I absolutely love the Soulful Shout Out series here on Soul Speak! I get to highlight and introduce you to beautiful people and their wonderful offerings!
I love connecting people and sharing products that I love, and so I’m just thrilled to be able to do that each week with you here.
If you would like your product/website/service promoted here, please click here to read the details and then email me to apply. (I take what I share very seriously and will only share products and services that I am in alignment with.) Please note that we’re scheduling into May – so be sure to reserve your space soon!
And now, let’s get to this week’s beautiful soul and her inspiring offerings!
This week, I am featuring Ingrid Koivukangas from Eco Heart Retreats!
Ingrid and I met several months ago when she joined my Soul Shakers’ mastermind community. She has such a beautiful and giving spirit, and I am so grateful that our paths have crossed. She is an extraordinarily talented artist, and she has some amazing new oracle cards to tell you about (which we’ll talk about later). But first, I’m so happy to introduce you to her!
Welcome, Ingrid!
You are such a brilliant artist with a passion for our beautiful planet, and you have taken this passion and created a business out of it. Because this is so inspiring, I would love for you to share a bit about your journey so far with regard to following your soul’s purpose and bringing your dream to life.
Thank you for your kind words, Jodi. I was fortunate to be born into a Finnish family with a deep love and respect for the Earth. Many of my earliest memories are of being outdoors with my Dad teaching me about plants, birds, insects, and other animals. My grandparents, and both of my parents, taught me about the natural world and that all beings, even rocks and water, have a spirit and are sacred. They also taught me that there are beings we cannot see that live in the forest and around us and that we need to honour and respect them.
My first career was as a graphic designer, and although I loved the work – and still do – I felt a deep calling to do more. I wasn’t sure what that was, only that I had to somehow follow where it led me.
I went back to school, as a single parent with two children, to study art. It was during my third year of my BFA in a sculpture class held outdoors at the professor’s farm that I started to make art that really spoke to my spirit, that was a true expression of my soul. I’d never seen work like I made that day, directly at a site made out of sticks and rocks, leaves and grass found there. I didn’t know that this type of work was called environmental art. That day a seed that had lain dormant within my soul began to grow.
I’d always been intuitive and psychic, even as a child, and these abilities began to blossom when I started to work at sites creating work in response to the land and the spirit energies living there. I’d been told many times that I could become a psychic if I wanted to, but it never felt quite right to use my gifts in that way. Working with the Earth and walking between worlds as a messenger just feels right at a deep soul level.
I loved my work as an environmental artist actively exhibiting in galleries and creating public site works for the first 12 years. During this time I was also teaching, which I loved…it was my way of giving back to the college where I first started as a student. But I slowly began to feel the same restlessness and deep calling to do more. I wasn’t exactly sure what that was or how it would arrive. I was aware of this deep call but kept pushing it aside.
I made the decision to move to Salt Spring Island (in Canada) within 24 hours of first visiting. When I first arrived here and drove off the ferry I was overwhelmed by the sense that every tree on the island was greeting me. I was literally in tears….I felt like I was finally home. I made the decision to move here from a deep and intuitive part of my being. I didn’t question it or hesitate, and I was completely moved within three weeks. Yes, there was a part of me that said: “This is crazy what are you doing! You quit your job, gave up your studio and apartment.” I just knew that I had to let go of everything and start again. I didn’t understand how fully I would be required to let go. I thought that I would move here and start to run workshops and continue creating public art but from a different home base. Moving locations wasn’t the answer to my sense of having to find a new way.
There’s a saying here that the island chooses people and then changes them, and if you don’t change then you leave the island. That has certainly been my experience. My first house was completely mold infested, and I was emergency moved out after five weeks. My second was also moldy. I was very sick from the mold for a couple of years. I wasn’t able to continue working 16 hour days as I was used to. I stopped making art and just started “being.” It’s from this place of deep and profound loss and illness that my life began to transform. The mold was just the messenger – I hadn’t been listening to and honouring my deep sense of needing to change to answer the deeper call of my soul.
Eco Heart Retreats is what has emerged from this cocooning time of introspection and magical transformation.
I think it’s so beautiful that you have taken this hard situation (being so sick with all of the mold) and turned it into a blessing – by seeing that it helped lead you to your soul’s calling.
What advice would you offer to someone who is clear about what their calling is but isn’t quite sure what steps to take to make it come true?
When you already know what you are here to do, the best thing you can do is just start. Don’t wait for the perfect time, the perfect location, the perfect everything. Find your people, the places/spaces that will nurture and shelter your dreams. Find people who have already been on a similar journey and look for a mentor. Join a mastermind group like Soul Shakers or Leonie Dawson’s Amazing Biz and Life Academy.
I would encourage everyone to pursue the calling that lies hidden in their souls. To follow that sense of knowing but not knowing…the mystery of why you’re here and who you really are. Everyone is here for a very specific reason with their own magic to contribute to the world. Following that sense of knowing calls for you to suspend disbelief and to trust your intuition and inner guidance. Even when you don’t know where the path is leading you just remember to stay out of your own way and allow the Universe to guide you to your higher purpose. When you can remember that it’s not about your ego self but about your heart, your soul, then you begin to attract the people and events that will help to guide you from step to step.
Beautifully said! 🙂
I can feel your love so deeply for our planet – could you share with us some of the ways that you celebrate being here on Earth (rituals, sacred ceremonies, meditation, being of service, being present, travelling, etc.)?
I’ve always said that going to the forest, into nature, is my church. It’s the place I feel the most myself, where I remember that I am interwoven with all beings, with all dimensions and times.
When I’m out with my camera taking photographs I become one with the natural world…I forget that I am separate. I truly begin to worship the incredible beauty and perfection of nature that I am so privileged to experience.
I smudge to clear energy and I meditate when I am seeking answers.
Huge congratulations to you on creating Eco Heart Magazine! It’s absolutely beautiful and filled with so much heart, and I was honored to be included in your first issue.
Your second issue is just about to come out, and I would love for you to share what’s included. Also, please share how this came about and what it means to you to have it out in the world!
I’m honoured that you were a partner in the premiere issue of Eco Heart Magazine! One of my callings as an environmental artist is to reconnect people with the Earth, with Nature, with unseen energies…with magic.
With a background in art, design, and publishing it’s a natural fit for me to create a magazine that not only brings readers a unique awareness of the environment and the world around them but also helps to support and facilitate other healers and heart-centered businesses in a variety of fields from all over the world.
The articles and ideas shared are inspirational and informative. The contributors are international in scope and work in many different areas of interest and modalities.
The spring issue of Eco Heart, publishing March 12, includes topics ranging from animal communication and astrology for your business to crystal healing and marketing with heart to having a special-needs child to communicating with your soul and much more!
This issue features many wonderful writers, including: Anna Doogan, Carole Audet, Lisa Manyon, Martine Joseph, Sue Kearney, and Renee Avard.
If someone wants to contribute to future issues, how would they go about doing that?
If your business is heart-centered, soul healing, and you’re interested in being a partner in the next issue of Eco Heart Magazine please send a short email, with links to your website, to: ingrid@EcoHeartRetreats.com. If you’re interested in advertising with us please email ads@EcoHeartMagazine.com.
Your Eco Heart Retreat next month sounds absolutely amazing and definitely perfect for spring! Please tell everyone what you’re planning and how they can join you!
Eco Heart Retreats combines all of my experience as an artist, teacher, writer, and energy worker to guide virtual eco retreats that will reconnect you with nature, your heart, your inner guidance, and your knowing. The theme of each workshop retreat is unique but they all share similarities such as working with chakras and subtle energies, guided meditations, sound, art making, journaling, yoga, body movement, and an integration with technology via video, audio, and images. You can participate in Eco Heart Retreats from the privacy of your own home and from anywhere you may be in the world.
Reconnect with Nature: Reactivate Your Heart Energy will be available on Sunday, March 23, 2014 but you can participate at any time, from anywhere. This retreat is centered on renewal and can be done at any time of year that you’re wanting to invite a new or fresh beginning.
My deepest wish is that through participating in the sacred act of being in retreat—allowing yourself time to rest, to breathe—that you will also reconnect to the inner knowing that you carry in your heart and with the deep memories of your sacred connections to the Earth and all living beings. This rediscovery of your own beautiful sacredness will begin to shift your energy field and raise your vibration of Love and Light.
Click here to learn more about this retreat!
What does your soul want you to know?
My soul wants me to know that I am a perfect being created from and deeply connected to source energy.
Is there anything else you would like to share?
I recently had a dream about my Dad who passed away just after Christmas. In the dream he was standing and waiting for me, under a huge oak tree, in a big beautiful open field filled with amazing colours. He was a young man again, healthy, happy and vibrant. I was suddenly a young child again and he picked me up and was holding me. He said that he had come to tell me that it was safe for me to follow my dreams, to dream big, to allow my soul to shine brightly. He said don’t waste any more time doubting your heart and your soul. There is absolutely nothing to fear.
I hope that his message speaks as loudly and clearly to your heart as it does to mine.
It definitely does – such a beautiful message and a beautiful gift that you were given.
I know that it’s long been a dream of yours to create an oracle card deck, and I’m just so happy for you that you’ve taken steps to make this dream a reality! Could you please share more about this deck and also why it means so much to you?
The Eco Heart Oracle deck has been in process over the last 15 years – the cards are my way of bringing forward and sharing information from the natural world. All of our ancient ancestors understood that we are all deeply inter-connected and intertwined with everything and every living being in the natural world. My hope through creating these cards is to provide a way for users to access these deep and sacred memories that we each carry within us. The Earth and all her creatures desperately need us to remember, and honour, the sacred connections we share with all living beings.
Ingrid has just started a fundraising campaign to print this beautiful card deck, and I asked her to share more about it.
I just watched your video for your fundraising campaign to have the cards printed, and I was absolutely blown away (but not at all surprised) by how beautiful the artwork is on each card. You have outdone yourself! Please share more about how this campaign works and how others can support you and also receive one of your decks plus other goodies!
The artwork for the cards is pretty much finished – just needing a few tweaks – and the deep meditations for each card have begun. These meditations along with direct experiences working at sites with each of the beings represented in each card will be included in the 150 page booklet that is part of the deck.
The cost of printing 1000 copies of the 48 card decks, with corresponding instruction booklet and the lidded box is over $8,500. Because it’s so important that I bring these cards into the world, I would love everyone’s help to make it happen! I just started a crowd funding campaign that goes for the next 45 days!
(You can see the cards and learn more about how you can pre-order them and support Ingrid at the same time by watching the video below.)
This fundraising campaign will go for 45 days, and it’s Ingrid’s dream that she will pre-sell enough card decks during that time to be able to have the decks printed and bring her long-held dream to life!
These decks are absolutely gorgeous, and I would love for all of us to support Ingrid in reaching her dream and also support ourselves by being able to use this beautiful deck!
Thank you so much, Ingrid, for sharing your heart with us!
Be sure to download Ingrid’s free magazine, check out her upcoming retreat, and pre-order your oracle card deck!
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Big hug,
