Warming the Stone Artist at Soul Food

The Soul Food Way
Renewal and Reinvention

The Soul Food Cafe is propelled by a myth. The Princess and the Muse became the myth Heather Blakey lived by and The Soul Food Cafe is the place she retreats to in order to be with her Muse. Within the safety of The Soul Food Cafe Heather Blakey has renewed her creativity, reinvented and named herself. These days she wears her creativity on her sleeve!

The Princess in The Princess and the Muse experiences a depression which is familiar to many artists. Artists and writers who are made to feel worthless because they do not earn enough money, whom are forced to relinquish their creativity or create in stolen time, suffer similarly.

Mental darkness of the kind the Princess experiences creeps upon individuals gradually and unobtrusively. Many would be artists have been subject to a slow process of pasteurisation and calcification with rationalists systematically purifying the irrational, the primitive and the unwanted raw emotions.

The good news is that individuals who work within the Soul Food community come to understand that the creative flame is eternal and learn that when they engage in a cycle of renewal they are able to reinvent themselves and discover new aspects of their creativity.

In an article entitled Zen and the Art of Team Blogging you can learn how individuals have been transformed at Soul Food.

This directory is here to guide you to material on the site which will help warm the internal artist.

Words of Warmed Artists

The tables at Soul Food are filled with patrons who know that to perfect their craft they must come to the page on a daily basis. Soul Food provides a wholesome range of innovative prompts that fire imagination and ensure a stream of swiftly flowing words.

Warning notice

Soul Food can be addictive--exhausting--may cause utter confusion and a feelings of bewilderment. Soul Food is huge and constantly expanding! You can never catch up so please don't try. I also belong to FlyLady.com who tells everyone, "You're not behind, I don't want you to catch up, just jump in where we are now."

It's a great philosophy for Soul Food and all of life; wherever you are, you're bound to be in the middle of your continuing story! Riversleigh is a wonderful place to relax and get your bearings. Have you noticed what a beautiful room you've been given? Does it have a balcony, or perhaps a fireplace, maybe it has a secret entrance.

Many of us have more than one room at Soul Food, depending on where our adventures take us. I have a couple so perfectly pictured that when you can't find me, you'll know I've retreated there to rest and catch my second wind. Soul Food is sometimes full of frenetic activity, but it's also a place where you can choose to leave the real world (and this one) behind to seek out your own serenity through meditation, guided imagery, a box of chocolate or a soothing herbal bath (yep, we even have a blog for that!)

So, take your vitamins and put on your running shoes if you wish, but remember, you're here to grow in talent and spirit, to be acknowledged and applauded for your efforts, to encourage new friends and to enjoy the many worlds of the Soul Food Cafe so do it your way and have fun! Welcome!
Barbara Banta

The aptly named Soul Food Cafe is my colourful haven in a relentless life of monotone daily grind. Heather Blakey and her Musers have given me the courage to write, to dream and to re-evaluate myself in kinder and more creative terms. Heather's website is my number one choice for writer resources, and it's forums provide a gentle place in which to test writer's fledgling wings.
Nicole Cody

"The Soul Food Café one of the most beautiful web sites I’ve seen. Being there, in the site, is something like being under water, looking up at the sun’s rays reflecting off the blue liquid." Tony Anthony

The purpose of this site is to promote writing and creative pursuits as a daily practice. We at the Author's Quill can not say enough about this wonderful site and highly recommend that you pay it a visit and experience the magical world contained within for yourself.
Author's Quill

Welcome to this 'field of dreams.' You'll will find that whenever you visit there'll be artists; picture takers, poets, painters, and story tellers, ready to stimulate the muse. Vi Jones

HOW did I NOT find this site BEFORE? Not only is it about journaling, Muses, and creativity, but it's practical, well-written, and has stuff on VISUAL JOURNALS!! There is, literally, enough stuff here to keep you busy until your favorite pen has gone the way of the Dodo. A MUST SEE site of 2003, in our not-so-humble-royal opinion.
IN(ner) QUESTION

WRITERS' block.....

It is a terrible thing. It can inflict bouts of frustration on school students and professional writers alike.

But English teacher, Heather Blakey has found a way to make writing more stimulating for students. Mrs Blakey unlocks the creative juices in her students by using visual aids.

"It provides students with a reason to learn. I sprinkle a bit of magic into the learning process," Mrs Blakey says.

"For example, I'll bring in a box of shoes cut out from magazines and each student uses it as a visual trigger to stop writer's block."

"We get the mannequins and we decorate them and arm them to help with the study of text."

Mrs Blakey has been a teacher for more than 30 years and is in the perfect position to know how students work. Her website not only helps unlock creativity in students but anybody who is having trouble finding their muse.

A number of primary schools have invited Mrs Blakey to teach her methods to students.

from The Leader Newspaper: 2002

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