Soulful Musings

The Buddha Heart Boutique

I'm excited to share my newest creative venture, an online retail store, called, "The Buddha Heart Boutique."

I had great fun hand-selecting all of the wonderful items offered at The Buddha Heart Boutique. I have been personally inspired by many of the books and CDs that I chose to feature, and many of the products are ones that I use in my own personal spiritual practice.

The Buddha Heart Boutique offers a wide assortment of conscious living products and supplies for yoga, meditation, ayurveda and spa, Buddhist and Zen spirituality, chakra balancing, aura cleansing, reiki, massage, relaxation, healing, and inspiration, including decorative art for your your altar or sacred space; soulful gifts to give and get; plus CDs, DVDs, and books to inspire your heart, mind and soul.

Hudson Valley Home Guide

I've been dreaming of moving to the Hudson River Valley and Catskills areas of Upstate New York for more years than I can count now, and over this period of time, I have collected more bookmarks in my Explorer browser of my favorite Hudson Valley area websites than I even care to admit to.

I have spent these years passionately researching the different regions and counties, real estate, realtors, chambers of commerce, local arts and culture, with the hope that one day I might get to call this lovely destination home.  While, I have not yet had the opportunity to make this big leap across the country, it did occur to me that it might be nice to share all of my research with others who might also love Upstate NY as much as I do.  So, with that goal in mind, I set about to create a tidy little website this past month, called The Hudson Valley Home Guide.

I've been blessed to get to travel to this gorgeous region of our country perhaps five times in the last six or seven years and have enjoyed photographing all of the beautiful natural scenery of the area, and I'm excited that I now have the chance to share all of my favorite photos with visitors to my website. I invite you to visit The Hudson Valley Home Guide, click through my various bookmark links, and enjoy your own virtual visit and tour of Upstate New York Real Estate.

Mandala Soap :: My Newest Creative Adventure

It's official... Mandala Soap has arrived and, as of today, is now "officially" available for sale!

It is with great excitement that I say those words, as Mandala Soap has been my dream in the making for over seven years!

It is extremely rewarding to see something that I hold so close to my heart finally come to fruition and be birthed into the world.

My name is Valerie Rickel, and I am the developer of Mandala Soap. I am also the founder and creator of SoulfulLiving.com a popular web community and internet magazine devoted to personal growth and spirituality.

Mandala Soap is my love and my passion. It brings together so many of my favorite things: art, spirituality, soap, and mandalas! It has long been my dream to bring the beauty and healing nature of mandalas to product development.

I have been planning and developing Mandala Soap almost as long as I have been creating my website, SoulfulLiving.com. Those same seven years spent dreaming up the idea for Mandala Soap were also spent publishing thousands of self-help articles at my website, written and submitted by many of today’s best-selling authors and leading-edge thinkers within the personal and spiritual growth movement.

My intense love and interest in mandalas runs deep. I came to discover mandalas through the mandala images left behind by my artist father at the time of his death and the rich insights about these mandalas that I found in his journals. Read more about his journals here.

In fact, my passionate interest in mandalas inspired me to launch an online store called, Mandala, in 2001, to complement the content offerings at my SoulfulLiving.com website. The store offers a unique and unusual collection of mandala-inspired gifts and tools for soulful living. While my store has offered products obtained from other producers for the last six years, I have always known in my heart that, one day, I would have the resources to bring my own products to market and sell my own mandala-inspired goods. Mandala Soap is the first realization of that dream!

Adventures in Sumi-e Brush Painting

There are many benefits to living in a small town with a major university... Last month, I had the opportunity to take an art class in Sumi-e Brush Painting through our university’s extension program. I had wanted to learn this ancient painting technique for many months, and when I moved to town, I just knew with all certainty, that I would find a local artist, who specializes in this technique, to teach me. Within just one week, I stumbled upon an extension course catalog from the university and found this class in Sumi-e Brush Painting being offered. I wondered whether this was a special coincidence, or, perhaps, a regular class, offered every school semester. A quick inquiry turned up the fact that it hadn't been taught in years. Several people guessed as many as twenty years. Wow... Now, how's that for setting an intention!

Sumi-e is an East Asian brush painting technique that has been practiced for thousands of years in both the Chinese and Japanese traditions. Its literal translation is, "ink painting." Simplicity is the most outstanding characteristic of Sumi-e. It is an art form that strives to "distill the essence of an object in the fewest possible strokes."

Divine Inspiration - Designing a Logo for Soulful Musings

Tonight, I had the fun of designing a logo design for my new blog, Soulful Musings. I had been experimenting with this same butterfly motif earlier this year as a possible addition to the logo of my website, SoulfulLiving.com. I haven't finalized that new logo yet, but hope to introduce it a little later this year, along with a whole new slew of exciting offerings at Soulful Living.

The butterfly is a very meaningful symbol in my life. It represents "freedom," "change," "transition," and "rebirth." Themes that have all been important in my life, particularly this year, which held several major life transitions -- a move out of state, from the city of Los Angeles, where I lived for 39 years, to a wonderful, little soulful town in Southern Oregon. I couldn't be happier about my move and look forward to writing all about here very soon. This year also brought a major birthday. I just turned the big "40" in June!

Some thoughts on my creative inspiration...

My father was a very soulful man and a great inspiration to me. He passed away in 1998. He was an artist, illustrator and graphic designer, who enjoyed his work so much, that a five-hour client project would receive days, weeks, even months of attention and nurturing. His last graphic design project, shortly before his death, was for a bromeliad nursery client. He’d been working for weeks on a package design logo for a new "forever-blooming" plant collection. As an artist, my father was very fond of symbols and their meanings. He had incorporated one of his favorites, the infinity symbol, into this logo design. I remember seeing the joy on his face, for days and nights, as he sat at his drawing board, pondering the infinite number of wondrous design possibilities... A glimpse, perhaps of infinite, Eternal Life.

I often ask my father for his guidance while I am designing logos. I like to think of the butterfly as a gift from my dad, as it was delivered to my consciousness almost immediately upon asking him for his divine guidance in prayer. I know he would be very pleased with its symbolic significance in my life this year.

I'd love to share a story I wrote about my father's inspiration, symbolism, and synchronicity, back in winter 2004, entitled, "Messages Delivered on Feathered Wings."

I'm very pleased with the font I found to use with my Soulful Musings logo design. I think it works fabulously with the butterfly and communicates well the feelings and emotions that I want Soulful Musings to convey. If you're a font addict like me, I strongly suggest you pay a visit to MyFonts.com. It is an incredible mecca of fonts, typefaces, and inspiration!

I'd love your feedback on my new Soulful Musings logo or any comments on my blog for that matter. Thanks for reading. :-)