2020
Beyond the humor that can be found in even in the darkest of times, 2020 was a year of grief for me and mine.
Earily into the pandemic and lockdown we lost my mother. Her body weakened from Lupus and other genetic and side effect factors couldn’t sustain being on a ventilator while trying to battle covid. It was sudden. It was a nightmare.
My mom is an amazing woman and she was my rock. She had been to hell and back with her initial Lupus diagnosis and eventually went into remission. Like Molly Brown from the Titanic, my mom seemed unsinkable.
The grief was so heavy at time I thought it would take me with it.
Fear and uncertainty are invitations
Being a seeker of flow in my daily life, I knew when my connection went quiet a year and half before the pandemic was declared an emergency that something big was coming.
That knowing had caused me to stop what I was doing. Not out of fear. But rather, because I knew the plans I had in mind weren’t going to go anywhere for a while. I had the sense that were other things I was going to need to focus on, my attention would need to be on the living world around me.
As I let the dust settle in my life from the constant grinding and business that comes with being any kind of business owner, shadow began to catch up.
Now most people go through a lot of stuff in the course of life. But we had had a few years of course changes, major life events, and Divine intervention right before covid hit. With my mom’s help we had just spend the first year in a new house after going through a devastating house fire.
The more shadow came up, the stiller I became. I let it all sink in, all the emotions of tumultuous time we had been through right before covid and then the loss of my mother, and of course, the loss of “normal life”.
And in the stillness Hekate began having this conversation with me. Even now. I can’t say the conversation is complete. But this chance to look deeply into shadow has helped me uncover the solid good bones I have, so that I could begin rebuilding once again.
The medicine of a slower pace
The one thing 2020 really gave me was the blessing of a slower pace of life.
It began with my garden. I usually try to do some gardening every year, but our new home is literally blessed with tomatoes. The former owners let the plants go to seed one year, and almost two years later we still get more tomato plants that we know what do with.
With this blessing came the inner acknowledgment, that weeding and transplanting is just as important to the overall health and success of the produce as water is.
If I didn’t allow the plants to come up as they would, and then transplant or rehome excess plants, I wouldn’t have the ability to shape the garden into something that wouldn’t breed mold and mildew. If I didn’t allow the time for new suckers to form, so I could pinch them off, I wouldn’t be able to redirect the nutrient flow to the produce.
It’s the same with life. Being afraid of everything little bad thing can make you a bit manic. It could send you rushing off to stop something before it starts, trying to control everything and everyone around you.
Those hard stops and steely defensive walls, though, could very well stunt a whole situation. The slower-paced idea of daily devotion, especially when healing, really does lend itself to a smoother life experience.
Course corrections and delays have a way of building up the right priorities and energy so that you can then really choose something in alignment with you.
Allowing growth, all growth, and accepting that maybe you have to trim some stuff back or add some support later, so how you stay open to flow and open to growth.
The more you wait to see how things are shaping up, instead of panicking, the more space you give yourself to just be. The smaller, more intentional actions you take on a semi-regular basis end up being the cornerstones of your successes.
Our new resin products also benefit from the slow approach!
Click on the picture to see all our new resin moons! From learning to master the art of the slow pour, to the delicate art of swirling, and place gently placing just the right herbs and gemstones into the resin, not to mention the cure time. Resin art really exemplifies the slow Intentional Energy of 2020.
