Season Reimagined hot off the press. This book will be a limited edition - it will only be available through me - either in person at Turn Out, or to purchase online through my website after the event.

During these past weeks, I’ve gained so much clarity about how I want to move forward with connecting with you, and I’ve come full circle back to this point - writing in my journal & emailing it to you. It may take some practice to get back into writing longer posts, and perhaps it will take time for you to get used to me writing in length again as I know thanks to social media we have all developed a much shorter attention span, so you may just tend to skip through to find bits that interest you (I do it too).

I’ll make a little diagram to show you how I’ll be communicating from now on. In short, the Patreon collective will hear from me first, receiving a 10% discount off everything I release, including this new book. Through my Everyday Alchemy Journal which I’ll be sending as emails here to you, I have so many incredible things ready to share - places, books, collaborations and projects I’m working on - I’ve been limiting myself to instagram, trying to fit it all in to those tiny squares that most of us scroll by most of the time (I was doing that too).

This is just a brief post to let you know where I’ve been and what I’ve been up to, but I’ll send more info about the events and projects coming up as they come to light - for now please put October 27, 4:30-6pm at Australian Technology Park Locomotive Workshop 
Henderson Road, Eveleigh in your diary to meet up for a heart to heart (don’t forget you need to register to be able to come along), and buy your copy of the book (pre-order here so you know you’ll be able to pick up your copy at the event).

Laly took this photo for me today, not sure if she meant to cut of my head?!

Oh, and my bullshit free zone t-shirt arrived and I love it! Did you get yours? Let me know, I hope you like it as much as I do. Apparently it’s still for sale if you want to order one but only for the next 16 hours - I’m confused as I thought the campaign only lasted 12 days - perhaps someone can explain this to me? I wore mine food shopping today, I felt like a rebel, it was totally empowering. Laly thinks it’s the coolest thing ever (I had to explain what it meant, she totally understood and now wants to make her own version “Bull Dust Free Zone” so we can be matching!)

Not sure if you can sense my energy resurgence through this email, but if so I put it down to all of the above, triggered by deleting the apps. I am not keen to re-install them, but I will need to as I want to keep them as places people can find me and know that I’ve posted in my journal and on Patreon, but will I be able to not look at them throughout the day?! I’ll only know if I give it a try. And if I can’t, then I’ll have to consider a permanent removal.

Sending love through the ether,

Pia xx

The Earth, Moon, and I...

It's been 4 months since I started Patreon, and I've written/composed more than 30 posts for my patrons. I'm loving the experience - allowing it to become whatever it will be, to grow as I grow, to manage it intuitively, is so liberating. Although I've been playing piano pieces each month for the collective, I haven't been recording them as mp3's. Last night I did the first recording as the full moon shone bright, and I've just released it for my patrons. 

The concept is that I sit at the piano on each full moon and record an intuitive piece that can be downloaded and add to your playlist to listen to while you create or go about your daily ways. It is one of the ways I will connect with everyone on Patreon, as a collective  - they inspire my piano compositions, which I then give back to empower their own creative processing. 

The reason I choose the moon and not a date or season is that the moon-  as well as the earth and sun -  is what connects us all, no matter what part of the world we live in, what season or day of the week it is, what stage of life we are in, what culture or religion we are from, or what beliefs we currently hold and act upon. And the reason I choose to play on the full moon is because again, no matter what are the above circumstances of each of our lives, it signifies the illumination of creation and the release of ideas. It's a powerful time of the cycle. I am looking forward to sharing more of this soon in my other works. 

So these pieces as you'll have already realised from my past compositions, are rhythmic. They do not have a beginning, middle and end, they are cyclic, and there will always be imperfections. I write more about my process of these on my latest Patreon post.  This is my process - it's simple and raw, so that the soul of each rhythm remains powerful.

I made this video with the composition I just recorded, along with photographs I took while on a bushwalk with Laly yesterday. There was much leaf touching & tree hugging. 

If you'd like to download the song to add to your playlist, follow this link to my Patreon page. 

With love, 

Pia xx

Sacred Geometry for Happinez Magazine...

Here is my latest work for Happinez Magazine, featured in their Zomer (Summer) edition, just out now. The assignment was to create 8 photographs of sacred geometry, with a handmade, organic and natural touch. It was actually very challenging, but so much fun. Researching the meaning behind each symbol was interesting, and coming up with unique ways to show these symbols had my mind in a twist. I went with the flow of the twist, and it all eventually unravelled, creating these photographs over about 4 days in the studio...

The idea was to start with the simple shapes like square, circle and triangle, and then progressing to the more complex symbols like the dodecahedron, octahedron, tetrahedron, icosahedron. Everything from this shoot I made from materials I had already in my home (like the collection of marbles from my childhood) and studio, as well as fallen flowers and branches from the neighbourhood...

These perspex cubes were part of my old stylist's kit - I'd had them made about ten years ago. I love the play of nature with them here, the soil and roots and sand make the shot. 

This gorgeous Japanese handmade dodecahedron was given to Laly by my dear friend Kylie on one of her trips to Japan a few years ago. When I have a commissioned shoot like this, I walk through my house looking for inspiration, and when I saw this on Laly's shelf I knew it had to be in this shoot, and it made me smile to know that it was given by Kylie, so special. The bougainvillea grows in abundance at the entrance of my studio building, and combined with this fabric from Major & Tom, this became my favourite photograph of the collection. 

And then came the biggest challenge of all: the mother of all symbols, the icosahedron. This was the only symbol I didn't have a plan for, and left it completely up to my intuition to figure it out. Which was apt - the icosahedron symbolises water, which is as we know all about movement, flow and change. It's also connected to emotions, and can be used to enhance the creative process. The process for creating this was beautiful - I played with different materials, and then before I knew it I was being guided to paint some bamboo skewer sticks with streaks of white, then I cut them into sets of equal lengths and laid them ever so carefully onto this stunning backdrop - a lightly waxed indigo dyed piece of fabric given to me as a gift from one of my mentor clients, Bernadette. I love that these beautiful handmade gifts that I've lovingly received over the years have become a part of my work, it shows the power of the collective and how we can enrich each other's creativity (remember this little velvet box?).  Through this process, I didn't know what the outcome was going to be - I didn't see the end result and then work toward it, instead I allow each step to happen with absolutely no knowledge of what is about to transpire. I understand some people become frozen with fear if they don't have a concrete plan for everything, but I get excited. To me it shows there is so much room for possibility, and my intuition is free to play. I placed eucalyptus buds at each point. The second shot here I just love - I messed up the pieces to show the transience, which for me is just as beautiful - to create beauty, and then let it go. 

I made some video footage of the behind the scenes which I'll put together and share on my Patreon page for those who are interested in the behind the scenes. 

xx