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Art is a channel for women to use their creativity to highlight their lived experiences and share their wisdom, strength and resilience through the menopause transition. Creating art with the collective wisdom of women that have walked or are walking this path will shed light on the journey for those still heading there while holding space for those women in the thick of it and acknowledging those who have bravely battled through it to post menopause.

If you’ve seen one menopausal woman you’ve seen one menopausal woman- changes and symptoms occur In unique combinations in each woman and support and treatment options vary depending on where she finds herself in the world.

Since 2009, the IMS (International Menopause Society) alongside the World Health Organization (WHO) designate October as World Menopause Awareness Month. It’s an opportunity to speak openly about the experiences and resilience of women. These conversations can help to break the silence about the menopause transition and highlight the areas where more support and understanding is needed. Get creative during your menopause journey and let others know that they are not alone in grappling with the changes that this natural process brings.

With this in mind I’m organizing an art show called “Post Period.” that will be launched in Menopause Awareness Month, 2024. A multi-pronged approach to communicating the challenges and impact of menopause is required so women have an opportunity to understand the mental and physical impacts of hormonal changes.

Art is an avenue that can spark conversations, question the status quo, and challenge misconceptions while also providing an opportunity for self-expression and catharsis.

Have you made any menopause related or inspired art ? This is your sign to embrace your third act and create unapologetically! Creativity has no age limit!

Reblogged from Fables and Flora

For the first time East Bay Open Studios will include several artists displaying artwork in the City of Dublin, California was part of the Dublin Arts Collective.

In order to introduce the various artists to the community until a suitable date for the face-to-face event can be scheduled participating artists have been invited to provide introductory videos.

I have uploaded my introductory video to "Fables and Flora" to YouTube! Watch and enjoy!

My passions for storytelling, community and all things floral collided in a blissful moment that urged me to encourage others to follow the paths where they seek to make a difference.

If you’re waiting for a sign to take a leap out of your comfort zone then please take a moment to view my TEDx Talk on YouTube – Community, Connection and the Art of Storytelling.

It’s not for everyone but it might just be for you.

A collaborative project supporting artistic and creative activity, awareness raising and community building in Dublin, California by engaging artists and makers and increasing the visibility of their artwork, products and services by providing a central hub for communication about art and related endeavors.

If you are an artist or maker in the City of Dublin please let us know what you are up to! Email dublinartca@gmail.com

A collaborative project supporting artistic and creative activity, awareness raising and community building in Dublin, California by engaging artists and makers and increasing the visibility of their artwork, products and services by providing a central hub for communication about art and related endeavors.

If you are an artist or maker in the City of Dublin please let us know what you are up to! Email dublinartca@gmail.com

Thanks to Seth Godin tomorrow marks the first annual RuckusMaker Day!

Tomorrow would have been Steve Jobs� 60th birthday and Seth describes his contribution as �having a point of view�.

He also explains that having a point of view and scheduling a time and place to say something is almost certainly going to improve your thinking, your attitude and your trajectory � and that a great way to do it is by blogging!

Today also marks the start of Social Media Week. My fellow flower-loving blogger Joyce Sullivan will be speaking at the conference in New York City too. What a great time to be inspired to blog!

I have a point of view � as you do and blogging certainly does give me the opportunity to share it with the world. While I share I also grow. I share about the things I care about it.

I share because I can�t help myself but get excited about the amazing experiences and people that life has brought my way.

I also read other blogs. I enjoy reading the tales that others have to tell.

Spoken-word poet Sarah Kay was stunned to find she couldn�t be a princess, ballerina and astronaut all in one lifetime. In her TED talk, she delivers two powerful poems that show us how we can live other lives.

When Sarah spoke about only being able to lead one life she captured the essence of why I love listening to people tell me their stories. These stories then often move me to write and often to take action to help others make a ruckus.

Naming this blog Fables and Flora was a chance to combine my passions of floral photography with stories I hear, see or read about or experience myself.

So enjoy the first RuckusMaker Day tomorrow! I would love to hear your stories about what you did!

As Seth says: Speak up. Not just tomorrow, but every day.

So yesterday was Super Bowl fever and 13 Movie Trailers made their debut during the ad slots � one of them being the infamous �Fifty Shades�. The book sold over 100 million copies and has been translated into 51 languages worldwide and although the trailer aired just yesterday it already has 382 520 hits. E.L. James (the pen name of Erika Leonard) must be loving it. Those stats are awesome and I have to admit that as a writer they make me rather envious!

The thing is though that Erika shipped. She started by writing fanfiction and she actually self-published Fifty Shades of Grey as an e-book in 2011. She had to be bold and brave. She had to take her turn. She wrote every day � even on her phone. She says she didn�t do anything else for two years.

The bestselling author even admits that her writing is not great and that she is stunned by the reaction it got. The entire book has been attributed to her midlife crisis.

So instead of being envious, her story has now inspired me. A suburban mom of two going through a midlife crisis who doesn�t have exceptional writing talent gets to write an international blockbuster!

What is your story?

That awesome feeling when you get to ask the photographer you most admire a question live on tv!

Anne Geddes joined HuffPost Live to talk about about her new e-book and campaign "Protecting Our Tomorrows: Portraits of Meningococcal Disease!

Her stunning emotive images of the 15 survivors will move you.

This week has been quite unusual at ours. My husband, Robin, and I have both participated in the #YourTurnChallenge to blog every day for a week, initiated by Winnie Kao, project lead for Seth Godin.

�Are you reading something Daddy wrote again? asked my son �You two have been doing a lot of writing this week!�

Indeed we have � we have been shipping with a group of like-minded individuals from across the globe � and it�s been awesome, frustrating, challenging and liberating.

I have had my floral photography blog for four years and have steadily plodded along. I�ve blogged because I love to share what I experience and what I care about.

When I first started blogging I was hooked on the stats. Was anyone reading it? Did it resonate with someone? Did people like what they saw?

When the stats remained dismal for the first year I was initially demotivated but then I changed my perspective. I realised that I was blogging because I enjoyed it, so I would just keep sharing things I felt passionate about.

I love it when people like my posts and send me comments. It�s a great way to connect and I usually comment on and follow their blogs too. Connecting is what makes social media social.

So my newest blog Junbi is steadily taking off. It has allowed me to connect with those I meet in other settings in a more in depth manner.

I had something different to talk about when I met another expat Mum in the park this morning and we chatted about blogging, martial arts and floral photography.

By being a brand advocate for Seth Godin I was also one for Kuk Sool Won, Tai Chi, Remarkable Runs, Fables and Flora, other challenge bloggers and myself! A very unique combination, generating chatter and making a ruckus.

Our kids got to see us committing to a challenge and shipping and they started writing their own thoughts too.

So we now have budding and blooming bloggers in one household! Congrats to all who joined the challenge this week and happy shipping on your journey forward!

While watching the news this morning there was a report about a weight-lifting Mum showing off her six pack and causing a firestorm. She did it by posting a photo with a caption on Instagram. It offended some and got support from others. It also made me think about a beautiful and thought-provoking song Try by Colbie Caillat.

To me the interesting thing about this story � it all happened because of a photograph.

Images tell a story like nothing else can. It�s why photography is fascinating and captivating.

I recently posted a floral photograph on my Facebook page. It was not an image I had thought much of but it got a significant response from my friends. We don�t always know what resonates with people in the art we produce but it�s great to know when a connection has been made.

What are you photographing today?

The conversation with my relocation adviser was about fifteen minutes in when we started talking about my LinkedIn profile summary. She took one look at it and said �You will have to remove the bit about the floral photography, recruiters don�t like flakey�.

Floral photography is my passion. Nothing ignites my soul like capturing the essence of a bloom in all it�s splendour. To have my art judged and demoted at a glance hurt.

Understandably the conversation rapidly deteriorated after that. If being passionate about floral photography made me flakey then so be it!

I would be a flakey artsy generalist instead of a boxed in, easily defined, scientific writer. If a recruiter didn�t like that I was flakey then they didn�t have work that would fuel my creative fire so that was no loss anyway.

I maintain that the world needs flakey! The world needs our authentic creative selves connecting with our passions to drive us into new realms of accomplishment.

You define who you are and you set the boundaries. Not conforming to expectations is not a bad thing. Sterilising the flakey is not a solution.

So be brave and be flakey! Live your passion and leave a legacy. I know I will.

There seem to be variations of the Greek myth pertaining to daffodils but generally the story goes that one day when Narcissus was tired and thirsty from hunting he came across a lake with water like silver. He knelt beside the lake and stooped down to drink, and saw his own image in the water. He stood gazing with admiration at his own beauty and fell in love with himself.

He was so entranced by his beautiful reflection that he returned daily and one morning, he fell into the lake and drowned. At the spot where he fell, a flower was born, which was called the Narcissus. Daffodils are named in honour of Narcissus. Initially I felt a bit sorry for him but since he had a reputation for shunning nymphs and maidens I felt he was rather fortunate to still get such a lovely flower named after him.

For the purposes of description, the daffodil is divided into two regions, the perianth (petals) and corona (cup). Although we usually picture the larger trumpet-flowered cultivars there are a variety of daffodil types. The petals are mostly yellow or white but there can be several variations in colour and size.

Since daffodils are popular as cut flowers and as a cultivated plant, thousands of cultivars have been bred by hybridizers and today cultivars have brightly coloured cups which may be yellow, white, pink, orange, red, green or a combination of these. I have encountered quite a bit of variation in the flowers both in their petals and cups when taking photographs.

The story of Narcissus did not end with his demise and it is said that upon his death the goddess of the forest appeared and found that the fresh water lake had been transformed into a lake of salty tears. The lake was sad because she could see in the depths of his eyes her own beauty reflected. We see the reflection of ourselves in the eyes of others we interact with and if we�re lucky � we will see something beautiful.