Astarte Mind & Body

Today marked the final week of my 'Desert to the Sea' workshop series, practicing painting water and waves in different ways. Next month we move onto 'Floral Blooms', experimenting with a range of detailed and loose techniques.
There's one place remaining as of the time of typing this! 🖌😊

Coming up in less than two weeks at the old Kiama Firestation. This event is helping to raise funds for Animal Care Collection Illawarra inc who rescue cats and kittens, desex them, and find loving homes.

THE ART OF HABIT STACKING for Movement Practice

Habit stacking is a super effective strategy popularised by James Clear in Atomic Habits. It works by attaching a new habit (like exercise or movement) to an existing, automatic habit you already do every day without thinking. The classic formula is:

"After (current habit), I will (new habit)."

Or sometimes "Before (current habit), I will (new habit)."

This reduces decision fatigue and makes the new behaviour almost automatic because it's piggybacked on something reliable. It's especially great for building exercise consistency without needing huge blocks of free time.

Here are some practical, realistic examples focused on adding more movement/exercise into daily life:

Morning Routine Stacks

As I brush my teeth (morning or night), I will do 10–15 bodyweight squats
* You're already standing there for 2 minutes and your legs are free, so why not?

While my coffee/tea is brewing, I will do stretches, calf raises, or 10 push-ups against the kitchen counter.
* Turns waiting time (usually 3–5 minutes) into active time.

After I pour my morning coffee, I will do 5 minutes of mobility work (arm circles, hip openers, or spinal mobility).
* Start tiny and build up as it feels natural.

After I get out of bed, I will make my bed (or not) + do 10 deep breaths with overhead arm stretches.
* Sets a positive, movement-focused tone right away.

What else do you already do in your daily or evening routines that you could stack some beneficial movement on top of?

We all know that exercise helps us to better cope with stressors in our life, but what exactly are the mechanisms for this?
Here's a brief overview of how exercise can help improve our state of mind and resilience.

Here's a run down of all the creative arty crafty projects and art workshops I'm facilitating over the next couple of months. Hope to see some of you there. 😊

Some places make you feel calm and connected or feed energy into your grid. Others drain you of energy or result in a sense of dis-ease. Those sensitive to the energies of a place will have felt this, and understand.

The Egyptian desert has an energy that is palpable, supported by the lack of interference from noise and elctronic pollution, and magnified by the presence of the rich minerals and crystals under the sand.
Just like quartz has the power to harness energy in radios and watches, so too do the crystals in the desert, if you are open to a connection of that sort.

When you think of it, we are all simply highly complex, animated solar powered salt batteries in essence. Sometimes we need to ground and plug in to the earths grid for a boost!

This mound of rock before me is actually part of the Crystal Mountain, a ridge formed of quartzite, calcite, and barite crystals. Located between the Bahariya Oasis and Farafra Oasis, it is thought to have once been part of a cave that since collapsed, revealing the crystaline structures beneath.

I've always been of the mindset that I'd rather be respected than liked ... but I've also learnt over the years that it's not a bad thing to be liked as well.

I feel like my souls calling though isn't really about being liked, popular, or in the spotlight. Although I have goals and ambitions for myself, my true passion has always lain with helping other people to achieve theirs.

I may sometimes come across as a tough taskmistress in my goal oriented teaching and delivery, but it's always delivered with honesty, integrity, passion, and commitment in helping everyone to shine to their full potential.

If you want to rise creatively, explore your own passion, navigate your options and opportunities, or expand your vision, I'm really just here to provide the platform and education to lift you up
.. and I'll cheer for you every step of the way.

Cheers. 😊

Yesterday I taught a watercolour sunsets workshop in Kiama for Kiama Library. Sunsets and landscapes are a lot trickier than one may imagine. Because it was such a rainy and humid day, the paper stayed quite damp for longer too, making adding details even more tricky, but everyone did a marvellous job.
The two images we used as inspiration are of Kiama Lighthouse and Seven Mile Beach.

Since returning from the pristine environment of the Egyptian Western Desert my husband and I have noticed a difference in our breathing, lungs and sinuses. The air feels considerably heavier here, and our allergies and irritations have returned along with the change of the seasons.

So, today we took time out of our schedule to visit the salt room at in Shellharbour City Centre to sit in quiet comfort, relax and meditate away from our cats, and breathe in some salt to help clear our airways.

I have also been dealing with the onset of rosacea (another gift from menopause, the gift that keeps giving 😅), so the potential benefits are twofold in that respect.

Have you visited a salt room or tried salt therapy? What benefits did you find for yourself?