Heron Dance Art Studio Creates Journals That Explore
Issues at the Center of Living
A Quality Life
An Interesting Life
A Big Life
A Creative Life
. . .
Just as an acorn contains in its unconscious the dream of the oak tree and that dream expresses the coming into being of the oak tree, working with a person, we have to have a method of drawing forth what is in the seed of the person, the unlived potentials.
- Ira Progoff, At A Journal Workshop
An acorn contains within it the dream of a mighty oak.
A life journey, a creative journey, grows out of the seed of one’s song.
We need that song from you, the song that only you can sing.
. . .
Free Substack E-Journals:
In addition to the books Heron Dance publishes, it also offers two weekly e-journals based on the preliminary drafts of upcoming books.
Nurturing the Song Within chronicles the efforts of an artist to manifest a new creative vision, one that is more abstract and impressionistic than his earlier work. This e-journal contains excerpts from the artist’s own journal entries, as well as a discussion of the work of other artists and writers from which he is drawing inspiration.
A Pause for Beauty celebrates the beauty and mystery of wild nature, and of life.
Both e-journals are free though donations in support of all of the work of Heron Dance are greatly appreciated. There are a number of member thank you gifts.
Our upcoming book:
September 2nd, Heron Dance will launch a Kickstarter campaign to fund the printing of this book. There will be a number of premiums associated with this campaign including signed first editions, art prints and other bonuses. You can keep up-to-date on developments on Kickstarter here.
These mockups are from the book we’re currently working on.
To see our last book, Nurturing The Song Within, scroll down.
September 2nd, Heron Dance will launch a Kickstarter campaign to fund the printing of this book. There will be a number of premiums associated with this campaign including signed first editions, art prints and other bonuses.
You can keep up-to-date on developments on Kickstarter here.
Reader Reviews
Books we are currently working on:
• Meditations on Gratitude: The Beauty And Mystery of Life
• Meditations On Nature: The Beauty Of Wild Places
• Meditations On Creativity: Creativity as a way of life
• The Poetry of Tao Zen Mountain Hermits: Finding the Inner Silence
• The Wisdom Of Backwoods Wanderers — Thoreau, Emerson, Muir, Sigurd Olson, Aldo Leopold, John Burroughs.
• Journaling — Nurturing The Seed That Seeks To Manifest
Examples Of Books Previously Published
Books Completed In 2024
Nurturing The Song Within Art Journal.
Nurturing The Song Within Diary Planner
. . .
. . . the devotion required to construct such a work is inspirational in itself. A multifaceted and heartfelt exploration of creative life.
- Kirkus Review. . .
Information below and here.
Books Published In Earlier Years
The Heron Dance Book Of Love And Gratitude
Meditations on Nature, Meditations On Silence
Art As A Way Of Life
Thoreau And The Art Of Life
The Man Who Planted Trees
Wild Waters And The Tao
Simplicity Is Profound
The Song I Came To Sing
Art Is About The Mystery
Earth My Likeness, The Nature Poetry Of Walt Whitman
Pausing For Beauty, The Heron Dance Poetry Diary
More information here.
The time and care put into these books, and the quality of the printing and binding utilized, affects what we must charge, so we also publish a free e-journal, A Pause For Beauty, based on extensive excerpts from the books we create.
Sign up here.
It’s free though we gratefully accept donations in support of the work of Heron Dance.
You can support Heron Dance here:
Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature,
but every end is a beginning, and under every deep a lower deep opens.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
. . .
There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.
- Albert Einstein
. . .
One’s art goes as far and as deep as one’s love goes, and there is no reason for painting but that.
- Andrew Wyeth
All that matters is what you love
and what you love is who you are . . .
- John Squadra, This Ecstasy
. . .
Man does indeed know intuitively more than he rationally understands. The question, however, is how we can gain access to the potentials of knowledge contained in the depth of us, how we can achieve increased capacities of direct intuition and enlarged awareness. Just as an acorn contains in its unconscious the dream of the oak tree, we have to have a method of drawing forth what is in the seed, the still unlived potentials of the person.
- Ira Progoff, At a Journal Workshop
Two Heron Dance books about living a life of beauty, creating work of beauty:
Nurturing The Song Within Art Journal And Diary / Planner
Nurturing The Song Within Art Journal: 188 pages of paintings and reflections on the beauty and mystery of wild nature, of life. The book also explores the inner work that underlies creative work and creating a unique life. This is a hardcover book printed by a high quality art book printer on high-quality paper with Smyth sewn layflat binding — the highest standard in art book printing. Less expensive softcover and PDF editions are also available.
Nurturing The Song Within Diary Planner: Designed to work with the Art Journal, it provides room for notes, objectives, plans, appointments and an exploration of the underlying current, individual to you, that is guiding you perhaps without your full awareness. Published quarterly. Two pages per day including a painting.
More here.
A person’s life purpose is nothing more than to rediscover, through the detours of art, or love, or passionate work, those one or two images in the presence of which his heart first opened.
- Albert Camus
