I want to be her.

I want to be her—even if I can’t remember who she is. When I first began homesteading three years ago, I watched a video of a young woman farmer giving a tour of her CA preservation shelves. These shelves were in her living room because she had a teeny tiny kitchen and jars for days to store.

This concept of her food spilling over into other parts of her home, tromboncino squash hanging off her shelves and propped near her books was the most romantic idea to me. I want to be her I thought. This is who I am supposed to be.

I harvested my herbs, filled jars, planted tromboncino so I too could hang these funny squash from my shelves all over my house. My living room bookshelf became home for the jars filled with catnip, sage, dried flowers, oregano and every other leafy thing I harvested.

I am her. I became her. I was living in my fantasy of the homesteader who grows and preserves enough food not just for one year, but years. And I felt like shit.

One morning I woke up, feeling nauseous as I always did, ate breakfast as I always did, then threw up. My body was done. I could feel it, it was in pain, sick, begging me to figure out what was wrong.

My mornings were filled with vertigo, a horrid cough, sinus draining, nausea, brain fog, irritability, exhaustion, pain. But I was a homesteader, doing everything right, eating amazing food, digging in the earth, putting my bare feet on grass filled with clover and dandelion, drinking brews of herbs from my garden. I AM HER! She was glowing and gorgeous and alive.

But my body was dying. I could feel it. Heart palpitations, edema, migraines, uterine pain, bladder pain, knee pain. The day after I threw up I eliminated food after food after food. I had brought myself to two meals a day of broth, meat, mushrooms and peas. I was still sick.

I was able to eat one food, beef. And salt. Lemon seemed passable too. I was a homesteader with bookshelves filled with plants, two freezers jammed with frozen vegetables, a pantry overflowing with colorful jars of jams and chutneys and sauces and I could eat one food.

Beef.

Not just any beef, only 100% grass fed and finished, not aged and frozen immediately after harvesting. Yes, it took me months to figure this all out. Elimination diets take a long time. I felt amazing for the first time in decades. I wasn’t bloated after I ate. I had almost no pain. I was getting energy back.

Each morning I woke up and was shocked I didn’t feel like throwing up. I had accepted this as just a normal part of who I was. My body that was so swollen and had gone up a full shoe size and three dress sizes was now deflating. I could feel the water pouring out of me. My shoes were falling off. My belly that always looked pregnant after a meal just stayed the same after I munched my burgers with salt.

I spent hours—which added up to weeks—researching, understanding, trying to find the root cause of what had been hurting me since I was a little girl. I wanted to know why I had been ‘the sick’ one, allergic to everything my whole life.

The first thing I discovered was that beef, salt and water is called the carnivore diet and many people with Lyme, MS, CIRS and all sorts of autoimmune issues call on this diet to heal them. I had found it through listening to my body. Many people add in other meats, eggs and dairy—some will also add some berries, fruits and honey—but no one on carnivore eats plants.

I couldn’t eat plants. None of them, not cooked or raw, not fermented or frozen.

When my mouth craved something other, I would add in olives and capers, mix them with the meat. When I was out and had nothing to eat I would keep a tub of sardines in my bag and eat them greedily. My entire body would break out in hives. They would start at my ankles or wrists and then spread through my body. I would scratch till bloody waking up with scabs all over my legs.

I eliminated all histamine related foods, which included left-overs, all my meat would need to be cooked fresh. The reason I couldn’t have aged meat was the histamines. Canned seafood, histamines. Olives and capers, histamines. Fermented foods, histamines. After a hive break out I would swell up in my feet and hands, something I had been dealing with my whole life and never understood.

My heart would palpitate. All those ER visits to monitor my heart, it was nothing more than histamine intolerance. The random breakouts of hives over the years, histamines. Histamines, histamines, histamines. I believe I can heal this as I heal my gut which is the goal of carnivore.

Our bodies learn to adapt. When I started growing my own food, fermenting everything and eating lots of ‘old’ food my body went into histamine overload. One of the ways my body coped was to send fluid to my joints as a way of protecting them. The swelling that I’ve experienced my entire life was simply my body trying to compensate for the histamine overload.

I made a list of what I was working to heal from: candida, SIBO, parasites, interstitial cystitis, diverticulitis, food allergies, dust mite allergies, vertigo, migraines, brain fog, exhaustion, anxiety and for the first time in my life a deep deep depression.

When I discovered something called CIRS, chronic inflammatory response syndrome, it was like all the pieces of the puzzle came together. After exposures to mold during certain points in my life, each of my chronic illness (that no doctor could explain) would manifest. I had every single marker for CIRS.

When I began learning more about CIRS and histamine intolerance I would hear functional medicine doctors talk about things that had confused me for years about my health. It was all coming together and making sense.

The carnivore diet plus a parasite cleanse in the beginning of the diet helped me to feel 60% better. The rest has been emotional, learning to no longer be someone who thrives on stress, hustle, productivity and performance. I had to peel back my life to expose the underneath, to get honest and to step into my peri-menopause years letting my dream of ‘being her’ gently go.

Two years ago as I began to homestead and eat more and more plants with histamines and oxalates and lecitins, we experienced a family trauma. One of my kids was admitted to a CBAT (community based acute treatment) center for two weeks and after that my job became helping this kid to heal. I was in constant fight or flight, my relationship was strained, I was trying to keep my coaching circle going.

I would sleep at night fully dressed, I set my alarm for every two hours to check on my kid. Every part of my routine changed and the hypervigilance that I stepped into was non negotiable. I was in it, and there would be no balance at this time. I get pissed when I hear ‘put your oxygen mask on first’ when dealing with your kids. There are no rules in parenting. When you are in crisis you show up and find yourself later. Parenting is seasonal and we never know when the wind will shift, but it will, and it does.

My kid was up against OCD that made simple tasks like eating near impossible. Depression would take them into a sleep that could last days. Body dis-morphia was intense. Gender questioning. Sexuality questioning. Eventually a bi-polar diagnosis after two years of really hard living. They also went into a transgender youth program to help them transition to trans-female and they came out to their entire school during senior year.

Finally, a name change, Eli became Harvey. We grieved the loss of Eli while we celebrated Harvey’s becoming and healing. My oldest child describes the last few years as emotional whiplash, it has been an entire family journey. We are exhausted and finding our joy bubbles again.

Now I am healing. Dave is healing. The other kids are becoming and all of our nervous systems are settling. I got a puppy who has been one of my healers, her love and devotion fills us. I hike a few miles every day in the woods, twice a day with the dogs. I eat a lot of beef, yesterday I ate seven little hamburgers. The garden is growing, fennel popping through weeds and blades of grass covering onion shoots. I don’t have to eat the veg to grow them.

The vision of myself as her is no longer one I can hold onto. Nothing is as it was two years ago when my kid was in crisis. Nothing is as it was six months ago when I stepped into my healing. Nothing is as it was five years ago when I had my last drink of alcohol. Nothing is as it was eight years ago when I met Dave. Nothing is as it was so that now we can all become.

I fed most of the squash on my bookshelves to the chicken but the freezers are filled with puree that I will find a way to use for chili for those in my family who will eat it. I am not preserving any herbs this year but there are piles of garlic scapes to turn into paste and fresh mint and lemon balm. My bookshelves are emptying ready to hold something else in place of all the jars. Space is being claimed on wooden shelves and in my body and spirit.

Next year I will grow more flowers. I hope to be able to eat some lettuce and cabbage after a full year of gut healing. I will have two kids in college in September and my mind is already dreaming up new projects and ideas for when I have more space.

I’ve spent the last fourteen years teaching about three things: she who was, I am and becomings. Past, present and future selves and how it all is essentially one swirl of spirit and time and integration. There has been magic and joy and surrender and seasons of our souls. I became a homesteader and a carnivore. I retired from coaching. I have spent hours in therapy with Dave so we can become a team and each other’s biggest supporters. I found sobriety. I became her.

She is not the her that was outside myself, she came from within. She came from a place deep inside, stirred from this Autumn season of life. She is the woman who lives in the invisible years now, a weaver of story, time and truthfulness. Her garden wild, her gut strong, her love palpable. Her presence is more real than her fantasy of self. Her past of playing victim replaced by her kindness and trust.

And I want to be her.

Less jars, less worry—more stories to write, more fires to stir, more time to bless. Bless this journey to her. Bless this journey to you. The wind will shift, the season will change, as it does. This is what we can know for certain, the thing we can all hold as truth, change will come for us. We will become and watch as others do. Gently extend your tenderness to this change. Bless it. Feel the wind blow through, root down and find her.

After the carrots.

I’ll do my taxes that I didn’t do after the carrots are washed and peeled and frozen. I’ll do them once I’ve vacuumed, the promise I’ve broken to myself for enough days that I’ve lost track. My stomach aches with words unspoken and memories cramming themselves into the spaces carved out for peace.

I’ll do it, them, all of it after.

Since I can remember I have been able to sit and do nothing for hours. Staring, thinking, praying, remembering. A nothing that overwhelms and calms and sorts out the mess. Five gallon bags of carrots from the Autumn, waiting to be peeled, to be used, to be remembered.

I’ll do it once the puppy goes a day without peeing on the rug. I’ll vacuum when my migraine is gone. Now that I don’t get them often, I can’t recall how I used to manage the pain. I want to undo. Reverse. Be someone who did the things.

Migraine. Carrots. Vacuum. Puppy. Taxes. Remembering.

I’ll do it, them, all of it, after.

Garlic Scape Pesto

I have a long list of my favorite garden fresh foods and the foods that I like to preserve as the harvests roll in. Some of our harvests come all at once, including the delicious garlic scape. Once I’ve collected them all I will preserve them in two ways. First, chopped and frozen and second as a pesto, also frozen.

Feel free to change up the ingredients and swap things out. Hemp seeds, sunflower seeds or walnuts work great.

Garlic Scape Pesto

1 cup chopped scapes

1/2-3/4 cup olive oil (more or less as needed)

1/4 -1/2 cup soaked nuts or seeds

splash of lemon juice

salt and pepper

To make this I just put everything in the blender and often start with less oil and add as needed. This pesto does not require garlic because it is garlic! You could add other leafy herbs, parm cheese, whatever you like.

In Three Years

The second year of a garden is like the eve, it is the eve of the third year of a garden. If you have ever bought a perennial plant from a nursery and popped it in the ground, the first year it kind of stays the same, puts on a bit of new growth. The second year it becomes a bit larger, fuller. But the third year, the third year is when the drama begins, the magic flows through. The plant is now full, strong, growing beyond what you thought possible.

When you put a fruit tree in the ground you will wait about three years for your fruit rewards. Three years after putting your first raspberry canes in the ground you will have a raspberry forest. Three years after planting asparagus and rhubarb you can have your first harvest. Three is the magic number and it is the same for a vegetable garden. Three years of planting and tending the soil will create a wonderland of beneficial insects, rich loose soil and pollinators swarming your flowers.

This is not our forever home but we are planting an orchard, sinking asparagus and strawberry crowns into the earth and planting for the future. I try to imagine the family who will own this home after us. They will see the clover in the yard and know that we do not use chemicals on our lawns. They will wander through the yard and see the peach, cherry, plum, pear and apple trees under planted with gorgeous perennial flowers. They will understand that part of what we created was for them.

I try to think that our next home, our hopefully forever home, is being tended right now by a family who knows we are coming someday too. It is a peaceful thought. I make it a point every day to live in each moment while still holding our dream, the one we are moving towards. Having a partner who is a dream weaver is a magical thing. He and I can dream together into the future while living our dream life together now. This second half of life that we are blessed to do together holds such possibility and joy.

I've felt a bit lost, not in a depressive way, just in that way you do when you don't 'fit' in your old clothes any more. Chloe and I were in a thrift store the other day and looked down at what I was wearing and I said, "I've lost my style." There was a disconnect happening for me so I decided that for each day of the following week I would wear one of my sundresses. I gardened in them, I filled wheelbarrows of mulch and moved them to new beds. I got sweaty and dirty and I felt so much more like myself.

My junior in high school reminded me that he was a freshman when the pandemic hit. Three years later, here we are. Three years later I imagine we are all looking to grow and expand and find ourselves again. I hope that we are all digging our roots down just a bit deeper to feel safe and present. I hope we are dreaming and living into each moment. I hope we are looking up more and more from our phones and connecting to what is right in front of us. I hope we are less focused on what we do or produce and more interested in how we feel, in our creations of beauty and magic, of the simple things that anchor us and tend us.

I imagine these next three years. My daughter will have graduated college and my son will have graduated high school. My fruit trees will be giving us gifts and I will be 50. In three years I think how much I can learn, how deeply I can connect to the earth, to my home, to myself. Each year in my relationship with Dave it becomes more solid and nourishing and true, I imagine the ease and the love three more years will give to us.

Then three years after that all our kids will have graduated high school and we will be on the next adventure of our lives, living into the stories and feeling the freedom of time. I wonder if our dreams will remain the same or how they might change. I wonder who we will be then, what my roses will look like and how many strawberries we will harvest.

In three years, a garden you begin today will be a flourishing magical place of peace and abundance. In three years who will we be? I can't wait to see.

Sending love to all of you,

H

We heal our hearts.

It can feel heartbreaking to feel lost and unsure. We can be thrown into an archetypal season of winter whenever we are experiencing deep loss, change, letting go, grief, illness and I believe, when we are lost and searching.

I have been in a winter since September, grief combined with challenging the way I had always gone about bringing my work to the world. During this time I've had many many days in hospitals with sick kids which seems to instantly beg a new perspective.

As I have spent the last couple of months writing about the season of winter in its physical, metaphorical and archetypal states (for Sacred Roots) there have been days when just thinking of something clever to write feels impossible. I am grateful that I've managed to see the gift, the lesson and turn that into something we can use to explore in circle.

I am beyond grateful to those who have supported me, including financially, by being part of the circle while I am digging up all that was so I can bloom this work into something new. Being in my own winter, during winter, has meant that the ideas that so regularly flow through me just aren't there. I've rested more than ever before. I often think this SACRED ROOTS circle was handed to me as a guide that I needed, connection that feels sweet and patient.

I have been honest with my circle that I have not been making ends meet financially, my Patreon idea (running the circle through Patreon) seems to have been somewhat of a bust financially (I LOVE it despite that) and so I have to lean into deep trust that I will emerge from this time of winter soon and that my past self will have done what was needed to bring me to where I will be. I am working on things that are not bringing in money in the present, like starting a YouTube channel and spending my days learning, soaking up new skills and ideas.

It has been hard to see a circle 'fail' in monetary terms. If you can't pay your bills, should you keep going? If people are leaving, is that a good indicator what you are doing isn't working? I am not money motivated and I think that my former motivations have been hurts healed and now my motivations are on the opposite end of the hustle spectrum.

We don't really talk about these things, it isn't typical for someone to admit to not making enough money to pay their bills. I am also blessed to be able to ask the kids' father for a small amount of help, something that I didn't need for years after my divorce. I was too proud back then and I hustled hard, having long days with the kids away, filling them with work.

Now the kids are living with Dave and I full time, I am a softer person and my pursuits are shifting. Dave provides so much for us and he has also shifted his career and together we are making a lot less money, smarter choices, cutting down expenses and trying to live more sustainably and pay every kindness forward. Teenage years are a bit heart wrenching and all of them are inside of the journey.

I think about myself just 10 years ago, I was filled with hustle and every single idea became a program, a retreat, a gathering. When I met Dave I was running three programs at the same time. I would wake up at 5am to work, then finish up around 9pm. Working for yourself seemed to require this, something that I am no longer able to give as age and time are softening me. Dave was working a job that drained every ounce of him, he was angry and exhausted. Seeing him now, I never want him to go back to living that way. It is hard for me to see him uncomfortable, but I know it is what is growing him.

I made a video for my Sacred Roots circle and told them how I was feeling, how hard it was to see people leaving the circle (I lost 20 people in two months, something that has never happened before). I added back in a Facebook group because I wanted to make sure that people had ways of feeling connected that Patreon didn't support (like posting their own photos). Everyone was so generous and kind in my falling apart moment. I wanted to tell the truth that I wasn't sure what to do, how to move forward and the women who are in circle received it with grace and love.

I've seen people who are launching a new service or product overcompensate when things aren't going well. They might push, threaten that spots are almost gone, this won't ever come back again, you are missing out, wonderful things are taking place without you. I can almost feel the scarcity oozing from it. I know someone who was told they were doing their launch wrong, the only way that it would succeed was to do xyz. Push, push, push.

I would always rather hear the truth. Sometimes it doesn't work. Isn't it just as important to see inspiration photos of how we want our homes to look and feel as it is someone's bed unmade and dishes in the sink? We need to feel connected, like we aren't alone. Do we need to lie to convince others to give us their money and support? That way of marketing and selling threatens to wash away the beauty of creation. And can't it be OK to say, this is really hard right now, but I'm not going anywhere, I just need to rest first.

I need to winter.

I began this business thirteen years ago because I wanted to tell the truth of how hard it was to be a mom to young kids, to feel like I had lost myself in my marriage and the ache of knowing something more was out there for me. I got divorced because to live in that truth, I had to. My sobriety was led by needing to feel integrity and trust in my own self. Today I had a hard vulnerable conversation with Dave and he received it with love and compassion.

Maybe that's why I'm writing now, the momentum of knowing that our truth can be held in safety. Not airing our dirty laundry or saying things to hurt someone else, but the truth of our hearts, our souls, the stuff that reminds us we aren't alone.

And I'm still going to invite you into SACRED ROOTS | SPRING even though I just told you ALL OF THIS because, yes, it breaks your heart to feel lost and unsure, and I believe in the work, in the circle. I am going to move from truth into clarity and believe in it even more. I am the one who can heal my own heart.

I've had the feeling something else is growing from SACRED ROOTS, it may well be the book I've been dreaming of for over a decade, the one that could not have come to the surface until I was sober and living in truth. I used to romanticize how Hemingway wrote while drinking in bars and it took me a long time to believe that I could write without a glass of wine in my hands.

Now I am safe in that truth.

It can feel heartbreaking to feel lost and unsure. I can feel spring coming, I am ready to tip toe in the grass with my shoes off and look for the lesson the seasons are gifting us with. There is a book written from the leaves, the dirt, the glow of the sunrise and the sound of the spring peepers. It tells us to dig into our sacred roots, to plant down deep and strong and it promises that in our own time we will feel spring deep in our soul.

Nature doesn't wait for the date on a calendar to change seasons, it is nuanced and rhythmic and patient. At 47, I feel that inside of me. My hustle is less and my measurement of success no longer about how much I am doing/making/creating. There are threads to follow and simple pleasures and delights of shape shifting a career over a decade old, while allowing my heart to surrender, pray, heal.

When you first start a business you create your Avatar, you get specific and clear on who that person is, what their dreams are, what their deepest fears are, what they are searching for, where the biggest pull in their life is.

I've been working on this avatar for the Sweet Fern Homestead channel and it is taking me longer than ever before. She is coming into vision now, slowly taking shape. I can feel her sitting with me and a cup of tea at my kitchen island as I talk to the camera.

I wonder about you, on the other side of this letter. What are your dreams? What are your deepest fears? What are you searching for? What do you feel pulled to, called towards? What moment of the day brings you most peace?

I would love to know. I would love to sink into your answers. Because while some of you have been on the other side for years, you too have grown and are not the same as when you first found your way here. New names arrive and I find myself wondering who you are, what dream seeds you are planting.

I am going to keep going, we are going to keep going. Let's give ourselves the grace to be who we are now, the kindness of listening to our souls and the space and support to dig our Sacred Roots down deep and slow. We are healing our hearts.

A choice to feel happy.

Originally written for New Year’s Eve, 2021

Click this link to hear me read the letter to you.

Last year, stretching back further than yesterday, I had a moment where I stood outside in my garden and heard my own voice whisper, "I'm so happy." Happy, that fleeting feeling that pops in and out, the elusive feeling we long for, write books about, create documentaries for, research and go on journeys to find.

There is a trade off for all our choices, it feels like a balancing system. For a long time I was chasing the highs and with those highs came equal amounts of the emptiness of the low. Life felt like a series of bombs that could go off at any moment, and mostly, they did.

A couple of New Years ago Dave and I broke up. This isn't something I like to talk about and yet it is part of the magical swirl of iterations. He went to NH and I sat alone in the house on New Year's Eve watching a Lady Gaga documentary in the midst of the final bomb I was willing to be inside of. I wanted my happiness back.

We went to see our therapist and tell her about our decision, I remember being so angry that I had poured so much into this relationship and Dave couldn't see it, he couldn't see me. Dave was angry, at the world, at me, mostly at himself.

Our therapist calmly listened to our explosions and she told us that we were a magical combination, that she adored us together and that we had to stop operating as though our relationship was you against me. She suggested we add in a third party, us. She said that we would often need to take turns, someone might not be calm enough to take care of 'us' but the third person in our relationship could not be ignored. She said that I was putting too much into Dave and he was not putting enough into me, and that we could get to the balance by thinking about us.

This wasn't Dave's turning point, his would come later (and it was powerfully good), but it was mine. And it would take me into this next iteration of life where I stood in my garden and knew it was the happiest I had ever felt.

It came with spending a summer making no money at all and dipping into savings to get through it. It came with knowing that social media was depleting, destructive and harmful to who I wanted to be and how I wanted to feel. It came with changing the entire model of how I work, being willing to make a whole lot less money and trust that I could make it through the change. It came from the transformation of the bombs of a love addict into the garden of a healing soul.

Dave and I spent a summer transforming a house from top to bottom, hours and hours alone together. I was so happy. The following summer he built me a fence and the garden's love story grew. I was so happy. He left a job he hated, I transformed mine so I wasn't depleted. Happy. We got a kitten. Happy. We began the de-cluttering process, happy. We worked our land together. Happy.

The pandemic swept us up and tucked us away together, a crash course on togetherness. We were operating as us. And through this, I found my happiness. The foundation for my happiness was building a life anchored by sacred roots. Those sacred roots began to add up and become stronger, dig deeper and in the silence of my hands in the earth, they grew me.

It is scary to change. I went back and forth so many times around all of it. Drinking, my relationship, how I work, social media.

If it feels like a bomb, it will be transformed into sacred roots.

I can remember that New Year's Eve, watching Gaga who was dealing with her own bomb transformations and feeling everything. I can remember Dave coming home in the New Year and sitting on the couch next to me, and our hands finding each other in our grief. I can remember choosing differently.

I can remember through the bombs, my choice to be happy.

Sending love to all your bits and pieces this Gregorian New Year.

Wintering.

Today please enjoy a few passages taken from SACRED ROOTS || AUTUMN including a recipe.
.......

"Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence." - Yoko Ono

I start to say good-bye to Autumn, begin wintering and welcome the New Year at the time of Halloween, or Samhain. This was the ancient Celtic honoring of the last harvest and the welcoming of winter. Throughout many cultures this was the transition into the cold months. Winter solstice is then a midwinter celebration when the light returns and the promise of spring is renewed.

In the wisdom and memory of my body it feels like midwinter, I am wintering like my plants in the garden.

Seasons connect with the land, the rhythms dictated by weather and light. Each season holds an emotion, an archetype, a discovery, a moon phase and a mood. We do not need to live in cold to do the inner contracted work of Crone's winter though it seems to come on naturally when we must light fires to stay warm.

I received an order of my beloved bulbs only a week ago. Dave and I have been waiting and waiting to plant them so we could complete our 'harvest' and put the gardens to bed. Planting in December I will tell you felt odd, out of place. My body felt sore bending over and I was crabby and bothered. We powered through it and got 300 or so of the remaining bulbs in the earth.

As we planted and complained about the task jokingly to each other I reminded myself that this was my gift to spring. Autumn's harvest gifts to winter and winter gifts to spring. This was my winter offering as my ice cold fingers dug the bulbs deep into the holes Dave drilled. The leaves that fall over the garden beds are Autumn's gifts to winter, a blanket to protect her land. As the bulbs sleep in deep winter they become the surprise of color that spring desperately desires.

I love a good metaphor to prompt me and while looking back isn't natural for me (I tend to live in the future fantasy) I wondered what my personal autumn time, this time of Maga (the sorceress) gifted to my personal winter time to come.

What 'leaves' did I lay down in reverence for the 'cold' to come?

How easily we can slip from one season to the next without an understanding of how we got here. Who we have become is the gift of our past seasons. Let us not dwell, but honor the heck out of it.

"Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence." Yes, bless the parts of you that brought you here now because this now is our most profound truth and knowing.

Gather the stories and memories. Prepare to winter in these slowly expanding days. Use this time between solstice and the Gregorian calendar's New Year to prepare your nests for the time of Crone, when we will go deep inside and do the inner work, explore the shadows and wait in a greater stillness for our becoming.

For this time of the Crone is when we dream, it is a time of holding loss and surrender, and, when magic making tempts us to desire. Our longings wait to shoot up with the crocus of early spring.

The darkness is here, stock up on beeswax candles, your favorite coffee, spicy hot chocolates and ingredients for stews. Wash your sheets before holidays so you may fall into a clean soft bed. Vacuum your corners, water your plants, add extra pillows and blankets to your cozy places. Make sure your tea jars are full and dark chocolates are hidden around your home. Forage for evergreens, hang a wreath to symbolize how life continues on after our longest night.

Wishing you slow, peaceful days ahead.

xo H

Late Harvest Cheese Soup

Food becomes such an anchor for ritual and tradition. It nourishes us and is a blessing of warmth on cold nights. Familiar meals, holding a bowl we have grown up with, knowing the taste of what steams in our mugs before our lips touch it: there is such magic in food.

1 onion, chopped
2 carrots diced
2 celery stalks diced
2 cloves garlic
3 cups finely chopped broccoli
1 cup finely chopped cauliflower
1 apple finely chopped

3 TB butter (I use non dairy)
3 TB flour (I use gluten free 1 to 1)

2 cups of cream or coconut cream or oat milk
1 1/2 to 2 cups broth/stock

2-3 cups grated cheddar cheese (I use raw goat cheddar)

1 tsp dried sage or a few TB fresh
salt/pepper/squeeze or two of lemon

First saute the onion, carrot and celery in some oil. Add broccoli, cauliflower and apple. Once cooked down a bit make a hole in center and add butter and flower and stir to combine. Coat the veggies with the flour and cook for one more minute.

Add the cream in and stir gently until the flour has absorbed. Add broth, sage, salt and pepper. At this point I used an immersion blender to blend to almost smooth, not completely. You could also take out a cup or two and blend, then add back to the pot.

After blending slowly melt in the cheese, as much as you like, the whole soup will come together at this point.

Taste for salt and pepper. Add a squeeze or two of lemon to brighten if you like (I always like). Serve with a nice crusty bread and butter.

Midwinter.

Today I am sharing with you an excerpt from SACRED ROOTS || AUTUMN, a glimpse at our evolving midwinter traditions and rituals. I'll be sending a few more bits and pieces of the letters that send out on Sundays to give you a look inside this circle. WINTER begins after the Gregorian calendar's New Year.

In an abbreviated Autumn season we looked at the ritual of beans and the stories that we weave through simple food rituals. There was a rustic Bean Soup recipe along with many others like Late Harvest Cheese Soup and Harvest Wild Rice Quiche.

We made wreaths, planted bulbs, created pine cough syrup and tea, fermented cranberries, talked about choosing tradition, honored the Maga archetype of Autumn along with other magic and discoveries.

There are many names and celebrations for tomorrow-Yule, Midwinter, Solstice-and they all center around this time of the magical longest night when the return of the sun is anticipated. For us in the colder parts of the world, it truly is midwinter, when we are warmed by fires and long cooked stews and endless steaming mugs of tea.

Our rituals have grown and adapted as my kids add years, but the sweetness of gathering around our table for Yule with soup and bread, a candy treat and only candles to eat by continues on. I want them to always be surprised by this night with a magical table and smells that will transport them throughout the years in their memory.

One way to create special magic is the simplicity of decorating a table. I imagine that as humans we have done this through time and before tables were what we know them to be today. As I adorn the table I am creating an altar to the season or celebration which I am preparing for.

My secret is to be extra, big, much. Layer and look to add different textures and patterns. Stick with a tight color palette that creates a dramatic story.

Once a year on winter solstice I buy greens from Trader Joe's along with pomegranates, oranges and persimmons. I am not a fan of buying flowers in plastic but I do make this one exception. I will reuse the branches to make wreaths after. The kids love candy canes so I popped some green ones into the leaves.

A few weeks ago I ordered these special cloth napkins from Etsy. Ours are worn and gray and a pop of color seemed fitting. I'll tuck them away after New Year's and perhaps invest in four sets, one for each season.

I have beeswax candles in vintage brass candle holders that I collect when I come upon them. And of course a plant or two. For Thanksgiving I used holiday cactus and for solstice we have these stunning cyclamen. I prefer white cyclamen but my family adores color and these match the pomegranates.

Tucked into the scene of magnolia and eucalyptus leaves and winter fruits are my tiny glitter trees. I have collected these over the last five or six years and they come out just for this table. We find glitter for months after.

I set this table up on the eve of the solstice and in the morning light the candles. I add other candles through the house (ground floor only, the kids need their light to ready for school) and I do not turn on any lights at all until the next day. This means remembering to stock up on candles.

At every place I will set out a treat for each of the family. This year Twizzlers, gummy bears, M&Ms and dark chocolate made the shopping bag. Over the next couple of days the fruit will be munched and I will neaten things up, wash the napkins and return them to their bowl.

It is a simple tradition. Soup and bread. A warm mug. Roaring fire. Candles rather than light. A beautiful table filled with treats and symbols of winter. It is ours and it is rooted deeply in my ancestry. It pulls me back to an old knowing, the cycle of living with nature and it digs my sacred roots down.

Blessings this time of Yule, this longest night, this midwinter feast, this astrological beginning of winter, this sweet winter solstice.

How on the eve was born.

Originally written 1/6/2021

In 2009 Lucas turned a year old and I would discover the mysterious new world of online teaching. I signed up for a couple of courses from people I admired partly to try to understand how the whole thing worked because I wanted in.

The courses I signed up for had a similar feel. You would log in to a private page on the website and the material would be presented there and often you could print worksheets and information. You could chat in the comments and I honestly don't remember much else.

What I do know is that I didn't ever fully engage. I loved them, but it overwhelmed me. I would forget where to go, how to log in, I would get interrupted by kids and my ADHD brain just couldn't make it work. Mind you, I was still learning how to send an attachment on an email. I did not adapt to technology easily.

Not being one to go much further beyond what I can figure out on my own or with very little help I needed to adapt it in a Hannah way.

This is not a superpower, let me devote myself to the truth in this-it is not a way to get further than you are. But it also has a silver lining that I just do what I know. I do what I can figure out. I tend to be action oriented when I'm excited by an idea.

All this to say...

What I did was simply make a course, design it, write it and then I sent it out via email. There was no website, no other home, no passwords (other than for videos), no pdf, no worksheets, no complication. At this time Facebook groups were a magical way of gathering, your privacy was protected and there was ease to being together there.

If I had to define my work at that time, I might say that I grew a business through telling stories via email. Community grew, connections formed, I shape-shifted a thousand and three times. I went from pay what you can to $400 magic making sessions. I went from nursing my baby and typing with one hand to large sold out retreats.

There were times when I was running three courses at one time while single parenting with a debilitating bladder condition and drinking too much. Money slipped through my fingers as fast as I could make it. I just wanted to create. I just wanted to be validated.

My formula remained the same. Emails go out, gather on Facebook, eventually add Zooms. I worked a lot.

Dreams played out, many offered me stairs to enter them while seeds were planting for the next.

What I was supposed to do is expand, grow, add more followers, be a boss, retreat in Europe, start a podcast, make a worksheet, write a book, open a shop...whatever the obvious next was.

And here I was still sending emails, no worksheets or pretty printables or anything tangible.

I have fought against what you are supposed to do. I have burned things down. My one year old kid is now thirteen.

I am still pretty into the emails. I am over Facebook.

And so, beginning again. Figuring it out. Trying to find enough stillness to hear the longings of my soul and the reality of my basic needs.

Since 2009 I craved a small cozy intimate business. In 2021 it exists.

This week as people began to join SACRED ROOTS || AUTUMN, I felt it. I knew it.

Now, a chance to challenge myself to go beyond what I know, what I am able to figure out, into a land of learning, understanding, grasping where this saturated sea of online learning and gathering is headed.

I want to take my deeply embedded need to be different and actually be different!

In all my secret truth, I don't know what I want. I do know that I need to quiet the noise of what I'm supposed to do so I can source it.

And maybe, and the reason I write this, maybe you need to hear that I don't know so you don't have to know. Not knowing is supposed to freak us out, but I swear it is where the magic multiplies.

I have built a business on stories. I remember the first time I realized that. I received an email a from someone who had joined a course. She said, "So I'm trying to understand. You tell a story and then we are supposed to use it as a prompt?" If that was the case, she was leaving.

Yes, that is the case. She left.

After that I quaked. I was unsure. I kept writing.

I wrote a letter for SACRED ROOTS about beans. I am forever wooed by how a story can weave into a lesson, form a recipe, dive into a prompt and land back where it started with the simple noticing.

It can take days, long hours, lots of deleting, wanting to run away, cleaning the house, declaring myself a fraud and making another cup of coffee to get to that one simple noticing.

Other times it happens seemingly without me, as though it was always there and I just had to pen it.

Dreams feel that way to me, there are the ones we slide right into and those we refuse to get cozy with.

Maybe I am an inside-out dreamer, taking the supposed to dream and turning it until I can find the edges, the idea, the places that first inspired it.

I like it there. I like it there with you beside me.

I still have the invitations and the promise that I have no idea where I'm going if you'd like to tag along.

And. Thanks for being here,

xo H

What you are supposed to do.

Originally written 1/4/2021

In 2009 Lucas turned a year old and I would discover the mysterious new world of online teaching. I signed up for a couple of courses from people I admired partly to try to understand how the whole thing worked because I wanted in.

The courses I signed up for had a similar feel. You would log in to a private page on the website and the material would be presented there and often you could print worksheets and information. You could chat in the comments and I honestly don't remember much else.

What I do know is that I didn't ever fully engage. I loved them, but it overwhelmed me. I would forget where to go, how to log in, I would get interrupted by kids and my ADHD brain just couldn't make it work. Mind you, I was still learning how to send an attachment on an email. I did not adapt to technology easily.

Not being one to go much further beyond what I can figure out on my own or with very little help I needed to adapt it in a Hannah way.

This is not a superpower, let me devote myself to the truth in this-it is not a way to get further than you are. But it also has a silver lining that I just do what I know. I do what I can figure out. I tend to be action oriented when I'm excited by an idea.

All this to say...

What I did was simply make a course, design it, write it and then I sent it out via email. There was no website, no other home, no passwords (other than for videos), no pdf, no worksheets, no complication. At this time Facebook groups were a magical way of gathering, your privacy was protected and there was ease to being together there.

If I had to define my work at that time, I might say that I grew a business through telling stories via email. Community grew, connections formed, I shape-shifted a thousand and three times. I went from pay what you can to $400 magic making sessions. I went from nursing my baby and typing with one hand to large sold out retreats.

There were times when I was running three courses at one time while single parenting with a debilitating bladder condition and drinking too much. Money slipped through my fingers as fast as I could make it. I just wanted to create. I just wanted to be validated.

My formula remained the same. Emails go out, gather on Facebook, eventually add Zooms. I worked a lot.

Dreams played out, many offered me stairs to enter them while seeds were planting for the next.

What I was supposed to do is expand, grow, add more followers, be a boss, retreat in Europe, start a podcast, make a worksheet, write a book, open a shop...whatever the obvious next was.

And here I was still sending emails, no worksheets or pretty printables or anything tangible.

I have fought against what you are supposed to do. I have burned things down. My one year old kid is now thirteen.

I am still pretty into the emails. I am over Facebook.

And so, beginning again. Figuring it out. Trying to find enough stillness to hear the longings of my soul and the reality of my basic needs.

Since 2009 I craved a small cozy intimate business. In 2021 it exists.

This week as people began to join SACRED ROOTS || AUTUMN, I felt it. I knew it.

Now, a chance to challenge myself to go beyond what I know, what I am able to figure out, into a land of learning, understanding, grasping where this saturated sea of online learning and gathering is headed.

I want to take my deeply embedded need to be different and actually be different!

In all my secret truth, I don't know what I want. I do know that I need to quiet the noise of what I'm supposed to do so I can source it.

And maybe, and the reason I write this, maybe you need to hear that I don't know so you don't have to know. Not knowing is supposed to freak us out, but I swear it is where the magic multiplies.

I have built a business on stories. I remember the first time I realized that. I received an email a from someone who had joined a course. She said, "So I'm trying to understand. You tell a story and then we are supposed to use it as a prompt?" If that was the case, she was leaving.

Yes, that is the case. She left.

After that I quaked. I was unsure. I kept writing.

I wrote a letter for SACRED ROOTS about beans. I am forever wooed by how a story can weave into a lesson, form a recipe, dive into a prompt and land back where it started with the simple noticing.

It can take days, long hours, lots of deleting, wanting to run away, cleaning the house, declaring myself a fraud and making another cup of coffee to get to that one simple noticing.

Other times it happens seemingly without me, as though it was always there and I just had to pen it.

Dreams feel that way to me, there are the ones we slide right into and those we refuse to get cozy with.

Maybe I am an inside-out dreamer, taking the supposed to dream and turning it until I can find the edges, the idea, the places that first inspired it.

I like it there. I like it there with you beside me.

I still have the invitations and the promise that I have no idea where I'm going if you'd like to tag along.

And. Thanks for being here,

xo H

I am not a prepper.

Originally written on 11/1/2021

We've run out of toilet paper, again.

Dave's parents were coming by to drop something off. I had Dave ask them to bring us a roll. They brought a whole pack. This bought me a couple days.

No, I'm not a prepper/survivalist or even someone with much forethough, though living through this time of pandemic has introduced me to the concept of preparation. I can't quite live inside of the idea that we prepare for disaster, though I get it deeply. What I have been able to do is to see the ways preparation and building up my supplies offers incredible ease to my day to day life.

I used to run out of things and then get myself all worked up and stressed out because they were important things like coffee and cream and tampons and olive oil and soap.

Living with Dave, I saw him buy things in multiple. He never bought one tube of toothpaste, he bought three or four. This blew my mind. I saw it as spending so much money on something you could spend little on.

And then I discovered...

Buying four saved him money.

Having supplies meant less trips to the store. Less trips to the store saves you money.

I try try try to stick to what I need when I go to the store but undoubtedly you can add a good $25-$100 in things not planned on.

Think Target dollar section.

(Side note, a tip is walk right by it. Do Not Look. I just saved you $10 because nothing is really a dollar there. Also, leave your kids home. Saved you another $50. Get out of the Starbucks line and make your own coffee. $6.00)

Not only would I save money but I wouldn't have to go the store in a stressed out frenzy of looking for coconut almond creamer when it is quite hard to find in my corner of the world.

It has been a nervous system chill out plan.

I'm not prepping for disaster, I'm taking care of my future self's nervous system and anxiety. I adore knowing I have four bottles of lemon juice tucked away during canning season. I feel calm when I see that there are 6 pounds of low acid decaf coffee waiting for me.

I still ran out of toilet paper but this time it was because I hadn't bought any in so long I forgot about it. There were multiples and our future selves potty trips were all tended to.

I don't have spreadsheets. I don't even truly know what we have and what we don't. I try to sort and organize but I forget. Mostly though, now, I have what we need. It feels like a calm. I need calm. We need calm.

Over the last few years I've had to learn to be someone entirely different than who I was. Healing can do that. Living in integrity can do that. Choosing the present can do that.

It might seem odd to say that claiming peace for myself meant saying goodbye to the 'me' I had formed an entire life around. Maybe more like a peeling. I've peeled and it continues to feel a bit raw and uncomfortable.

When I ran out of toilet paper, and then tissues very soon after, it was a reminder of how deeply I have stretched my sacred roots. They are strong enough now that I wasn't shaken up and stressed out by it.

These old patterns will arise. I'm finding them wanting to pop up all over the place as the season shifts. Change brings transition which brings choice.

I am choosing to keep digging deep, rooting into my foundation of peace.

If you would like to join me and a group of adventuring magic makers in a walk through the seasons of our lives together, SACRED ROOTS || AUTUMN begins this Sunday and each Sunday after we will come together and learn and try and just be.

Here is to not buying in fear but in deep love. Thanks for being here, H

Have you ever wished upon a pickle?

Originally written on 10/22/2021

I sat on a picnic table with one of my children who was paralyzed with fears. A body and mind betraying what the soul was crying out for. It would be the beginning a summer and a journey that became and became again. My teen kids and I have been in it. Deeply.

A season of mothering meeting me in the garden, in the kitchen, just where they needed me to be. An anchor as we peeled and learned and I was steadily chopping the harvest, boiling the jars, being right there, as close as they needed.

The stories aren't mine to tell, though I suspect I will be able to share more as time moves on, because the stories are our teachers and the journeys we take often become the mirrors for others walking just shy of our footsteps.

I have been busily working on my next thing. Needing to earn income again after using my savings these last couple of months to be where I was most needed.

Here is the thing. I don't want to create more noise, more hustle. I have so little interest in being relevant, in fact, these last couple years have been not only sobriety from alcohol but from relevancy. So many times I have said, "I am no longer relevant," and thought that I should feel bad about that, instead feeling such peace and joy.

I am the archetypal mother moving gently into her Autumn season which is all about my inner world. This Maga or Priestess archetype inhabiting the space between Mother and Crone.

I'm growing my roots and despite what the world of online business tells us, I will not sacrifice my mental health and myself to make money. I won't sacrifice YOU. I won't produce and produce just to be as relevant as the next.

So for months I've been going back and forth. How can I create a sustainable income and offering to support my family that feels magical and gentle.

How do I sell something when I no longer wish to sell?

How do I move away from things I've taught and spoken about without feeling like I have messed up in my past?

How do I show up and gather in a way that aligns to my soul?

My teen kids and I have been in it, and I've also been in it with myself. A deep transition.

I kept thinking about this moment with Dave and my three year old niece. She kept asking, "Davey, Davey, have you ever wished upon a pickle?"

Not knowing where this reference came from we questioned her a bit.

At one point we said, "Where does wishing upon a pickle come from?"

She looked at us with utter frustration and replied, "From a cucumber."

Of course.

(We later learned it is a Sesame Street reference.)

I keep thinking about it because sometimes the incredibly mystical and wonderous is equally straightforward and obvious and true.

Today my kid did something incredibly uncomfortable to get to the other side of a deep anxiety. When they walked out the door with the other siblings fully supporting and hopeful, and I heard one of the neighbor kids squeal upon seeing him, I laughed alone in the doorway. Then, kids out of sight. I stood with my coffee cup, and I cried.

I cried the kind of tears I cried when each of them went to Kindergarten. I texted each of the dads and said, "He did it."

I took a deep breath, I went to my computer. I finished something I had been working on that makes me uncomfortable because that is only fair.

Then I sat down to write to you.

Because while I needed a break and was called elsewhere, I love it here. I love weaving words and being a storyteller and I am believing that the obvious and true and the mystical and wonderous live inside all of us.

A woman stopped my van in the parking lot of a store and asked me to roll down my window. She asked me if I rode horses because of my hat (the one pictured above). I laughed and said, "No, I just really really love hats."

She laughed back. We didn't connect around horses but instead a smile, a laugh, a stranger trusting another human.

I'm filled with stories. I'm making green tomato jam. I have three hours before I have to pick up my kid, the one that did the uncomfortable thing. Then another couple hours before two more come home. Then another couple hours before I pick up my college kid from the train.

I'm wishing upon a pickle today.

About peas

Written on 5/24/2021

Last year, before we had unearthed this sweet fern farm, there was a garden box, late plantings and too many vegetables all crammed together. I planted peas sometime in June. They came up beautifully, little tendrils reaching for something to hold onto.

Then I read or heard something that told me I had planted them too late and I wouldn't get peas.

Since they were taking up so much real estate I decided to cut them back, leave the roots in, cut my losses. I could have been eating the pea shoots but I didn't know how to harvest those then. I was bummed because the sweetness and crunch of a pea picked just off the vine is like nothing else.

Conventional wisdom said it was too late, so the peas were gone.

The most magical thing about gardening is that the plants don't know there are rules and they don't read the planting charts or worry about their zones. They just grow. Despite being cut back. Despite bugs. Despite 'wrong' timing. And sometimes they don't. Despite perfect timing. Despite sun and water. Despite doing it all the 'right' way.

When we were picking our millions of cucumbers last year, I noticed a few pea shoots that had continued to grow and tangle themselves around the cucumber vines. Soon there were snow peas and snap peas, just a few, enough to get that taste memory stored up for another year.

Had I not cut them back, had I not listened to some 'rule' perhaps we would have had a crop of peas. We will never know.

What I learned from this was that my garden is mine. I can study and learn and get a general idea of how things grow, but then I need to grow them. I need to be a free spirit and a scientist and plant things early or late. I need to absorb the magic of what a seed will do if given soil and water and sun, because the awe of it, the awe when those little leaves emerge is worth getting it wrong, over and over.

This first year of a big garden is my experimenting year. I'm trying mixtures of techniques and using my intuition and sacred aesthetic. This garden is an extension of our home, it is land that I can curate as I choose where to put each plant or seed. In my mind I already see the design fully expressed.

Now, we wait and weed.

The garden has its stories to tell. Devotion is sprouting, I'm listening and transcribing.

I cut back the peas. They grew anyway.

There is some wisdom in there for all of us.

Teach the children how to eat dandelions

Once upon a time Dave and I got into a fight. The kind that left me crying because I didn't feel heard. This was part of our healing work together, I needed to be seen and heard. He had grown up not seen or heard. What he thought, or knew or shared was discounted. A random stranger on the street was given more acknowledgement for what they said.

We sometimes adopt behaviors that were hurtful to us, and it takes a shit ton of work to relearn how to communicate and live inside of compassion and empathy.

So, we had a fight over lawn chemicals.

For the majority of time we were together, Dave used pesticides to kill weeds. All the weeds. Dandelions were his most sought after enemy. Poison ivy. Those cute little flowers that come up in between stones and pavement.

If you know me, you know this was incredibly hard for me to withstand.

At that time, he couldn't hear me and he didn't believe me. One thing I've always had is an ability to see (intuit, feel, pray for, believe in) the other side, the place I'm going. I knew Dave would stop using chemicals. I knew that he would become a steward for our land, for the earth's land. I knew that lawn chemicals were just something sold to him by the bullshit that covers up truth about soil, ecosystems and health.

I also knew he was shedding so much of who he was so that he could become the person he longed to be. I already knew that part of him would one day no longer serve and his world would open.

After our fight, instead of sulking and hiding, I sent him a podcast of Zach Bush talking with Rich Roll to listen to. Zach Bush is one of my favorite speakers and educators on gut health, microbiomes, the impact of chemical farming and the health of our planet. You should know him. He is the one who led me to write 'Walking with Ferns' in a past program, the reason I seek out time with ferns and plan my next tattoo to be a fern. (More on that another time.)

Dave listened and then began his own journey to understanding the devastation these chemicals are causing to our planet, to our children who are no longer safe to run barefoot through their lawns. I am pleased to say I am on the other side and I work alongside a man who is a steward of his land, who knows that vinegar and soap will stop poison ivy and that dandelions are a superfood.

We do have grass and Dave is committed to regenerative farming and land ownership. Once you stop using chemicals and strengthen your lawn, weeds are naturally crowded out and they require much less water. Remove the drugs and a plant finds its intuition again.

I've made a prayer for as long as I can remember for children to be safe to go outside their door to pick their dandelions. Weave them into their hair, make salads and teas and watch as their parents fry up the flowers in batter.

We were talking the other night about why. Why do people grow lawns modeled after an English climate and culture? Why do people need to kill every weed? Why do people choose grass over food? Why do people spend our water resources on grass that isn't going to feed any animal?

I've been asking myself why a lot. I want to push myself to live into that question, deeply. There is a resonance of devotion that comes from asking yourself why. When we ask ourselves why we are naturally led to a deeper learning and unearthing and we can connect the dots between our beliefs, actions, desires and the faith that supports them.

As our fence is complete (you can see up above, it makes my heart dance), trellises in place and lots of eager seedlings waiting to be sunk into the earth I ask myself why. I keep challenging myself to go deeper, a little deeper each time I feel into the question. Dave and I are both in a transition time around our work in the world and growing our own food and learning to live in a greater sustainability is part of that iteration.

I'll keep saying my prayer for the children and the dandelions and bare feet touching the earth.

Let's keep living into our why. Let's pause into the moments of sun below tree lines, when the magic hour arrives blessing us. Let's see each other, really see and listen in sweet kindness, knowing there is so much we can learn when we open.

Thank you for being on the other side.

I appreciate you.

Each choice, every change.

When I hurt my knee and couldn't wear my cowgirl boots and started wearing flat soled shoes.

When I stopped drinking and no longer lived my life altered.

When I realized how much I pushed money away and started saving.

When I went through my whole (almost) house and started getting rid of half of what I owned.

When I took time off and did things that have nothing to do with 'work.'

When I unhooked from co-dependent behaviors and started living in my own skin.

When I decided to break my reliance on grocery stores and start growing my own food.

When I recognized social media as a drug like alcohol and made the decision to spend most of my time unplugged, away from the addiction to algorithms and like buttons.

When I began to eat rice and pasta and bread again without apology for a body that would become more.

When I stopped living in the fantasy of expectation and found grounding in each little moment.

When I let a dream flow into a new dream and not hold on to what would no longer lit me up.

When I woke up and felt calm inside of me and set my prayer for sacred roots.

It feels like a middle place. I suppose at 46 years that is a middle of time.

It feels like a chance to begin again, to choose, to work my hands into the earth and receive guidance from Wisdom Keepers born long before.

It feels a whole lot like love, moving alongside my partner, painting cabinets, hanging curtains, digging earth, making decisions together and watching tomatoes grow in a sunny window.

It is a house filled with teenagers (two-almosts but close enough) who can tend to themselves now fully, some even able to make chicken that is cooked all the way through.

It is a 'marriage' with a partner who is deeply in his becoming, who wakes up eager to find tasks to do that bring me joy, laughter and awe and fill our lives with magic.

It is intentional and rooted.

It is a place I have dreamed of and avoided.

It is the deepest devotion, hand wrapped around hot tea, fingernails dirty, laughter and bickering from children, a surprise kiss, lemon touched split pea soup, framed art work made by young hands, the promise of strawberries, bells blowing in the wind calling me by a name I am learning to recognize.

There are times when our identity will need to be released so we can find our place.

Our dreams are fluid and each one moves us to another knowing of who we are.

We grieve, surrender and bless.

We bless.

We bless.

We bless.

I honor you: each choice, every change, all your magic. Let's make some spring time soup.

Sweet Fern Homestead : The beginnings

Dave and I have been outside building our fence every chance we get. The kids come out to visit occasionally, but I think they won't fully get what we are doing until we are planted and growing. I've honestly never felt quite so happy and content with life as I do when we are outside together, dirty, peaceful and filled with purpose.

I love the work, but Dave is the one who does more than seems possible some days. Sometimes I sit with a cup of tea and just watch him, waiting for when he needs my help and I feel the blessings of getting to choose to live life connected to the earth.

The garlic is about 8 inches tall, peas about an inch, lettuce is coming up, radishes have their first shoots, kale, spinach and cabbage are transplanted. This will be my first time growing these things in zone 6 so I am sure I have some of the timing off, but I'm going for it. I was never able to grow a beet in zone 5 in NH, so we'll see what I can do here in MA.

Onion starts and strawberry roots are on the way. Blueberry plants will be here soon. Six more chicken come in June. (We are planning to make chicken tunnels around the garden.)

Every morning we check on our seedlings and seeing their growth is like witnessing faith. Believing in seeds is pretty magical.

We have 2,000 square feet almost fenced, a long garden box outside the fence and grow bags that can moved around. I've spent the last few months drawing out plans and changing my mind and this week we will work on creating the inside lay out of the garden.

The thought of next year just having it all done is thrilling to me, it means we can think of new projects to keep us busy!!

I began gardening a few years ago with one garden box filled with herbs, then one with tomatoes. Eventually lettuce and arugula, cucumbers and zucchini. Each year a bit more. I learn something new. I try again.

I try again. I learn something new.

Plant something. Feel the reciprocity of it. I promise you'll be delighted.

A remembrance

When Patrick and I separated my daughter did not come with me. She needed time to transition, to feel all of the things. I never worried about it or pushed her. We were all going through enough without making it a big deal. I knew who she was, and she needed lots of time and space and to be in her home. It never even occurred to me that someone else might think it a big deal until a few people questioned how I was OK doing that.

She took her time, she was able to be there with Patrick and the boys and I had a truly special time together. I made a kid dinner every night for them, mac and cheese and roasted broccoli were served on a blue platter with fancy cups and in the morning their favorite sausage or hash browns before school. We would go on little outings to parks, ice cream shops, thrift stores.

The building was a huge old mill with converted business space and live/work lofts. We called it the Loft and it became like a playground for the boys. They could scooter and roller blade and skate board down the long cement halls. It was the building I met Dave in six months after we started living there. He worked in an office steps away from my door. On weekends there was a Farmer's Market filling the halls.

Sometimes I ache for that time, not the heartache of divorce, but the way those boys grew me as I was growing them. If you've been here for a while, you'll remember photos of them, like when they would meditate together taking homework breaks, things kids will do before they become teens. I sometimes ache for that, the time before, as much as I love who we all are now.

Something happening around me has reminded me of that time when Chloe stayed with Patrick, pulled me back into memories of how important it is to let our kids take part in decisions while we focus on caring for ourselves too. I've been reminded that our kids need us differently at different times. Chloe probably needs me more now at 18 then she did at 12 when she relied on her friends, and that is the beautiful ebb and flow of time.

It reminds me that we don't have to be everything for our kids (or our partners/family). We can't. Dave and I are reading a parenting book together and they repeat over and over that you must take care of yourself first. We can get lost in a child in similar ways we get lost in a partner. We can want to control a child so that we feel better. That isn't the child's job for us to feel better. Their job is themselves.

What if we didn't take the things others are choosing so personally? What if the actions or choices of others were just that, their choices? And what if, before we worried about what another is doing, we checked in with what we actually truly really really need and desire, so we can meet it on our own first? (Pressure valve releasing....)

It would give us a lot of space for ourselves, for this sacred work of living and loving. It would give the people we love a whole lot of space to learn to be who they are too.

Control it feels to me, is what happens when we don't allow the time to feel, see the choices, hold a bit of empathy and devote ourselves to seeking kindness and joy. There is no win or loose, we can stop playing a game and learn to live each day as a devotional to ourselves, God/Spirit, earth and those we love.

I honor you. I honor you doing the hard work. I honor that this isn't always easy, but there can be ease. I honor the way you love, the way you grow, the way you live into the questions.

xo
H

PS. In honor of Mother's Day I will be bringing Being Mama back. Information and sign ups will be out early May.

PPS. A neighbor just cut down about twenty trees along their property line and I'm in tears each time I walk by. I'll be planting a tree to help restore the balance and I thought this would be a good reminder that each of us planting one tree would make a forest.

PPPS. I can never tell the boys I used this picture of them but I could stare at it all day!!! I remember we thought it was so cool the ice cream cones said JOY.

The strict policies with myself.

[4-9-21]

OK, so I'm actually not a strict anything, more of a rebel mixed with a lover of rhythm and ritual. I refer to them as my strict policies in my head, but they are my sacred roots, my way of staying mentally healthy.

Phones don't go into the bedroom or bathroom. Social media once or twice a week (if that). Money into savings first. Coffee and dog food on auto-orders so they never run out. Tell your partner you see them, you appreciate them, that you adore them. Get dressed and feel into Spiritstyle so you show up. Continue learning.

When Dave and I recently decided to de-clutter and cut back on how much stuff we had, strict policies were needed. The sacred roots needed to be dug down.

I have always envied people with houses where they didn't have to shove their piles in closets for someone to walk in the door. I imagined I just wasn't cut out to be that person. But the closets were full and with five kids and a blended family and two adults who held on to stuff, we were feeling it.

It has been a slow process. I take one thing at a time. One cabinet, not the whole kitchen. One drawer, one bin, one box. I've been at it for months, and I'm still going.

What I discovered is that it is all about having a place for every single thing. That is how people don't have to shove things in the closet. Because they can put things away. In. Their. Place.

Maybe this is obvious to you. It was not to me. I just kept trying to make things fit anywhere I could, and then the process of cleaning was always this huge adventure in sorting and organizing, not just tucking things away.

Like the dishes. I used to dread putting things away. If all my dishes were clean at once, we were screwed. I had overflow all the place. Now, every single thing has a place. And if it doesn't and we can't make it one, it leaves.

Life changing. So I made a strict policy with myself. If it doesn't have a place, it goes. I actually read it in an article, but implementing it changed everything for me. I was able to let things go that I never could have before. And, things are making sense in my home, there is a flow. I told Dave it takes 5 minutes to clean up now whereas before it was hours and lots of stuffing in closets.

As I go through one by one and find things that are clutter I make a plan. Even plants!! I had so many plants, I had to find a spot for each one, if there were too many, I got rid of them. This helped me to truly love on them and now they feel purposeful rather than part of the clutter.

My spices drive me nuts. I order in bulk often from Thrive Market (they are recyclable and organic) and then I have all these bags of things and random bottles and I can never find what I want and it makes the pantry feel crowded. When I order in massive bulk, like pounds of something I put them in large Ball jars. But for everyday cooking we needed a system.

I researched for ideas and read about spice drawers. I found these cute 4 ounce Ball jars and grabbed my label maker. (If you or kids have ADHD or Inattentive ADD, label makers will change your life. My entire house is labeled.) Now I have a home for all the spices I use and I store the bulk bags in a container with a lid that I can pull down to refill the jars as needed.

The initial investment of jars is one time, these will last lifetimes. This has made the kids cooking more accessible and they aren't constantly asking me if we have this or that. Open the drawer, find the label. Done. You could alphabetize them or have one of your kids do it.

A place. A sacred home. Ease.

A strict policy that roots me down, just a bit deeper into the devotion I want to feel in this space that Dave and I love deeply and call home.

I see you. I appreciate you. I adore you.

How he writes love poems.

[4-2-21]

It may look like a hole. And, it is. But this hole is how he writes his love poems and stories. His labor is his love. He never stops until the dream is complete. He hears my visions that are details and feelings and builds a world around them.

We have been dreaming of a farm together since we first were whispering notes of freedom, our someday farmhouse. Last summer he gave it to me. The promise of right now, not waiting, using the land we have, the place we make home.

I watch him dig holes for seven hours knowing he has four more, at least. I can’t fathom that kind of work. For him, it is simply another chapter of his love.

After twelve hours digging holes in the mud we have our fence posts in the ground.

Right next to the fence, the sweetest garlic shoots are our inspiration to keep going. The soil already tells us of the farmland past. It has been fourteen (I think) years since this old farmland was worked, when the houses were built and the land separated. As you dig down into the earth you see the history.

I am trying to not get ahead of myself. Everything this year is considered my classroom. What is it like to grow a carrot or garlic or cabbage or broccoli? I need to do so I can learn. I started onions too late. All of my seed starts are small but they are alive, willing, promising.

Last summer without amending the soil I dropped some seeds in to see if things would grow. And grow they did. Perfect food for our deer and rabbit friends!

So, the fence building continues. The love poems collected.

Dave’s one request of me was to have a plan for the first garden on the farm. He wanted specific row and walkway measurements and to see how all the vegetables would fit, to know how many cattle panel trellises and the timing of everything.

If you know me, these requests felt like someone reaching inside me and taking away all my free spirit!!!!!

Turns out, a little bit of planning only has increased my knowledge and understanding of what we are doing, hours spent watching YouTube videos and reading. He loves to be right and I love the deeper excitement I have as we begin one garden while talking about the next and the fruit trees and bees.

In just a few months I know so much more because I took a chance and made a plan. My plan can change, this is his promise because he knows I need to hear it. He is an engineer by training, I am an actor by training. We both landed in the business world, that is our common language. The business of creating a farm is now a shared passion.

I realized that I start every course just like this garden design. With a blank piece of paper, a pencil and a sharpie, sticky notes, lots of ideas and a whole lot of free spirit.

Whatever you are tending to with your hands, minds or hearts (garden, kids, kitchen, lover, new ideas, newsletters, jobs, feelings, needs, desires) there is space for all of you. There is space to learn, to experience and to flow.

We are writing love notes all the time: a beautiful meal, words of encouragement, laughter, candles lit on a spring altar, an outfit that makes us feel alive and true, a spring branch blooming inside, the perfect cup of steaming hot coffee. This letter I send on Fridays.

This morning I took my warmish coffee outside, said good morning to the chicken and walked over to where this beautiful someday-soon garden will be. The holes are filled with water from a rainstorm and so we wait until the sun comes out to do the next steps.

Another chapter. Another note. Another poem.

No longer living in tiny boxes.

[3-26-21]

I don't remember when it was, but a while ago, I decided to lose my phone. I was living in tiny square boxes, seeing my life through those boxes. It helps to watch documentaries about social media, but even before that, I knew something was off.

I watch my family always inches from their phones. I see them on the tv and their phone, on their computer and their phone, as though some invisible string keeps them tethered. It scares the shit out of me.

Addiction is addiction. Social media is not there for us, anyone who says they use it (and I still use it) and it doesn't affect them, perhaps doesn't have a grasp of how it is designed to manipulate us. (Watch Social Dilemma.) Once you know, you can't unknow it, and if we choose to use it, we should have all the information.

The kids joke now that if you need a ride, text Dave because mom won't know where her phone is and if you call her ringer is probably off. I text through my computer and I limit times that I'm on my phone. Losing the phone is vital for this, our phones are designed to make us pick them up, the rush we get just touching the screen to check the time, then ending up an hour in, lost, floating out of our lives.

I do run a shop on Instagram so I have days for that and I support other small businesses who use Instagram as much as I can, so I will do little check ins with them on days I run my shop. It is about the feeling I want more than anything. I love the ease of Instagram, I have to be incredibly intentional in how I use it so I don't get lost. I took months off so that I could decide how I wanted to return.

I used to see life through what could become a little square photo and words. I told myself I wasn't affected by it, that I used it well. Until you detox, you can't realize the scope of the intensity that one little device can have upon you.

I want my friends to hear my stories before they read them on Instagram. I want the people in my courses to know my truths and teachings before they become tiny boxes that an algorithm decides who will see it and how they will manipulate me to post more, to be on more, to give my time to building numbers because the world has decided it now values that.

I stopped drinking almost three years ago. In April I made the decision to quit, I slowly removed it from my life. One day I was done. It is hard to become sober and then not look every other addiction right in the eye. Money, love, food and the newest added to our pile, phones.

So I decided to lose my phone. In the mornings I drink coffee and stare out the windows or walk around the house and tend plants and fluff pillows. I day dream like I used to when I was young. I have gained so many more hours in a day that in the beginning I didn't know what to do with them.

I spend most of my time without podcasts or audio books or music or social media. I have become accustomed to my own company, to thoughts, to the sounds outside and in, to a slower pace and quieter needs than ever. There was so much noise, I had to relearn how to be with myself.

I had to practice being in life without thinking about it as tiny box material. I post now and then, I check in with some people who offer some beauty, and then I get off and go back to my life. Sometimes I find that without even thinking about it I'll go to look at one thing (like a shop update from someone) and before I know it, I'm lost in a thousand directions, because that is what it wants me to do. It takes incredible practice to be able to not get lost when you are there. Especially lost in other's lives or words or advice or beauty or anger or needs.

There are things I love about having a phone. There are things that terrify me. My job is to live in my life so that the collection of moments isn't a grid of tiny boxes, but a true sense that I was there, that I am here.

I am figuring it out. I don't have answers for anyone else, I just know that nothing fell apart. My business is strong. I feel more connected to my family. The time I now have has led me to simplifying other parts of my life and I just breathe better.

Do I worry about missing out, being left behind, becoming irrelevant? Yep. But I seem to remember those thoughts before I had a phone too. Many people say Instagram has replaced blogging for them. I know it did for me. So easy, simple. But what did we lose? I don't have answers, I'm just trying to figure it out for me.

A long time ago when I was studying business, a question came up, "What would you do if social media went away? Would you still have a business? Would you have a community built, connection that is unique to you?"

I'm forever grateful to be able to say yes. Yes, I do. It is you, on the other side of these words.

You who have allowed me to create a sustainable business. You who found me on the internet when I was a nursing mom typing her blog with one hand. You who came along with me for Joy Ups and cleanses and the magic. You who kept me going through my divorce and learning to be a single mom. You who allowed me to iterate over time, in all sorts of chaotic directions. You who send me little notes when something I write strikes you in a similar place. You.

In business we call it our list. But you are so much more than that. You are a safe place for my words to land, for my offers to be received, for my fears to be explored. You are an email away. You are who I devote myself to, each week when I sit down to type words, tell stories and show up in something so much deeper than a tiny box could ever offer.

I'm grateful. I'm here. I'm devoted.