intentions

An Experience, not another boring lecture…

| Bonnie Kelso

Tomorrow is my first Facebook Live Event and it is going to be epic!

Epic… really, Bonnie?

YES!

… NOT because millions of people are expected to participate.

… NOT because I am that ego-centric and important and just love to listen to the sound of my voice and be the star of my own world.

… and NOT because it’s just another boring lecture.

It is going to be EPIC, for me on a very personal level. It will be a significant moment of growth where I will step out of my comfort zone and allow myself to be vulnerable. It will be me, talking heart to heart with other people about how I manage a limitation that has always been a part of my life. It’s a personal limitation that in the past has only ever been visible to the people closest to me. Tomorrow, I am going public with it. I’m no longer NOT going to talk about my personal experience with depression.

After it is over, I know in my heart, that an enormous personal shift will have occurred, no matter how well or poorly the actual event goes. Between 12pm and 2pm Pacific Time tomorrow I will let a childhood monster out of the closet once and for all. By doing so, this monster will no longer have the same power over me.

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If you also suffer from depression and would like to learn a few creative ways to manage it, I invite you to join me. If you know of someone else who may benefit from this experience, please feel free to share the link with them. This event is 100% free and open to the public. My intention is for the event to be interactive. I will respond to comments and questions live as we go. I am hoping that someone actually is there to interact with me live, but if not, I will try to make it as interactive as I can by including lots of prompts for you to engage with the presented materials, even if it is at a later time as you watch the recording.  Continue reading →

Friday = Art: A Dilemma

| Bonnie Kelso

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A painting can transform in the blink of an eye. I am capable of destroying what you see here that quickly. A few broad brush strokes and weeks of labor will be erased within seconds.

This creation of mine was painted in 2008 for the Las Vegas ArtExpo. It’s called “Moraine,” and it is large, 36″x48.” It is sitting here in my house and I am debating if I should paint over it or not. I’m kind of not feeling into this energy for inside my home anymore, but at the same time, I feel it is representative of some of my struggles in life. A moraine is what’s left after a glacier recedes. It’s a sloping pile of boulders that have been slowly grinding together for eons under the ice and snow. As I sat on the actual moraine ten years ago (the one that this painting was inspired by), I could hear the water running beneath it. An invisible river continuing to slowly transform the landscape. Some transformations are like this, long and slow and hardly noticeable. Others come quickly, in the blink of an eye. Who is to say which one is more valuable?  Continue reading →

A Gift of Healing

| Bonnie Kelso

For the remainder of the year I will be offering “Graceful Transformation: A Healing Coloring Journey” at a discounted price. This interactive coloring book for adults was developed from a creativity workshop with participants in addiction recovery. It was our collective intention that this book would be used to help others heal from past trauma and pain through mindful creating.

©Bonnie Kelso and Creating Your ExperienceWhether you are in recovery from substances or behavioral addictions, the themes presented in this book will provide you with a helpful exploration of your feelings. Each page asks you to Continue reading →

Nothing But Love

| Bonnie Kelso

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A few days ago I heard an interview with Magda Sayeg, a well known artist and yarn-bomber. She remarked that she couldn’t think of a single thing that conveyed the idea of love more than something knitted by hand. As the Thanksgiving Holiday descends on us all, I’ve been thinking about this comment and also about my ancestors. I’m reminded of my Grandmother in particular who showed me how to crochet when I was a young girl. I only caught on to a few simple stitches, but she told me that Continue reading →

Friday = Art

| Bonnie Kelso

inspiration

What magic are you creating right now? Your creative life is an energetic force that influences everything around you. Your body is a filter for this energy. It can transmute negative frequencies into harmonic ones. How does this happen? Continue reading →

Launch: The Star Inside

| Bonnie Kelso

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What does anger feel like? This is the question I’ve been asking myself and others as I have been working on a book and online course that helps people to express anger in safe and healing ways. The image that kept coming up again and again was the star.

Stars have a massive amount of energy inside of them. There is potential for heat, radiation, even a supernova explosion if a star continues to become more and more unstable. On the flip side of this anger (which is a manifestation of hostile energy), there is Continue reading →

Detachment & Your Creativity

| Bonnie Kelso

Detachment

I taught a creativity class last week about “Detachment.” As creative beings, detachment can be difficult. We become very attached to things, possessions, people, memories from our past, our creations themselves…

What does it mean to detach? I used to feel that if I detached from something it meant that I didn’t care about it. Now I realize that when I detach, I allow the object of my attachment the freedom of independence.

Continue reading →

3 Creative Ways to Bring Yourself Back To Gratitude Now

| Bonnie Kelso

Gratitude is where the heart isGratitude is not just for the month of November anymore. Gratitude is a way of living life. If I choose to embrace gratitude every day and every moment, it will transform my experience of life. Gratitude is my number one focus for this next nine-year cycle. That’s right! I’m committing to feeling gratitude for whatever may come my way through 2025. Whew! I said it out loud. I wrote it down. I shared it on my blog! It has already begun to take effect.

If you choose to embrace gratitude every day and every moment, it will transform your experience of life.

When it comes to gratitude, there is no better time than the present to start implementing its power. Here are three quick and easy ways to get started. Continue reading →

Creating Tradition: Preserving Your Favorite Holiday Image

| Bonnie Kelso

Christmas Tree Tradition

Last Christmas I was so happy to be able to leave my white Christmas tree up for the entire season! You see, last year I had a little, umm, disagreement with my new cat, Freeda. She decided that the tree was put up for her pleasure and she took great pleasure indeed from climbing it, clawing at the ornaments, chewing on the string of lights, and eventually toppling the entire thing over more than once. This all happened with in the first 24 hours of its emergence from the box. Sadly, for the safety of all concerned, I had to put the tree back in its box and enjoy Christmas without a Christmas tree. But, this year, the tree remained up. Freeda did crawl into it several times, but with more self-control and grace than before, so I considered this a healthy compromise. Continue reading →