Two weeks ago, I received a beautiful batik in the mail from Orgasmic Birth! I won it on a Facebook giveaway. It is so beautiful! I waited to post about it because I wanted to post a picture of it on my birth art wall, but it is large enough that my wall will need some rearranging first! 🙂

Several weeks ago, I saved this quote posted via Lucy Pearce on her Dreaming Aloud page on Facebook (Lucy is the author of The Rainbow Way, as well as several other delicious books):

Just the other day, talking to a dear friend I realised out loud that my books are my biggest prayers, blessings from my soul to those yet unknown souls who dream the same dreams, worry the same worries. So I loved this quote from best selling author John Green: “Don’t make stuff because you want to make money — it will never make you enough money. And don’t make stuff because you want to get famous — because you will never feel famous enough. Make gifts for people — and work hard on making those gifts in the hope that those people will notice and like the gifts. Maybe they will notice how hard you worked, and maybe they won’t — and if they don’t notice, I know it’s frustrating. But, ultimately, that doesn’t change anything — because your responsibility is not to the people you’re making the gift for, but to the gift itself.”

This is actually how I feel also—that when I create my pieces or when I plan a ritual, I’m offering a gift to others (even though I do still charge for my artwork!). This week on Brigid’s Grove we’re offering one of our Embrace Possibility pendants as a giveaway. Just go to the giveaway page and enter there!

I enjoy the gifts offered by other women  as well. Paola at Goddess Spiral Health Coaching has added free virtual Full Moon Gratitude Circles to her existing offerings (New Moon FB event here):

I wanted sisters who were sowing the seeds of their intentions to have a chance share what has come to fruition. I also wanted sisters to be able to focus on the blessings they did have and open up the space for more abundance. With these thoughts in mind, I created the Full Moon Gratitude Circles because I believe that…

..the act of gratitude focuses us on the abundance in our lives—welcoming even more abundance in! Gratitude is a practice that can benefit you at all levels- physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Will you join us experiencing the beauty of following the lunar cycle and acknowledging the power of manifesting the life you love? ♥

via Full Moon Gratitude Circles | Goddess Spiral Health Coaching.

And, I’ve been steadily listening to the worldwide presentations organized by DeAnna L’am and offered as the Red Tent World Summit: DeAnnaLam | Coming of Age Made Easy, Womanhood Made Richer, Red Tent in every neighborhood. I also just signed up for a telesummit on Raising Empowered Girls. And, after enjoying a free call about creating nurturing rites of passage for girls, I bookmarked this video from Maidenspirit on First Moon Rising (a documentary film on rites of passage for girls):

I also downloaded a book about Birth Trauma that is currently free on Kindle:

As a less enjoyable “gift,” yesterday I received a promo package from a certain industry related to babies/birth. In it, there is a “confidential agreement” to sign that would give me a $50 cash kickback for each parent who enrolls in their service through me. I find this squicky and ethically problematic and I hope most certified CBEs reject this confidential agreement as such. It raises big red flags with me (even though it was sent with the apparent awareness/approval of my certifying organization). While I am happy to review books or products or share information with others than I genuinely find inspiring, encouraging, or otherwise beneficial, I am not interested in being a shill for a company, particularly one that seems to suggest nondisclosure of the fact that they are using birth professionals to market to unsuspecting clients who have placed their trust in them. No thanks.