The story behind EarthPainting

In 2010, a few months after losing my first baby daughter Emilie – who lived only for a few hours after birth – I was experiencing a conscious breathing session when a clear vision came.

An immense wave rose before me. If my first instinct was to flee, a quiet voice said to me: stay. Breathe. Trust.

What unfolded was extraordinary.

I saw myself in the heart of a lush forest. Around me, a whole village was gathered in a circle – women, men, children, elders – each doing something with their hands. Some were grinding soils into pigments. Others were collecting branches and feathers to make brushes. A cauldron bubbled over a fire, transforming plants into liquid color. Women carried vessels of river water to the center. Elders chanted. Drums pulsed. The air smelled of spices. I was co-creating too and knew deeply that the light, the warmth of the sun and the soft gaze of the moon would have co-create with us.

It was not a simple craft. It was a ceremony. Art at its most alive – where every element of the natural world was participant, a spirit to co-create with, not material.

And then, clear as a bell, a name bloomed in my heart: EarthPainting.

In the Andean tradition, there is a concept called “Ayni” – the sacred balance of giving and receiving. Nothing exists alone, everything live in interdependence. When we receive, we must also give. When we give back, life finds a way to return the gift. This felt like the heart of what I had seen: EarthPainting as an act of reciprocity, a living celebration of beauty and wonder in a time of grief.

I did not rush to share it. I was in my loss and I needed time to heal first. To soften. To become whole again. And the practice waited inside me, asking for patience… and a great time of personal practice.

When my second daughter Anaïs was born some years later – she is 11 years old now – and we spent several weeks together in a small hospital room when she was 16 months, and there I understood something new: I wasn’t called to travel to sacred sites across the world to fulfill the mission in this moment of my life. I had to root it here – in motherhood, in daily life, in the small gestures that carry the extraordinary.

EarthPainting became, first, a way to grieve and to feel life in a moment of loss, my own spiritual and artistic practice, and after it became a way to play with my child. A way to celebrate too. Then, a transmission I could share and teach.

Today it is practiced in schools, festivals, therapy spaces, corporate settings, sacred ceremonies, and forest circles. But its roots are still in that vision. Still in that wave. Still in the potency of the cycles of life.