Debbie Hartmann shares the incredible stories of her photography projects that helped her mum as she was experiencing Parkinson's disease and Dementia and her friend with brain cancer. Debbie turned her creativity into positive, fun projects that lift both her and others during difficult times in a natural and intuitive way. Her enthusiasm for life and helping others is contagious. This episode is possibly one of the most heartwarming stories of humanity and love tied up in photography projects. Debbie is an extraordinary person who always seeks out the positives in life and allows herself to connect naturally to who she is and use that in her photography. She finds beauty everywhere and recently set out on a photography project to better help her "like" the harsh Minnesota winters. Please take a look at her projects and beautiful photography on her website.

https://www.heyhartmann.com/

In this episode, I take a reflective winter walk in January's snowfall to share my thoughts on slowing down and the challenge of balancing that with content creation.

Substack has given me one cohesive platform where I can share my writing, images, video and audio and that has helped me feel less overwhelmed. This episode is about my journey towards a more fulfilling, less pressured approach to sharing my life and work. And how that has brought about my concept of visual meditations. If you’d like to write in to tell me about something that is challenging for you right now, I would love to be able to create a meditation for you ( anonymous) Just email me at margaret@margaretsoraya.com

I also outline 3 ways in which sharing your work on substack is helpful, even if you don’t have big aims to write for business, followers or monetisation:

1/Help encourage you to write more - a place to write and a place to publish.

2/ Learning to practice putting things out into the world and gaining confidence through doing.

3/ Finding community; people around us to motivate and uplift us.

Finally, I share my plans for a future writing retreat in Wales with Sean Tucker and more details for the Creative Light Festival in Harris in October 2025.

Some Links that may be helpful

Creative Festival

Writing Retreat

Substack / Newsletter

Dear readers, I hope you enjoy this meditation, which I wrote while thinking about a time of year when there can be many pressures. It is accompanied by a video from my home in Harris, and the music was a commissioned piece by Will Collant.

Sending love, Margaret