'Blue Fairy', painting, costume, model Laura Hollick. Hair & makeup Sue Upton. Photograhy & photoshop Stephanie Bell.

The Blue Fairy wasn’t born with wings.

She began her life on land with a deep dream in her heart. She wanted wings!

She imagined soaring up in the air and dancing with the birds.

But every time she flapped her arms nothing happened, her feet stayed firmly planted on the ground as if rooted tight to the earth.

She blew wishes to the wind, asking for wings.

She dreamed day and night about taking flight.

One day while walking the earth, she stopped to ask a patch of grass if they knew how she could grow wings.

“You are tall and strong” she said. “You clearly know how to grow. Can you tell me how to grow wings?”.

“Reach for what you want.” said each individual blade of grass.

She thought to herself, “I am reaching!”

The next day, she saw some ladybugs and asked them “How do you fly?”

“We decide to fly” they answered.

Frustrated, she thought to herself “I have decided to fly.”

She kept on her journey, walking the earth looking for an answer that would let her soar.

This time she became very quiet, so quiet she could hear the spaces between spaces.

She asked the quiet space, “Where are my wings?”

There was no answer.

She kept listening.

Then from deep deep inside her heart, she heard a small voice…

“I know where your wings are.”

“Yes, yes,” she said, almost tripping over her words. “Where are they?”

“You’ve been looking for your wings on the outside,” said the small voice. “Your wings grow from the inside.”

“How can my wings grow from the inside, when I need them on the outside?” she said in total confusion.

“The kind of wings you are born to have grow from inside of you. They will grow as you lead with your heart”, the quiet space responded.

“How do I lead with my heart?” she asked.

“You listen inside of yourself, like you are doing now,” the small voice continued. “You become quiet enough so you can hear the voice of your heart.”

As she listened, she relaxed and listened more and more. As her ears tuned in on the inside a magical thing started to happen…

She started sprouting her wings.

The more she listened inside, the stronger her wings grew on the outside.

The Blue Fairy wasn’t born with wings, but they were always in her.

Laura Hollick as the Rainbow Bird Shaman. Hair & makeup by Sue Upton. Photography by Stephanie Bell.

Clear Insights from the Rainbow Bird Shaman

A Shaman is someone who channels creative spiritual visions and insights for the health, wealth and inspiration of their tribe.

As a soul artist I feel like a Rainbow Bird Shaman, channeling creative spiritual visions and insights for my tribe (YOU!), with the purpose of guiding you to be who you dream of being with full empowerment.

While on a hike I channeled this message for you….

Right now there is a gust of energy sweeping through the earth. It is a pregnant call for a New Paradigm.

As a creative spiritual person you will be especially sensitive to this call. You’ll know this is you because you will feel a passionate need to know your purpose and make it your life’s work. You will feel inspired to discover and express your unique creative gifts and find ways to connect them with the world.

The leaders of the New Paradigm are those who trust their spirit, follow their heart, and create tangible ways to connect their gifts with people.

The very act of following your heart will take you into an unknown territory. This unknown territory is the land of the New Paradigm. Your compass through this land is the vision of your True Dream.

Now is the time to clarify your True Dream.

Be sure to sign up for my* free* teleclass: Clarify your True Dream

Stephanie is a photographer, designer and photoshop artist. She is one of those rare birds who is able to spot the unseen beauty and transform it into a modern fairytale.

I first learned about her work a few years ago when she was voted Best Photographer in View Magazine.

I approached her and asked if she would be part of ‘The Photographer’s Series’, a series of interviews with select photographers from across Canada. The purpose of these interviews is to explore the vision, creative process and journey of each photographer. Part of my research involved being part of a creative photoshoot with each photographer.

For Stephanie’s shoot, she wanted to explore the idea of temptation. She used apples to reference the biblical story of Eve’s temptation, but she added her own Stephanie twist to it.

This piece is called ‘Temptation II’

During the photoshoot I learned a few things about Stephanie Bell….
1. She has birds flying around in her home.
2. She starts with a concept and let’s it grow as the ingredients come together.
3. She creates a team of support around her to help her realize her visions.
4. She is rather quiet during the creative process, but you can tell there is a lot going on inside.
5. Her post production work is labour intensive, she uses photoshop like a painting tool.

This is Stephanie Bell

To listen to the interview with Stephanie Bell CLICK HERE
To learn more about Stephanie’s work go to: www.emergingdesign.ca

Union of Opposites. Laura Hollick with Ken MacDonnell. Photo by Stephanie Bell

With all the shifts and changes that are happening in the world it feels more important than ever to connect the inner creative world with the outer world. I believe this is the way to build a new paradigm where artists can thrive and creative spiritual people can live the lives they are born to live, and our environment can heal and prosper.

In order for the inner and outer worlds to connect we need to learn how to connect in new ways. We need to build new structures that support empowered connections.

Although I loved the sound of this, I personally struggled with this for some time.

I used to think that in order to connect with others I would have to put myself aside and just focus on what the other person wanted and when I became exhausted from that I would isolate myself so that I could feel nourished within and make sure nobody got near me.

The trouble with both of these scenarios is NO CONNECTION ever really happened!

As soon as I became aware that I was doing this, I set out to find some empowering ways to connect that not only support me but create joy for the other person as well.

Here are 5 things I’ve learned so far about connecting in powerful ways to build the new paradigm

1. Know yourself first

Take the time you need to understand who you are and what you like and what you don’t like. Take the time you need to understand your own desires and what inspires you.

2. Create healthy ways of sharing yourself

Once you have a sense of who you are on a deep level, practice sharing yourself authentically with others. The trick to this is not to demand that other people react or respond to you in any particular way. Put the focus on being authentic in your sharing. Practice with people that you feel safe with.

3. Risk being yourself

Once you’ve practiced being authentic with people you feel safe with, stretch yourself and find more places that you can express yourself. Find new people and new environments that you can be yourself in. Each time will feel like a risk, but you will strengthen your ability to connect in powerful ways and each connection will build a new network of possibility for you.

4. Set up healthy boundaries

As you decide to connect more and more you may discover that you need to have healthy boundaries in place to support you. You’ll know if you need healthy boundaries because you’ll experience situations that leave you feeling exhausted. When this happens, look at the situation and ask yourself, what do I need here to take care of myself? Do what you need to take care of yourself.

5. Be open to other people

Only when you feel solid in yourself are you ready to fully open to other people. If you open to soon, you may be swayed by things because you won’t know how to make your own decisions and form your own opinions. Once your own inner work is solid, reach out connect and be open to receive the beauty of other people.
The above photo is by photographer Stephanie Bell .She did an exquisite job of capturing a beautiful connection between myself and Ken MacDonnell.

In order for there to be a creative birth, there needs to be a coming together of different energies.  I call this the ‘Union of Opposites’.

'Union of Opposites' Laura Hollick with Ken MacDonnell. Photo by Stephanie Bell

I believe the job of a Soul Artist is to make the invisible world of soul visible;  make the intangible  tangible;  and birth ideas into reality. This is the Divine Love Affair, this is the union of opposites.

The idea for this photo came to me while I was hiking in the snow last year.  Everything felt so magical I thought it would be a perfect way to illustrate the tingling feeling of the union of opposites.  Of course it is not real snow  (it is actually white flour).

I approached photographer Stephanie Bell about doing this shoot and she was into it and did a phenomenal job (even better than I imagined!).  Ken MacDonnell is the model along with me, he is a total delight to work with.