Painting the Landscape of Your Soul

A step-by-step guide to uncovering one’s inner artist and, in the process, healing one’s psychic wounds. 

When one is a child, one has access to the unlimited power of creativity, and one can express oneself in art and writing and song without judgment. But when downbeat inner and outer voices get loud enough, argues debut author Celebre, one can end up abandoning the self inside and its profound connections to the world. There is, however, a cure: as practicing shaman Sandra Ingerman writes in her foreword, “Using the creative process as the foundation for self-discovery, you will learn to override limiting beliefs of your mind, connect to unlimited possibilities, establish a deep sense of trust with your intuition, and then learn to listen and follow your intuitive voice.” Celebre guides readers along this path by dividing her book into four sections: “Roots and Bones,” “Let Your Creative Soul Fly,” “Creative Alchemy,” and “Spreading the Joy,” each designed to help the reader further uncover the artist within. In the first section, for example, the author suggests starting with a “body scan” in order to ground the mind in the physical, and recognize when a feeling or thought is true and right. Throughout the book, Celebre offers exercises to “reclaim” one’s connection to oneself and the universe, as well as brief asides on the history of intuitive painting and her own creative journey. Although readers may think they know what the words “body,” “mind,” and “spirit” mean, Celebre gives helpful definitions that illuminate her philosophy (“Body,” she says, encompasses the “Chakra, meridians, and nerve plexus” as well as the expected “organs, bones, muscles, cells”). Quotes from figures as diverse as Rumi, René Descartes, and Ellen DeGeneres are strewn throughout the text, which demonstrate the universality of the author’s message of self-discovery. 

Readers looking to strengthen the relationship between the self and the outside world will find this book useful and liberating.