THE STORY OF SOUL KINDLING

Soul Kindling began nearly ten years ago
when I found myself at a crossroads
of faith & creativity.
At the time, I was studying spiritual formation
and bubbling over with (new-to-me) spiritual practices
to enrich people’s faith lives.

I loved every single class I took
and always came away with loads of ideas and insights.

Spiritual formation practices are naturally
contemplative, creative and exploratory.
The roots of the practices are ancient
and can be found in Wisdom traditions,
the heart of mystics and Celtic teaching.
They stretch one beyond the intellectual into the heart space.

The thing was, I struggled to bring these practices
into the confines of the church.
There are structures and rules in place,
and you can’t just propose,
“Hey, let’s begin a worship service for an intimate number of people.
Let’s include silence, poems, creativity and some body movement”
— and get the go ahead.

In traditional spaces of faith, this expansive approach is not the norm.
I get it, yet — I began to feel restricted.

My dear friend, Kristen, knew I was frustrated
and she suggested, “Start a blog.”

 So, that’s where I began. In 2015, I started a blog.

True story — initially, it was called Lost and Found.
It only took a few months and a new name came to me — Soul Kindling.

In the beginning, I wrote long posts about my adventures in faith
and included spiritual practices people could engage.

Then, something interesting happened.
I was painting a canvas one day and had a huge aha —
an aha that put me on a whole different trajectory.

For so long, art and creativity had been something I did to get to an end product.
I typically focused on finishing and “getting it right.”

But, there was one day where I was painting about metaphors of God.
The metaphor I was working with was “the phoenix”.
I slowly added words and colors layer by layer
as I pondered Divine Love.

I was — IN FLOW

Being IN FLOW allowed this immense insight to come to me:

If I created in relationship WITH God,
I no longer needed to worry about the end product.
The process of BE-ing with LOVE was the point.
In creating this way, I could release perfectionism (yay!),
release the finish line (yay!)
and simply BE with and receive Divine Love.

Creating this way was a big shift for me.
Creating in relationship WITH
led me to insights of my soul space.

Both my visual art and writing were taken over by this new way of creating.
I knew I had tapped into something very big.

But, who could teach me how to deepen this practice of art and soul?
How would I learn to enter into this flow regularly
and expand my understanding of this ?

A while passed.
I continued to pursue this intersection of faith & creativity.
The long posts on my blog were replaced by visuals of art and poetry.

Then, in 2017, an invitation came to my inbox
to be trained in creative healing, a nine-month long certification,
 titled Color of Woman, with artist Shiloh Sophia.
 In January 2018, I began.

The training was more than I imagined.
Deeper than I expected.
It plunged me into story work and creativity as healing
It opened me to the power of the visual.

My time in traditional spaces of faith waned
as I engaged the idea of myself as sanctuary.
Christos within. Christos around.

I painted with wild abandon bringing needed balm to my life experience.

As I created with Divine Love at the center of my creations,
the Sacred Feminine wooed me to her.
She revealed herself as Wisdom, Ruah, Sophia.
She spoke to me as Eve, Mary, Magdelene.
She is a Divine form of MotherGod who has been forgotten.

Her sensibilities are creativity, collaboration, voice,
ritual, teaching, birth, celebration.

I awakened a part of myself I had forgotten.
I rethread aspects of myself that I had cut off.
I gathered back the feminine, sacred, wild me.

In 2019, Soul Kindling became an LLC —
a solo business where I guide others into their
personal, creative story work to ignite
sacred imagination and re-member oneself
as sacred, creative and loved.

Since that time, I’ve attempted many ways
to guide people back to their sacred, creative hearts:
In-person courses, painting retreat days, online creative circles
as well as comprehensive weekly courses.

Some of the themes I teach are:
coming home to yourself as a sanctuary;
 making room for rest, renewal & nourishment;
living into one’s authenticity;
relating to God as mother;
moving through transition toward possibility
and releasing perfection and igniting sacred imagination.
My heart lies in the Sophia Wisdom tradition of Christ
and upholds Creation & Celtic Spirituality.
I thread the wisdom of these traditions into the work I do.

Currently, my work is centered on my art and writing.
I’m also revisioning my online community.
I do offer 1-on-1 private creative formation experiences
for people who want to enter deeply into their creative healing.

Curious? Reach out to me at ally@soulkindling.com