“In these complex and often heavy times, we can all benefit from some kindling for our souls. Ally delivers this spark generously through playful image and dancing words. Each page offers its own portal of inspiration so that you too might find your vision expanding. Through practices of loosening, gazing, slowing, being, unfolding, she invites us to enter a space of holy birthing, where the new can come alive through us in beautiful ways.”
— Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, online abbess of AbbeyoftheArts.com and author of The Wisdom of Wild Grace: Poems and The Love of Thousands: How Angels, Saints, and Ancestors Walk with Us toward Holiness
“Ah! What a delight to experience this book. I say ‘experience’ because you can feel the veils of disconnection dropping as you resonate with Ally Markotich’s delicious words. Right from the start, you can feel the heart of a soulful woman speaking directly to you. Markotich speaks wisdom in gentle strokes so that you too can embody the creativity, soulful spirituality, and earth-centric relationship with life you may have forgotten you already have.”
— Victoria Loorz, author of Church of the Wild: How Nature Invites Us into the Sacred and founder/director of the Center for Wild Spirituality
“Ally Markotich’s Soul Kindling is a feast for the eyes and a blessing for the heart; it combines lyrical and affirmational poetry with colorful, joyful art. It’s a love song to the Spirit, to creativity, and to living life to its fullest.”
— Carl McColman, author of Eternal Heart and Unteachable Lessons
“Through intense days, Ally’s images help us hold our grief. And in days of ease, their color and vibrancy amplify our joy. In image and word, Ally provides us a luscious feast and true soul kindling.”
— Alexander John Shaia, author and teacher, www.quadratos.org
“Nourishment lives in these pages. Ally’s call to us is both a call to prayer within the fullness of self and a dare to become more and more free in our relationship with Self and the life of the Divine. This book is a bloom on the branch of the tree of life.”
— Shiloh Sophia, artist, teacher, co-founder and curator of Musea: Center for Intentional Creativity® and Consciousness
“The verses and illustrations on these pages are the work of a gifted poet and artist. ‘Love is wide,’ says Markotich, asking us to offer ‘the very essence of ourselves to a hurting world.’ By adding the emotion of her own journey ‘to the end of a paintbrush or pencil,’ she teaches us how to do the same. Her invitation for the reader to ask themselves what they can do with all that has come to them is not only powerful, but important.”
— Paula D’Arcy, author of Waking Up To This Day and Stars at Night
