The Goddess Guide Book – Creativity, Soul & Business for women…

Hola gorgeous soul!

I’m Leonie, and I’m far too exuberantly overexcited to meet you!

So, you’ve come to zis page because you want to hear my story, yus?

I can give you ze OFFICIAL bio. And then a love letter one, from me to you. How does that sound?

Delicious? I KNOW RIGHT! It’s because we are SOULMATES!

(Speaking of soulmates, that adorable art of me above was made by darling Djuro!)

Before I get carried away, let’s do official, mmkay?

Official Bio

Leonie Dawson is an author, blogger, retreat leader, globe-trotter, visual artist, mama, and vessel of wild creativity & cosmic prosperity for the 20,000 Goddesses who orbit around her virtual altar each month. Leonie’s strategic musings & practical wisdom have been featured on Problogger, Tiny Buddha, spirituality magazines like Goddess, Spellcraft, Life Images and Spheres, and in three of SARK’s best-selling books on creative fulfillment & freedom.

Purposeful, passionate & unendingly prolific, Goddess Leonie published her first book at 22, held her first art show at 23, began leading women’s circles at 23, created her first retreat at 25, launched the Goddess Circle — a subscription-based women’s community for creatives of every color — at 27, and has guided 3,000 women through transformational Circle experiences over the past 3 years. She’s also released 5 e-courses — including her signature workshop for entrepreneurs, Become A Business Goddess — 4 meditation kits and 2 workbooks into the digital ether, building a multiple six-figure business in the process.

Leonie has walked labyrinths in the moonlight, wept atop mountains in the middle of a storm, danced with a baby in an old cow shed as a Filipino tribal chief sang, and once married herself in a public commitment ceremony — witnessed by goddess maidens of honor that she’d met on the Internet.

No stranger to praise, applause & offerings of gratitude, Goddess Leonie has been called an “illuminated creator,” “inspiring, wise and oh-so-talented,” a “healer, guide and sacred teacher” — and she’s here to help you bring your soul-stirring dream into reality, and become the Goddess you were born to be.

Swirl into her world at GoddessGuideBook.com, watch Goddess TV, snap up your own free Goddess in 10 Minutes Kit, or play together jubilantly at Twitter or Facebook.

And now the love letter!!!!

I can give you the dot points & the long version. And you can choose what one works for you, yus?

Goddess Leonie in dot point magic:

• Full time blogger/goddess guide
• In love with a very spunky Scorpio man named Chris
• Mama to a luminous bright light named Ostara (she also happens to be woah cute!)
• Location independent in gorgeous tropical paradise in Australia
• Writer, artist, creator, retreat maker
• Totally adores helping women remember they are goddesses.
• Have coached over 3000 women how to discover the creative, wise, joyful goddess inside them.
• Featured in a number of books including SARK’s best-selling “Juicy Pens, Thirsty Paper”, “Fabulous Friendship Festival” and “Glad No Matter What.” I’ve been featured in magazines including Goddess, Spellcraft, Life Images and Spheres.

Some of my dreams come true:

• I fell in love at first sight when I was 18, and had the courage to ask the love of my life out on a date… it’s been ten years of love since then!
• I thought I might want to self publish a book when I was 22. A month later, I did it.
• I’ve sold artwork all around the globe, & had my first solo art exhibition at 23.
• When I was 25, I knew I needed to run my own three day retreat. And I did it – and it was one of the most powerful experiences of my life.
• I’ve always had visions of a little blonde haired daughter who would come to find me. And she did. We opened our arms wide to receive her. When I was pregnant, she kept telling me her name was Ostara of the Light. And so she is. Her name is Ostara Faith Avalon.
• I’d always dreamed I’d be able to move back to my homelands. And we did it! We now live in the 100+ year old cottage that my grandmother lived in… here in tropical paradise in Queensland Australia, in the town named after a Goddess (Proserpine/Persephone).
• I have dreamed up & made happen a whole bundleload of creative dreams including Goddess Circle, e-courses, meditations and workbooks.
• I’m making my Goddess Life List come true.

Questions I get asked a bungload:

Birthplace?
Who would have thought – I was born in a town named after a Goddess! My birthplace is Proserpine in North Queensland (Proserpine is the Roman name for Goddess Persephone).

Star sign?
Scorpio eagle-woman. And I’m in love with a Scorpio man, which kinda makes me double-Scorpio.

How do you pronounce Leonie?
I get asked this a lot! It’s Lee-oh-knee. It’s French, and it means Lioness.

And last name? Leonie Dawson. I used to be Leonie Allan & then I married my hunky love, thus fulfilling the “I Will Marry A Dawson” prophecy.

Religious beliefs?
I’m a spiritual buffet-ist. I pile my plate up at the Spiritual with delicious morsels from Buddhism, New Age-ry, healing modalities and Earth-based ancient traditions including Native American, Celtic and Australian Aboriginal. Whatever makes sense and is right for my spirit is melded into my beliefs, making me the #1 ranked World Expert, Pope and Goddess of Leonie-ism. As the Dalai Lama says: There is six billion people on this Earth. There are six billion paths to the top of the mountain to meet God.

Leonie in 3 seconds?
I’m passionate and spirited. I adore buying stationery when I’ve got a new project or idea to dream about – or anytime really. I laugh a lot. I think life is pretty much the best thing ever. And I love love love connecting with gorgeous goddesses.

What are you the most proud of?
Being the best Leonie I can be. I’m sort of making it an art form.

When are you going to write a book?
I did!

What else do you do?
I used to work as a web editor for a United Nations award-winning Australian government website. I would write articles for businesses that have also been printed in magazines and newspapers around Australia.

Now, me & my love are WAHP (Work At Home Parents), raising our daughter & keeping up with this beautiful goddess business.

And here’s the let’s grab a cup of tea version…

When I was growing up, trying to decide what I wanted to be, I never saw in all the career guidance books of vocations that there was a job for being a goddess.

But here I am, and I have it, and I weep with joy when I think about it.

I’ve been blogging for six years, which is kinda like being a 60 year old. I’m not totally ancient, but I’ve been around.

I’m one of five children. Two brothers, two sisters. I’m #4. I’m probably the funny one, if we were in the mood for assigning roles. My eldest brother Clinton died in a farm accident when I was 14. He’s now one of my correspondents from the rainbow side. He still likes to eat milk bottles & banana lollies by the bagful.

I was born in tropical paradise in a town named after a goddess: Proserpine, in the Whitsundays, North Queensland, Australia.

I grew up on a cattle farm. My first memory is of being lifted into my dad’s arms as he sat on his chestnut mare, Noeleen. He had just come back from mustering cattle. I had just been to town. I was wearing a lemon frilly dress. I was two. Ever since, I’ve had an aversion to lemon frilly dresses, and a deep adoring love of horses.

I spent most of my childhood riding horses, swimming in rivers, being best friends with dogs, reading far too many books, attempting to become a horse whisperer, writing poems in a red starry book, spending far too long in the tops of trees, sitting at the big bench in our art corner & creating elaborate rituals with my sister.

I also used to work a lot on the farm, but mostly used that time to whisper secrets to my horse, worship my brother, daydream & broadcast Leonie FM – a radio station that I was the singer, announcer & newsreader for. And by broadcast, I mean “talk to myself”.

I used to be an overachieving academic type who thought an A- wasn’t good enough. I graduated as school captain in the top five percent of the state. Thankfully, I grew out of being an overachiever (mostly).

When I was 18, I took off to live in Malaysia by myself for a couple of months. It was momentous and gorgeous and junglyish and strange all at once. I look back and think how extraordinarily brave I was at 18. I think we must be born with courage.

I fell in love at first sight with my love when I was 18. (A couple of days after returning home from Malaysia) He’s a Scorpio, I’m a Scorpio. We’ve been deep in love for ten years, and I’m very proud of this. Chris continues to be my sage teacher, student, muse & journey partner. He’s also very hot. He is the same Myers-Briggs type as Mr Darcy. This is a new discovery, but it totally delights me.

After falling in love, we decided to go on an adventure. We moved across the countryside to an alpine city (Canberra) that neither of us had been to before. We treated the freezing cold like it was an adventure, and for the next seven years, we grew up together there. We found ourselves & our coupledom. We both worked for the Australian Government. I did short stints working for Ministers in Parliament House, but mostly I insisted on spreading glitter as web editor at business.gov.au. On weekends, we made art & music & went on adventures & did shamanic drumming. Corporate hippy artists! Wee!

And one day we drove back to our homelands, and stood in the sea where we first fell in love, and my love asked me to marry him. I said “Only if you’ll marry me.” I’m not quite sure why, we were both giddy & teary & giggly & nervous. But it was a Yes.

We travelled – to India. To Uluru. All over & over Australia.

It was a very, very good life. Easy & joyful & a whole lot of fun.

And then one sweet Sunday afternoon, there is a moment I’ll always remember. The sunlight was pouring in the windows, and my love and I suddenly knew a little soul wanted to come into the world. And there before us lay a big, beautiful opportunity. And we said Yes, with tears sparkling in our eyes. Within a couple of months, she arrived.

I told the world on my website when I was six weeks pregnant – just a few days after I’d found out myself. Also: I was one of those types who was so sure that she would know the instant she was pregnant. And then one Sunday in July 2009, I was eating a felafel wrap with my love, telling him how I kept feeling like I wanted to puke, that my periods were late, but I definitely, definitely wasn’t pregnant. My love gave me a look that he knew something else. And he did. As he most always is, he was right.

Our daughter has four names: Ostara Faith Avalon Dawson. She told me in a dream when I was pregnant that her name was Ostara. Faith is my love’s choice, and is for Morgaine Le Fay (a goddess of healing from Avalon.) And hey! Avalon! Because that was the word that I heard the moment she was passed into my arms and she looked into my eyes. We didn’t name her for three days because we couldn’t bear to only choose two of those names – they all meant so much to us. And so she became Ostara Faith Avalon.

You can read her birth story here.

Three weeks after she was born, the calling in us was too loud to ignore:

we needed to go home.

So we put our house on the market, and took a huge leap of faith. We quit our jobs, and we moved back across the countryside when Ostara was five months old.

We now live in Proserpine again, in the 100 year old cottage that my grandmother used to live in.

I’m a full time blogger/online business goddess person thingy. In fact, it’s not just my job – it’s my whole family’s job. My love is a stay-at-home parent with me, and we get to spend a lot of lovely, gentle, happy time together with Ostara.

Most days you’ll find us at the beach, painting at a friend’s, strolling the lil village, making art & being gentle. Then when Ostara is napping, I’m clambering up my blogging tree to write & create miracles.

Oh, and ten years to the day I snogged that beautiful man for the first time?

We returned back to the same beach, and declared we’d spend the rest of our lives together.

Making art, love & miracles.

(Not to mention one very cute baby!!!)

How did I get to be doing this goddess women’s work?

When I was 21, I met this gorgeous, luminous, joyful woman named Debra Hummingbird at my work. She just shone, you know? In a way that not everyone does. And she invited me to her women’s circle. I didn’t get what a women’s circle was. “You just sit and share? I don’t get it!”

When truthfully, I was afraid. I didn’t know what to expect. I had a feeling it would change things for me, and I was afraid what that change may look like and what it would mean for my life. And yet, I trusted this woman. And I knew that the next step for me to take was into that circle.

So I finally grew some cahones, and one night found myself at the door of a suburban home. It looked like so many other houses on that street, and yet I knew something very different happened inside it. The house was alive. It felt like the mysteries of the world would be shown to me in there. I was right.

I walked into a room laden with lush fabrics, cushions, glowing candles, the deep musky scent of incense. That wasn’t the extraordinary part though. The extraordinary part is this:

There were women gathered in a circle around the room, each leaning deeply into cushions. And their faces looked so familiar – as though my cells already knew their names and recognised them as sisters. And they shone – they shone like Debra Hummingbird. They glowed like they loved themselves and their lives. They were lit with a lamp of awareness, of looking at their life with wide open eyes, feeling it, considering it, dreaming it. I had seen this light aflame in so few people before, and yet here was a room filled with them.

And then there was the voice:

You are home.

And with that, I knew that women’s circles would be part of me for the rest of my life.

And so it was.

I circled. I glowed. I learned how to listen unconditionally, and share deeply. I remembered how to see my life and the world with the eyes of spirit. And I found even more courage to be me – exquisite, unique, hilarious, mermaid-hair-rarely-brushed, wise, arms-wide-open me.

I walked labyrinths in the moonlight by lakes. I circled on the tops of mountains in the middle of a storm. I sang ancient songs in tipis laden with burnt sage.

And every step of the way, I grew lighter. Brighter.

Every time I circled, I came home to myself. Over many talking sticks, I cried & spoke & found the bravery to tell my truth.

Every time, I grew more like myself.

As years passed, my wise woman guides moved away, and I was left without a circle. And so it was time for me to step into the next thing that waited for me: to lead women’s work.

And so I did.

I believed (and still believe) that every woman in the world needs a circle. That this world would be changed if we remembered to circle again together as women.
And that this women’s work is powerful, potent, soulful and sacred.
That it can change lives and hearts and souls and minds.
I know because it did mine.

So I began leading circles. I ran retreats and workshops. I created art and sold it to every country in the world. I wrote & self published my first book “Today I grew like a wildflower” when I was 22. I had my first solo art exhibition “Joy is an option” when I was 23. And I kept blogging. And my blog started getting popular, and I decided that hey – wouldn’t it be lovely if I could run women’s circles online somehow? So I did that. I created the Creative Goddess e-course, then the Divine Dreaming meditation kit, then the Radiant Goddess e-course, then the Creating your Goddess Year workbook & planner, then the Chakra Healing Goddess meditation kit, then the Releasing Fears meditation kit, then the Creating your Goddess Haven e-course. And at some point the Holy Dinger Uber Deep Zennifying meditation kit popped out. And the momentously big Business Goddess e-course. Then I started the Goddess Circle – where goddesses could have access to all of my work & a permanent online women’s circle.

And it’s gotten so big and beautiful that it’s turned into a movement all on its own. A tribe of goddesses, finding the light-filled path back home to the most divine, scrumptious part to themselves.

So much has happened since all this began. It’s my wildest dream come true. I want to travel back in time to that curly-haired girl laying on her horse’s back, and whisper to her: All your dreams come true.

But I’m pretty sure she knew that already.

I’m incredibly grateful and blessed to be here, doing this work, living this life. Glowing and wise and utterly beautiful.

There’s so much more to come from here, I am sure.

I’ll keep writing. Dreaming. Creating. Birthing whatever asks to be born. Helping me remember I’m a goddess. Helping as many women as I can remember they are goddesses too.

Thank you so much for being here.

I’m really, really blessed to walk this beautiful path with you.

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OMG. I can’t believe you really reached the end of my ridunkulously long about page. I think this calls for a GROUP HUG!!!!!!

BIG LOVE!!!

P.S. I’m so excited to walk this path with you, dearest Goddess!!!