A Quieter Season
If you live in the Northern Hemisphere then our days are drifting ever further into the cold and dark of autumn and winter; the seasons for resting, repairing, and living a bit more quietly and slowly. Gardens have died in their sleep, leaves have fallen and formed a carpet of decay that will slowly melt into the topsoil, and both color and activity are becoming more muted in the world around us. Harvests have been brought in and we are collectively nesting for the cold months ahead. Now we light fires and gather together. We pick up hobbies and books we laid down during the season of sun and long days of work and play. We buffer our diets with food full of nurturing warmth and minerals to ward off coughs and sniffles that creep in during this season.
Today my son turns one month old and it feels like time to re-open the shop in celebration of the perfect 30 days I’ve spent holding him in my arms and showing him his new world. I have been a healer and a caretaker of plants and people for the past nine years of this little herbal business, and now I am also a mother, the latter of which has profoundly expanded my concept of caretaking and nurturing, in the specific and the general. To become a mother is to expand the capacity of what I am capable of, to gain grit and willpower I never knew before, and to delve into an expanse of sacrifice that brings incredible joy and fulfillment. These new facets of my being will not only serve to guide and steward the growth and learning of my son, but will be inextricably woven in to how I care for this business and my community of people near and far, tending everything into a more vibrant version of what it was before.
It is with joy that I open the shop once more. It is with renewed hunger that I step back into the kitchen to make and prepare all these bottles and jars of herbal goodness with my own two hands. I’m back, and I’m here for you, in whatever way you need me to be.
Love and herbal tea,
Jenn
