12 Years of Blogging!

Wow! I’m celebrating 12 years of blogging on WordPress. In 2009 I started a blog out of frustration with life circumstances. Can you resonate with looking for someone (including yourself) who can genuinely appreciate creative efforts?

My desire to reach out to the internet was in the hopes of finding help and helping myself too! By broadcasting publicly my attempt to improve my art and myself, I believed someone was listing – and most importantly, a higher power! Today, 1,200+ posts and 23 gigs of media later, I look back on the last 12 years’ significant accomplishments, and I appreciate my past efforts. I’m going to share some highlights in the post.

💖 THANK YOU to family, clients, friends, and fans who make this work possible. 💖
Happy to have over 1500 followers in this virtual world!

Selfies from 2009 – 2012

From 2019 to 2012, I started doing freelance graphic work. OMG, I was nervous about negotiating to price and talking about projects! I transitioned to doing it full time over these three years. BUT, it was not by choice. I was laid off from my full-time gig at the end of 2011, and chance and fate and destiny seemed to take over my life. Besides the shock of losing my job and having to downsize my big art studio and home into one room, highlights included:

Starting to play with new iPhone and iPad devices.
Getting a convertible and my best friend Lucky dog.
Learning to hula hoop and participating in many local art festivals.

Selfies 2014-2018

By 2014 I was living in a beautiful WAV apartment in Ventura that is an artist community. I got my cat Luna while at the WAV. She is so sweet and a yin and yang pet combo of my dreams. I continued doing freelance work, added public speaking and teaching, and starting volunteering to do marketing for the community. I was also accruing debt – lol. Circumstances did not allow me to stay at WAV, and I took the opportunity, and loans, to downsize my life again in a room and start an MA program. I loved graduate school, and I learned SO much. 2017 was a fantastic year for me!! After finishing school, I got a full-time job as Assistant Director of the Wildling Museum.

Mitra at Pacifica Graduate Institute in front of Photograph. 2015

Selfies 2019-2020

I decided to leave my full-time job in 2019 because it had no growth opportunities, and I am a high achiever! It was like oil and water that do not mix, so I was back to looking for work after a year of full-time paychecks (that was hard to give up!). Fortunately, 2019 was fun of travel and fun! Then 2020 hit, and we all know this was not a year of traveling.

I’ve spent this year developing my spiritual practice and refining my creative voice. I’ve lost people very close to me, and I continue to deepen my faith through challenges. I’m feeling good about myself and at peace with the uncertainty of life. After 12 years of blogging about my random creative adventures, I finally am feeling focused. My freelance business, Foreverbird Studio, is keeping the bills paid, and I’ve been blessed with some fantastic creative projects and collaborators.

My posts on this blog will continue to focus on personal development, tarot, and visual art symbology. I hope you enjoy the work I share as much I enjoy sharing it. The blogging and tarot community online encompasses so much that I love. If you do enjoy my blog, drop a comment, and let me know! I do curate the content based on feedback in likes and comments, and views.