The Aura Sanctuary NYC Experience brought practitioners together to provide guests with the opportunity to move through a series of seven chakra rooms in which they could experience an activation for each. down etc represented the sixth chakra, the Third Eye Chakra, with our meditation room. The room was focused on the rituals intended to relax the mind and body before bedtime.
One of the joys of participating was being introduced to Nicole Buffett and her intuitive artistry as it is reflected in her Spirit Oracle Deck. We see the art and affirmations of the cards in her Spirit Oracle Deck as a wonderful addition to a bedtime routine intended to calm the mind and body in preparation for sleep. That’s why we wanted to learn more about Nicole, her intuitive artistry, and, of course, her bedtime routine.
Nicole Provides a Window into the Sacral Chakra with Her Healing Art and her Signature Spirit Oracle Reading
In the second chakra room, Nicole created an activation to celebrate the Sacral Chakra, which is the energy center within our bodies that corresponds to the lower abdomen and plays a part in our creativity, pleasure, and relationships. She debuted her Spirit Oracle Painting & Reading Ceremony, in which she blended card reading, meditation, and painting. She provided a unique experience borne from her years living, caring, and creating.
1. Who Is Nicole Buffett?
Nicole Buffett is an artist whose work integrates modalities ranging from traditional painting and textile design to digital art. She is driven and inspired by the healing aspect of art and the ways in which nature-centered living, spirituality, and community intertwine. She utilizes her work in the digital space to drive support and attention to ecological and social causes.
Nicole earned a Master of Fine Art at The San Francisco Art Institute and has exhibited her work in galleries and museums around the world. She has been awarded prestigious artist residency programs, including as an honorary textile artist in residence at the acclaimed Anokhi textile company in Jaipur India.
2. What is the Spirit Oracle Deck?
The Signature Spirit Oracle Deck is a set of 88 cards, each containing a mandala design based on Nicole’s Spirit Coin Collection. According to Nicole, “Each unique design was created to reflect a divine design built on trust, attention, and compassion. The Spirit Coin represents the sacred geometry of belonging. Each mark holds a singular presence while being part of a greater whole, just as each of us are a sacred part of a collective consciousness.”
As part of her Signature Spirit Oracle Reading at the Aura Sanctuary NYC, Nicole began by having each guest pull three cards. She then created a mandala-like painting based on the guest’s selection of colors, brushes, and number of brushstrokes. She shared her insights from the resulting mandala and the ways in which the healing power of the affirmations on the three chosen cards could be incorporated into each guest’s healing journey.
We imagine pulling one card from the Spirit Oracle Deck as part of our nightly routines. Each card contains one of Nicole’s beautifully designed mandala paintings, a poetic description of an aspect of our being, and an affirmation to recognize the beauty in that part of our being. In other words, each card tells a story.
For example, The Rainbow Watcher Spirit Card acknowledges the awesome beauty in the sheer existence of the rainbow, as well as in our ability to experience its existence.
The Rainbow Watcher
Rainbows are in the eye of the beholder. You have a unique way of seeing the world form a place of wonder and awe. Remember that what we see in this world is a reflection of who we are. The more beauty and color you see is simply a recognition of all that is within being reflected in your life!
Affirm: I am awakened to see the beauty in all things Seeing the world with love is a revolutionary act. I am a gifted visionary.
The image and the words soothe the senses and draw us away from the worries of the day by focusing our minds on the affirmation as we ease into sleep. According to an interview Nicole gave a number of years ago to the Topanga New Times, “I want to see my work living in people’s hearts and homes. I want to see my work inspiring people and reminding them of the beauty and light that is within them and their lives.” Nicole’s cards live on our night tables.
3. What Does Nicole Care About?
Nicole’s work with nonprofits extends the reach of her work as an artist. Her journey as a person and an artist is one of practicing nonviolence toward herself and other beings and creatures.
This belief in nonviolence and the connected nature of all creatures is reflected in her Buffalo Running Medicine Deck. The limited-edition series of 44-card oracle deck is derived from Nicole’s hand painted animation impact project, Buffalo Running-The Abundance Agenda. In it, “The Great American Buffalo animal totem represents the abundance and ability that humankind possesses to provide for each other and all creatures of Grandmother Earth.” Nicole strives to remember that she is a part of nature, and one of the primary needs we share with all other creatures is the need for sleep. We agree, absolutely.
4. How Does Nicole Buffett Sleep?
We believe sleep informs what we do when we’re awake. It provides the rest we need to create, and it can bring the dreams that become the focus of our creations. We’re always curious about the artists who inspire us and how they sleep, from the rituals they use to prepare for bed to the bedroom environment they create for themselves.
We were delighted to learn that Nicole values her sleep and sleep space as much as we do. She, too, is a big pillow fan. She believes she has “more pillows than any one person needs,” but we think you can never have too many pillows.
Nicole believes the bed is a sacred space in which she prepares for sleep. The time she spends preparing for sleep is a time for commanding the subconscious work that will occur while she’s asleep. The affirmations of the cards in her Spirit Oracle Deck are part of that choosing of an inner dialogue before she falls asleep. The more intention and conscientiousness she puts into her sleep space and preparing for sleep, “the more beautiful the next day is.”
An important bedtime ritual for Nicole is winding down in a bath with essential oils. She also meditates, chants, and lights incense as part of her bedtime routine. When she’s having trouble sleeping, she uses breathwork, lying on her back with her hands positioned over her heart and abdomen, and guided meditation.
She keeps her sheets and bedding all white. Our experience over decades in the world of hospitality has made us fans of white sheets for the feeling of cleanliness they provide, as well as the neutral base that works with each hotel’s individual aesthetic. Nicole likes the clearing energy of white sheets. She finds, as a healer who works with energy, that white does not absorb energy, bouncing it off instead. This provides protective energy that envelops her.
She likes to wake slowly, to gently come into wakefulness. That provides an opportunity for “positive self-talk.” When it comes to napping, Nicole finds a 20–30-minute nap refreshing, not only for her body but for her mind. When her mind is tired, a nap can provide “a deep, hard, kind of reset.” It provides the chance to begin again upon waking.
Nicole’s work blends her spiritual practice with her art. The act of making art is a spiritual and sacred act in which she is the instrument. That means she must take care of herself, and getting sufficient quality sleep is a huge part of that care. She believes her superpower is daydreaming in that space between being awake and being asleep, the space where the artist can turn the imagination into reality.
Nicole is currently completing a month of practicing at the Aura Sanctuary in New York City. After that, she’ll return to her favorite destination, her home in Joshua Tree, California.
-Team at down etc
See more about Nicole Buffett:
About down etc
For over twenty years, down etc has worked with hoteliers and professional housekeepers in hotels around the world to manufacture and provide pillows and bedding that will offer hotel guests memorably great sleep. Through our retail website, we seek to provide products that will result in the same quality sleep for our customers at home. We believe in the restorative power of a great night’s sleep, whether at home or away. That’s the reason down etc wrote the book on it, Roll Into a Perfectly Made Bed: All You Need to Know About the Art of Bedmaking.
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