To become a member, click here or scroll down.   

Thoreau wrote about living deep and sucking the marrow out of life. Heron Dance is for people who want to suck the marrow out of life, and who are open to the proposition that the important insights, the big answers, live inside themselves. Sometimes deep inside. Art journaling and meditation are methods for people who want to reach and explore those depths.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear, nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.
       - Henry David Thoreau, Walden, “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For,” 1845

Beethoven kept a journal. Henry David Thoreau’s journals ran to well over one million words and formed the repository of thought out of which his books, including Walden, evolved. Highly-creative individuals use journals because they nurture our access to inner worlds, but whether we are artists or not, the combination of reflection and journaling can offer insights and perspectives supportive of living a full and meaningful life.

I live in the woods and create Journal Meditations of a Wild Artist. I consider it my honor and privilege to offer words and images of beauty to readers early each morning. It is beauty, but it can be challenging at times too. Heron Dance is for searchers.
       - Rod MacIver, artist, Heron Dance founder. Heron Dance was founded in 1994 as an expression of gratitude for the gift of life and the beauty and mystery of the natural world.

This Work Explores:

• the relationship between the inner journey and the creation of a life. The outer journey of your life develops, blossoms, out of your inner journey.
• using Art, Journaling and Meditation as ways to nurture our connection with our quiet interior: our resourcefulness, our creativity.
• connecting with our interior spirituality, wisdom and beauty.
• excerpts from the journals of physicists, poets, writers, thinkers and other highly creative people. Recent examples include Thoreau, Beethoven, Meridel LeSueur, Carl Jung, Emily Dickenson and John Steinbeck.

Underlying the creation of Journal Meditations and The Heron Dance Art Journal is the belief that below the push and pull of our everyday lives, and our reaction to all the commotion, there exists a reservoir of life experience and wisdom. That reservoir can guide us, can give us access to important truths, individual truths that emerge out of our own individual journey. The premise of this work, its art and journal notes, is that the combination of meditation and journaling can give us access to those insights and use them to shape the potentials of our lives. A life organized so that it takes into consideration the patterns of our past, and our unique potentials for the future, including creative potentials, is a different life than one spent reacting to this or that seemingly urgent demand or impulse.

The spiritual journey is one of continually falling on your face, getting up, brushing yourself off, looking sheepishly at God, and taking another step.
     - Aurobindo

Deep in your being you hold a vast reservoir of wisdom and knowledge that barely gets tapped as you live your busy life. Your inner world holds the rhythms of your psyche, the seeds of your destiny, and the flavor and fragrance of your unique self as it has been shaped and formed by the love of your Creator and the infinite wonder of creation. In short, your inner being holds your truth. This is the treasure that resides, hidden, within you. With love and coaxing, you can bring this treasure forward into your everyday life through the practice of deep imagery.
     - Jenny Garrison from her book, Imagery in You: Mining for Treasure in Your Inner World

Become a Member

Membership is offered either by:

• Subscribing to Journal Meditations of a Wild Artist, the daily e-journal. Each morning, usually at 4 am, Heron Dance emails a nature painting—a watercolor or acrylic ink painting—to members. Accompanying each painting is a reflection on the gentle arts of a well-lived life.
• Purchase of The Heron Dance Art Journal, a limited edition annual book of art and observations on living a life close to wild nature, a life that seeks to be its own work of art. This offering is an effort to create the most beautiful and meaningful work possible. Purchase of this work includes the daily e-journal.

Journal Meditations of a Wild Artist, The E-journal, Delivered Daily by Email and/or PDF (Approximately 13 cents a day). (Scroll down if you prefer to become a member by mail or phone.)

$4 a Month Recurring

$37 a Year Recurring

$37 One Time Contribution (Renewal Notice Sent In 12 Months)

The Meditations Journal Binder, one set of lined journaling paper, and five tabbed dividers, are included in your E-Journal Membership for all domestic addresses. You may find the binder useful for organizing your own journal notes and/or print-outs of the daily, monthly or quarterly PDFs that you will have free access too. We do not ship the binder and paper to Canada or other foreign addresses. For Foreign Subscribers (including Canada), we offer a discounted membership that does not include the binder. Visit here.

The Heron Dance Art Journal , An Annual Limited Edition Publication. The notes and reflections in Journal Meditations of a Wild Artist are taken a step further, a step deeper, in The Heron Dance Art Journal. It is approximately 200 pages of full color art, printed on the most beautiful recycled paper we can find, and hand bound in Smythe sewn (lay flat) bindings. (Scroll down if you prefer to purchase by mail or phone).

$200 Limited Time Pre-Publication Price

• Each book is signed and numbered. The edition is limited to 500 copies. Each comes with a slip case.
• The Art Journal will be printed in September and available in early October. Prior to publication, the Art Journal is offered at $200 each. After publication, the price will be $300.
• The daily e-journal, Journal Meditaitons of a Wild Artist, is included with purchase.
• Layaway options are available, please contact our office (802) 922-9652, or email us (heron@herondance.org) for details.
• We do not offer The Art Journal to foreign members including those living in Canada. (Instead, please visit here for a discounted e-journal membership for those outside the United States.)

Both Journal Meditations of a Wild Artist and The Heron Dance Art Journal include:

• a daily e-journal (delivered by email). You will be automatically signed up for this. To change, use the Update Subscription Preferences link on the bottom of every e-journal you receive.
• your choice of receiving a monthly or quarterly PDF of Journal Meditations of a Wild Artist instead of or in addition to the daily email, at no additional cost. Upon sign up, you will receive details on how to opt into or out of one or more of these formats.
• advance notice of new originals before they are offered in A Pause for Beauty.
• members can download free PDFs of recent quarters of Reflections of a Wild Artist (the predecessor to Art Journaling Daybook) including Maniacs Seeking the New Encounter, Simplicity is Profound, Art is About the Mystery and The Song I Came to Sing. Some members print these out and use them as part of a daily or weekly journaling practice. Visit Recent Quarters of Reflections (Free).
• free e-cards of Heron Dance Art Studio paintings.
• share your website with other members and visitors to the Heron Dance website.
• the free use of Heron Dance art for websites and self-published book covers, with proper credit.

To subscribe and become a member by mail or to purchase The Heron Dance Art Journal by mail:

HERON DANCE ART STUDIO
Hummingbird Lane
179 Rotax Road
North Ferrisburgh, VT 05473

To make a purchase, subscribe or become a member by email please message us at: heron@herondance.org.

To make a purchase, subscribe or become a member by phone, call 802.922.9652.

To order a gift subscription of Journal Meditations of a Wild Artist or the print publication, The Art Journal, enter your name under billing address during check out and send us an email with the recipient’s mailing and email address by clicking here. To send a gift announcement, please use one of our e-cards.

Additional items and information on journaling:

Binder Content Options:
A Poet’s Moods: Perspectives on Journaling	Lined Journal Paper	Premium Sketch Paper	Meditations Journal Binder to hold the The Art Journaling Daybook, A Poet’s Moods (Perspectives on Journaling), Lined Journaling Paper, Premium Sketch Paper

Sold Out: More To Be Available in late February 2012. To order the binder separately, add to cart below. Cost: $19.95. For a description of the binder, click here.

THANK YOU FOR BEING A PART OF THIS WORK!
We’re glad you’re along for the journey.

If a membership commitment is financially difficult, we invite you to receive our free weekly e-journal, A Pause for Beauty: