TGIF 6: Big News under1000skies

Posted on December 24, 2016 by Niki Flow

I hope you’re having a beautiful day. ♡
Here’s what’s happening this week on ¤ under1000skies ¤

This week we featured three photos from Alisa Reagan

SONY DSC

and one from Niki Flow

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Thank you for donating your beautiful photos! ♡

NEWS

We have purchased under1000skies.com and under1000skies.org!

During 2017, we will be working to build both websites and have them up and running as soon as possible. As you may have read, thanks to Bay Area Web Designers, we received a free year of hosting for our Domestic Violence advocacy and survivor site, Moonsongs.net which will go live by the end of March. This will be a sister site to under100oskies.org. Very often, women and children who are victims of domestic violence and other violent crimes become homeless.

Taos NM – Ben Archer

One of our photographers and volunteer coordinator, Niki Flow, spent years with her youngest son homeless. Niki lost her home and the contents of her home due to DV and stalking. Most of that time, she and her son did not spend on the street but in DV shelters, with friends and family. Domestic violence was also the cause of the death of her youngest son, Samuel Christopher. Since then, Niki and her two older sons, Benjamin and Joseph, have been passionate about helping those who are homeless and who have been through trauma become — not just survivors — but a strong, connected tribe of thrivers.

under1000skies-org-mousepad

We’ll be using the Under1000skies.com site for our new store (coming soon!), and 100 percent of the profits from our products sold there will go to buy artist packs. We’ll be selling things like cards, stationary and mouse pads using Niki Flow’s heart-people drawings, like the one above. The under1000skies.org site is where we’ll have our artist gallery and daily photos.

TGIF: What It Really Means

T.his G.orgeous (Planner) I.s F.ree!

00000001-the-handmade-home-journal-free-2017

This weeks TGIF is a cool #freebiefriday thanks to Liz Stevens Art. She tweeted this today:

Thanks to @thehandmadehome for this gorgeous FREE printable planner that I’ve been using for 3 years

The Handmade Home 2017 Planner

I can’t wait to print this and start using it. Such a beautiful gift to the world! *cheering wildly* Thanks so much Ashley and Liz!! ♥

What Do You Find Joyful? Beautiful?

The theme for the month of December is “joy.” If you have a favorite quote about “joy,” please leave a comment! As always, we would love to feature your creative visions. When we show each other what we find beautiful, we get a glimpse into each others’ hearts.

May you find joy every day.

♡. under1000skies

Gems 2.65

Posted on November 17, 2016 by Niki Flow

I hope you’re having a beautiful day. ♡
Here’s another light-filled ¤ Gem ¤

Painting, “Dark Phoenix” by Marvel, Inc.

#18* in the “Divine Feminine” series. In October and November we’ll be featuring quotes about, for and by women. Inspired by the Awakin.org call with Elle Luna, author The Crossroads of Should and Must. See also Aphrodite Emerges on Medium.com and “#the100dayproject” on Instagram. Neither an original nor a contributed painting, this quote and image are among my favorites. This is also truly great advice, especially for women and men who are naturally gifted, or deeply in touch, with the divine feminine – both History’s greatest healers.

*This was also #7. Really sorry about the repeat! We’ve updated Gems 2.54 with a different photo since this was posted as a “last day” message on our Facebook #Light-FilledGems page We’re moving to a new page on Facebook: @Under1000skies

We welcome submissions of poetry, prose, art and/or photos. See our About page for more information.

¤ Gems 2.19 ¤

Posted on February 19, 2016 by Niki Flow

I hope you’re having a beautiful day. ♡
Here’s another light-filled ¤ Gem ¤

food detective in training

“He was a bold man* that first ate an oyster.”
Jonathan Swift

*or woman 😉

______________

The Gems Project

¤ Gems 2.18 ¤

Posted on February 18, 2016 by Niki Flow

I hope you’re having a beautiful day. ♡
Here’s another light-filled ¤ Gem ¤

Yesterday, my friend Mel shared the perfect response we can give to negativity — both to the voices we sometimes hear both in our minds and to negativity from others:

“No person, place, or thing has any power over me unless I give it, for I am the only thinker in my mind. I have immense freedom in that I can choose what to think. I can choose to see life in positive ways instead of complaining or being mad at myself or other people. Complaining about what I do not have is one way to handle a situation, but it does not change anything. When I love myself and find myself in the midst of a negative situation, I can say something such as, I am willing to release the pattern in my consciousness that contributed to this condition. I have made negative choices in the past, but this does not mean that I am a bad person, nor am I stuck with these negative choices. I can always choose to let go of the old judgements.” -Louse Hay, author of You Can Heal Your Life.

Humor helps dissolve negativity too. One day I decided to personify the negative voices in my head. Here’s the Ring Leader. He might look familiar.

“LB-NST5” by Niki Flow / Jazztizz Creations

Next, I wrote a tongue-in-cheek, go-to-hell poem to these characters. I dubbed the collective set of voices “The Cacophony Chorus (emphasis on PHONY)”The Cacophony Chorus Identified

It was a lot of fun and it really helped, too.

Two ideas for remembering how awesome you are. You really are, you know.

♡

¤ Gems 2.17 ¤

Posted on February 18, 2016 by Niki Flow

I hope you’re having a beautiful day. ♡
Here’s another light-filled ¤ Gem ¤

My beautiful little sis recently started sending me little notes every morning. I wake up now and look for them. I really enjoy that spark and love connection every day. So I had an idea. During the days or weeks between artist / photographer contributions, I thought you might enjoy receiving an archived Rx-for-Healing inspirational graphic every day.

Today’s Gem is about gardens. Three days ago, I saw my first robin of the year outside my window and thought, “It’s almost spring!” Then I saw another and another! Soon my family and I were crowded by the window watching a flock of robins on both side of the street.

The message was clear: “SPRING IS COMING!”

Garden Cicero

Created with love by Niki Flow / Jazztizz Creations

If you’d like to receive these every M-F by email, please send me a message or leave a comment below. If you would like to contribute photos or artwork to be featured on Under 1000 Skies and linked social media (Facebook, Tumblr, G+, Twitter, Pinterest, and KindSpring) please do let me know. I would love to feature your work.

The Gems Project

Posted on February 15, 2016 by Niki Flow

I hope you’re enjoying our featured photos and artwork. We are now linked with Volunteer Biographers and have recently launched an exciting photography/art project:

♡ When we show each other what we find beautiful,

we get a glimpse into each other’s hearts. ♡

Though everyone is welcome to contribute photos and/or artwork, we are currently working with artists who are between homes (homeless). The challenge: “Show me what you find beautiful.” When we know what another person finds beautiful, we get a glimpse into their creative hearts. Our creative hearts connect us instantly and joyously. Every contributor, follower, volunteer, and artist will be a co-creator in this connection.

So far we have three volunteers working in San Francisco, Denver and Philadelphia. If you are interested, please leave a comment below. As soon as we have our website up, we’ll have a contact email and a Artist/Volunteer forum for Q&A.

(More here on our About page.)

To kick off the Gems Project, Sara Michele O’Sullivan (Niki Flow) will donate 100 percent of the profits from her book, Elanthian Love Songs – A Bard’s Tale – a collection of 21 love- and story-poems, featuring the beautiful paintings of Stephanie Pui-Mun Law.

final cover large

Thanks for reading.

♥. Niki Flow

☼ Gems 2.4 ☼

Posted on January 7, 2016 by Niki Flow

I hope you’re having a beautiful day. ♡
Here’s another light-filled ¤ Gem ¤

Gems 2.4

☼ Gems 1.61 ☼

Posted on November 10, 2015 by Niki Flow

Gems 1.16

Posted on September 22, 2015 by Niki Flow

Happy Hobbit Day! Gems today celebrates fitness, fun, JRR Tolkien, Middle Earth and all things hobbit. It’s also an invitation to a 21-day Walking challenge in collaboration with Wild Dream Walks on Kind Spring. It runs from September 23-October 6. All welcome!