The culmination of these feelings + exhaustion frothed to the surface under the new moon in cancer, a watery road map of my heart space that seems to return me in such an absolute way to the truth. And that truth keeps me coming back to the inner child shadows of gendered society, and that of how little girls spend time working through the insecurities of childhood while little boys play. Running through my head lists of things that needed tending, leaving little time for play or for mothering myself. These weights I’ve carried with me into womanhood, into motherhood, and into restless thoughts about how to achieve a radical form of rest + nurturing that is so necessary for me, for the practice of community care, and for changing the course of these binary roles in our lineage.
I listened to a podcast with Glennon Doyle while returning home from a long overdue visit with a dear friend, and as she spoke about the “invisible labor hours” expended by women creating + organizing mental lists, often around the clock- a privilege that the co-parent/partner in the household does not have to endure, it was the first time that I’d heard someone explain the bubbling up of exhaustion in a way that felt so real to my own. Having someone ask you how they can help only confirming that they in fact, do not bear your same load. Is this the season of life, or is this the future? And then I come back to remembering. Rest is not an action that is put on the list, it is the intention put before all other actions. Rest is the practice.
A morning coffee ritual, breath work, writing, capturing the beauty of life in photographs, a nourishing meal. However it is you choose to honor the pause, to bring life to your practice, rest. There is no better way to honor the women + mothers from which we have come and allow our daughters to play than to live a life of reciprocity with the practice of rest as a normalized form of self and community care.
June’s full Moon—typically the last full Moon of spring or the first of summer—is traditionally called the Strawberry Moon.
This name has been used by Algonquin, Ojibwe, Dakota, and Lakota peoples, among others, to mark the ripening of “June-bearing” strawberries that are ready to be gathered.
The Old Farmer’s Almanac
June crept quietly up on me this year, with a warm welcome of sweet pea blooms, the magical glow of the fireflies, and an early heat wave indicative of the beginning of strawberry season. It is simple summer ritual that I’ve known all my life, watching the sides of the highway for the large, hand painted sign with a red, ripe strawberry and an arrow, directing oncomers to the long, dusty driveway ending at the strawberry field. Best to bring a sunhat and wear old shoes, because you will have to earn each flat you fill, picking berries in long, wet rows with the scent of warm, ripe summer goodness hanging on the breeze, if you’re lucky enough to catch one. We’d harvested a few ripe berries from our own small container of plants this year when the signs went up, and I found myself unprepared, lugging boxes of empty jam jars + canning pots from the nooks and crannies where they had been stashed in the move. But I can say firmly that we made good use of all thirty pounds we picked this year and I’m excited to share a couple simple recipes with you, should you enjoy the fleeting weeks of strawberry season as much as we do.*
Strawberry Baked Oatmeal
3 cups old fashioned oats
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup maple syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups milk of choice
2 eggs
2 tablespoons coconut oil
3 cups sliced strawberries, divided
In a large bowl, mix oats, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. In a separate bowl, mix milk, eggs, maple syrup, vanilla, and coconut oil. I like to use a 9×9 pan with a little coconut oil and add 2 cups strawberries evenly at the bottom of the pan. Pour the dry ingredients evenly into the pan, and then pour the wet ingredients over to coat. Add remaining berries to the top and bake in a 375 degree oven for about 45 minutes or until top is golden and slightly crisp. We like this best when allowed to cool slightly and served in a bowl with a little bit of warmed oat milk or syrup drizzled on top.
Strawberry Rhubarb Shrub (drinking vinegar)
1 cup sliced rhubarb
1 cup quartered strawberries
2 cups sugar or honey
Champagne vinegar (white wine or ACV will work, too) in equal parts to syrup
Add sliced fruit and sweetener to a mixing bowl, cover, and let stand on countertop for 2-3 days, stirring each day. When your fruit has turned mostly to syrup, strain off liquid into a measuring cup. Compost solids, or turn into a yummy compote for waffle or ice cream topping! Taking note of how much syrup liquid you have, add to a glass jar or bottle, and add equal parts champagne vinegar. Stir, cover and refrigerate. (If you are using a jar, make sure to add parchment paper between the lid and the jar so the vinegar doesn’t cause corrosion.) I like to prepare my shrub over ice with some sparkling water, or in a glass of champagne in a ratio of 5:1 sparkling water or champagne to shrub.
*Most of the berries we processed this year were halved and frozen on baking sheets then stored in gallon mason jars for the cooler months. If you are disappointed there is not a jam recipe included in this post, I will be making a mixed berry jam when the black raspberries are ready to harvest this season.
Foundation Moon. Moon of roots + truth. Song Moon.
I am keenly aware of the cacophony of birdsong among the treetops as the days lengthen to the Summer Solstice, and have been using my own sounds to move energy through my body. Sometimes it’s a hum, or a song, sometimes a deep guttural exhale. Truth is, most days I have moments where I feel like a small flower just introduced to the garden, fighting to stay upright in a heavy rain. I am learning that using my voice and telling my story are rekindling my connection to self, a relationship that through early years of motherhood can be such rigorous work. The birds are reminding me that even in a chorus, there is meaning in my own song. That even in plain sight, we can hold wondrous surprises. I am finding abundance rooted in the foundations of truth, and clarity in a long felt call to withdraw from sharing as a grounding in my own values rather than a need of preservation. I am remembering that I am capable of evolving for the sake of joy + curiosity, rather than a mechanism of protection. What if we let go of the idea that in order for something to be valid or meaningful, it has to be shared? This is the lunation to throw it into the fire, folks.
New Event! New Moon in Gemini Women’s Circle June 9, 2021 7:30pm
I am very excited to announce that I will be hosting a New Moon In Gemini Women’s Circle on Wednesday, June 9, 2021 at 7:30pm. We will explore the astrological archetype of Gemini, participate in a guided visualization meditation, and share in the medicine of storytelling + intention setting. This circle is open to anyone who identifies as a Woman. There are 10 seats available for this outdoor circle, social distancing will be practiced. Circle cost is a sliding scale ranging from $15-$25 which can be made payable via Venmo at this time. Please contact Holly if you are unable to pay the sliding scale range, but would like to attend. Reserve your seat through the link below.
catalyst moon. moon of change, a portal to release expired perceptions. emergence moon.
With the children rolling next to me, I sat barefoot in a field green with soft young wheat where we’re hopeful to build our future home. No flashes of wounds past or worry about things beyond control, it was the first time all week that my heart has felt at peace. I was at home in the body of my own intuition. This full moon in my sun sign of Scorpio has felt like an emergence. A catalyst for self discovery. It has felt like a rush into the waters of the world. I have been seeking protection in solitude, acutely aware of where my energy is placed, and in doing that have discovered that our narratives are capable of change when we change how we relate to the world.
I invite you to become unbound from expired perceptions. Welcome in expansion from a place of recognition that we are interconnected and worthy of love. Rediscover yourself and let your light shine as bright as this full moon.
The approach to the new moon this week has been one full of wild + vivid dreaming and fatigue for me. I bleed with the dark moon, and it always calls me to care more deeply for my body and my mind. To honor rest, and give myself a bit more space to just be. I’m nourishing myself this new moon with a warm bath with the medicine and love of rose, and by sowing seeds of intention for the coming months. The energy of aries has me daring greatly to share my voice and my dreams, but I still feel the need to protect both them and myself. I’m finding patience in taking this life one grateful day at a time.
Lemurian Quartz crystals or crystals of your choice
To begin, place seeds into vessel with crystals and hold in your hand. Breathe into your body and close your eyes. Picture each seed as it is placed into the ground. Imagine each seed, dark under the earth, and it as it begins bursting into life. First small roots that begin to spread and grow, pushing slowly upwards toward the sky. Feel the warmth of the sun and the cool, quenching rain as the plants dance in the open air. What seeds are you planting this cycle? What dreams do you have calling forth to burst into life? What is waiting for you in the future? This is the moon of revival, the moon of action, the moon of movement. Your seeds are now ready to plant, infused with your intentions of this moon cycle.
There is a very good reason why I prefer opening up a bulky cookbook, pages stained in ingredients and corners folded, signifying that it was a recipe even the children gobbled up. It is the prelude to the memories of mealtime; the cacophony of folks gathered around the table, the simple act of sharing, and the effervescence of it all. Before the pandemic hosting meals was one of my favorite ways to engage in community, and the act of preparing a meal is definitely a love language of mine. And then the world stopped. And we couldn’t gather. And now a full rotation around the sun, we are still finding ourselves staying home, unsure of what safety feels like, and cooking has never felt more like a tireless part of a daily routine. And while the love isn’t lost from it, the exhaustion from the monotony is real. As I did a writing exercise the other day, one inspired by using writing as a way to draw feelings from the dusty corners of our unconscious, I was flooded with memories of the height of last summer, when Bodhi and I would go out into the garden in the early morning, dew still ripe on the vines and leaves of our abundance of plants, and tenderly pick the vegetables, herbs and flowers that were begging to be harvested. We would pack up small baskets or jars and load them up to drop quietly on the porches around our neighborhood. We knew who liked to eat their cucumbers raw with a little bit of salt, and who would turn the eagerly seeded jalapeño patch into a jar of fresh salsa that would arrive days later. These small ways of staying connected are the very pieces that I have clung to as we’ve descended the depths of social isolation. It has me pondering all the ways in which we are building community in these modern times, and how our communities hold us and influence us as we change, grow and navigate our future.
I have been shown that true community for me both encompasses and practices those values that I hold in my heart and in my actions. And often in return, I can feel myself being cared for in ways I hadn’t even known in times I so deeply needed. In the age of technology we’ve begun trading handwritten correspondence for e-mails, a birthday telephone call for a text message, and have relied so heavily on online communities to nurture us with what one of my dear friends referred to recently as “capitalism cloaked in a more friendly package.” I find myself wavering unsteadily between a feeling of inspiration and overwhelm in spaces like social media. We have permitted sharing that promotes consumption with the threat of scarcity, and allowed ourselves to be an influence for community as a commodity good. This idea that our community is built off of how much we engage perpetuates a culture that already extols overworking and burnout as success. There is gravity to conceiving that this is the way our communities should function and the weight we are impressed by them. We are responsible for the choices of our resources.
At a recent doctors visit, there was a slightly tattered poster hanging on the wall of the room I was in with the headline “COMMUNITY” and under it were photos of families walking to the library, neighbors taking welcome breads to one another, and normalizing swapping clothing and other kindnesses. This is the type of inexhaustible energy that I am searching for; the care of one another and our things passing from hand to hand, the gratitude amplifying at each exchange. These are the acts of service that create an attachment of appreciation and invite us to connect ourselves to the rhythm of reciprocity.
The kinship I have found most nourishing in these long days of pandemic living have been telephone conversations with familiar voices, a note of encouragement taped to an egg carton on my front steps, tiny surprise envelopes of seeds in the post from one gardener across country to another, and being raw and honest as a way to honor the relationships in our lives. And I can say firmly, that when my anxiety subsides from the comforts of home, the way in which I choose to spend my time is something to be done with the utmost intention of revitalizing the sense of community that I have not stopped aching for. And what better way to do that than with radical support and generosity to those people, places and programs that have allowed us to continue to care for ourselves and our families with greatest of abundance during the most trying of times. To show up in ways that support accessibility and inclusivity rather than commoditization. Tell me, are there seats at the table of the community you are building?
We welcome the return of the light with our whole hearts + minds in our home, because if you’ve lived a winter in the Midwest, you know that you cling hopefully to every additional minute of sunshine while you count tirelessly to springtime. And right on cue, Mother Nature decided to remind us not to get too far ahead of ourselves with a March snowstorm. So as we near the days before the Spring Equinox, or Ostara, I’ve been drawn to a few rituals that welcome the awakening of the earth, and the wonderment of springtime.
To Me, Love Me Florals
With the tease of the tulips + the narcissus peeking up through the ground, it always makes me eager to enjoy fresh florals dotted joyfully through the house. I think of it as a celebration for having made it through the winter months and enjoy treating myself to a bouquet of fresh anemones, or this week a bunch of forsythia branches to force indoors. It is a reminder of the mothering I have done for myself and the gratitude for the liminal spaces between the transition of seasons. With the disruption we’ve had to the children’s circadian rhythms this week from daylight savings, I’m letting these beauties hold me through the exhaustion- along with all the coffee.
Energy Cleanse + Home Blessing
My urge to tidy + organize with the warmer weather has made me intrinsically in tune to the energy objects hold in our home. I let go of quite a few household goods when we recently moved because of the size of the home and wanting to use only what we needed, but I have been feeling called to declutter our space (and maybe even my mind, a little) even more. Our morning ritual has long consisted of burning lavender or other herbs from the garden as an expression of gratitude for our home space, and now we have begun incorporating gratitude that our home continues to protect us, in our health, for all that we have, and to clear out the stagnant, unwanted energy + welcome the new.
Seed Starting for a Summer Garden
Lessons in patience + timing are among the firsts learned by gardeners, myself included. Starting a few varieties of seeds that require the tender loving care of the indoors before being transplanted out after the last frost are almost always what save me from the over eager feelings of growing too much too early in these infant days of spring. If you’ve ever clung commitedly to several peat pots of snap peas that you let your toddler start six weeks too early, you might know exactly what I am speaking of. I am currently nurturing a small tray of sweet peas, a single parsley plant, and some antique shades of pansies for a vision of hanging baskets on the front porch. Our garden plans will look much smaller this year, but we are excited to try and make a little boy’s sunflower wall dreams come true. Stay tuned!
My husband Michael and I recently sold our very first home and moved into a charming old house in the city while we map out our journey. Settling into a new space, or rejuvenating an existing space, is such a magical process to me. I prefer items and spaces to have purpose and usefulness, and enjoy a minimal approach to curating a hearth space. Each dwelling that I’ve ever lived has had that one room in it that is the living, breathing, heartbeat of the home. Growing up it was our parlor, a room that in a Victorian Farmhouse is designed with just the intent of gathering around the physical hearth. Then most of the places through my twenties it became the kitchen. In most cases of the small one bedroom apartments I’d rented, the kitchen was somewhere among the main living space, which meant the record player spinning while meals were being prepped + cooked, and people gathered, happily sipping cocktails and enjoying each other’s company. Even with four women packed into a quaint flat in London, somehow the kitchen was always where we would end up crowded- the panes on the windows flung open in the springtime air, kettle whistling, and sleeves of digestives being plated for afternoon tea. Our current house doesn’t have much space to gather, a simple galley kitchen with an abundance of natural light and JUST enough room for my husband and I and four tiny feet to have a dinnertime dance party each night. Then again, we’ve only known this space during pandemic times, though I often wonder which room it would be that would draw the crowd for a Sunday supper or a birthday celebration. Nonetheless, creating sacred spaces is less about the curated pieces and places of a home space, and much more about the way those spaces hold us and the people in them, and the energy that they carry during these times of upheaval.
There are many tiny spaces of magic in this home that I would consider sacred in that they are a container for exploring my inner self + depth, and give reverence to the care and intention of the daily tasks of homemaking. They make up the sanctuary for the rhythm of our family life, which connects us to our community. The east facing window ledge in the stairwell landing that has a small point of smoky quartz, where I set my morning coffee in the trips up and down, is where the pause happens to enjoy the morning sun or a beautiful moonrise. The small floating shelf in the kitchen that holds glass jars of plant cuttings from friends or a bud vase of a fresh florals to keep me company while I make a meal. A corner windowsill with a ceramic plate that holds a stick of incense or a burning wand of dried backyard lavender while we say our morning blessing to our home, and a homemade basket with a bottle of infused vinegar and some old cloths and brushes, readied like a fierce protector to take on the multitude of spills + messes of the day. I also enjoy making an altar space to honor the lunar cycles, but each of these nesting spaces connect me deeply to the moments that hold the spiritual elements of everyday living. They keep me grounded in how I show up for myself and my family in the world and allow me to lean into the values, not just the objects in my life. What are some of the ways your home space cares for you?
Sacred spaces are those that make room for compassion, whose physical being hold good, and not stagnate, or unwanted energies. They are spaces that ignite our passions and fan the flames of our creative fires. If you are trying to identify these places in your home I suggest simply pausing to take notice of where you find yourself spending most of your time. Take notice of a window view that brings joy or a chair that rests warmly in the glow of the afternoon light. I firmly enjoy being able to reflect the gratitude in how tasks serve the purpose of my home. I find respite from long days of mothering in a few quiet minutes spent at the kitchen sink, washing dishes after meals. I find gratitude in the act of caring for the children and myself with the dish brush and water running over my hands. Which spaces or objects in your home make you feel fulfilled, create room for play, and caretake through the hardest moments?
As I grow and the children grow, I’m understanding more deeply the practice of tending spaces in our homes that hold + care for us in return. Daily rituals, devotions really, to a rhythm of living. The breath and energy of the hearth is powerful, and flows in sync with seasons + cycles. Warm, cozy and safe space to go inward in the darker months, then emerging with fertility and life as days draw longer and the light returns. Soon it will be windows open to morning birdsong and exploring all the corners of the yard for the wild things while the laundry dances in the wind. I hold hope for gathering again with women whose radical authenticity realign me with my own values. I dream colorful dreams of bright purple asters + handfuls of ripe cherry tomatoes + those sacred spaces in nature which heal me from the weariness of pandemic life. I hope you can find this space to rest, too, friends.
Thirty one thousand is the number of photographs that I’ve indulged in taking over the span of the last four years. Being a photographer was never the goal of learning photography, it was to capture the moments. Every detail of each fleeting one of them. I never imagined that what I would find in those frozen moments of time that appear as I wander through them would tell me about myself, about the way that I choose to live, or the gratitude that would be shouting from them.
“Gratitude is so much more than a polite thank you. It is the thread that connects us in a deep relationship, simultaneously physical and spiritual, as our bodies are fed and spirits nourished by the sense of belonging, which is the most vital of foods. Gratitude creates a sense of abundance, the knowing that you have what you need. In that climate of sufficiency, our hunger for more abates and we take only what we need, in respect for the generosity of the giver.”
Robin Wall Kimmerer
There it all was, sometimes day by day, always season by season, the people I love most dearly, the things that I hold most scared, the traditions that we’ve built and cherished, flowing so perfectly cyclically. Humans are so innately in tune with the flow the seasons of the Earth, and even beautifully aware of it if you’re quiet enough to hear your intuition. And somewhere over the course of the last year, swept away with most of what I know to be normal, the noise of the online world and the judgement and opinions of others chatted away in my head so loudly I lost the ability to truly tune in and revel in the awareness of that song. I had stopped publicly sharing, but not living and documenting, the pieces and moments of my life that bring joy, reveal humanity, and capture time stopped still with the raw emotion that tells the story of earthly life. And in each photo, without the power or influence of words, it was like a reel of my authentic self, playing around and around the wheel of the year.
It was a moment of epiphany similar to many I’ve had in the past year, where I laughed out loud at the triviality of it all- the time I’d spent perfecting this or that, making myself small, and grieving the thought of what should have been, only to realize that what I’ve been clinging to all along are the most important bits anyway. Being gathered around the table, wandering through the woods, covered in dirt among the garden beds, laughing, holding each other close, loving + healing + truly living. And now I fear I’ve wandered a bit far from the sentiment of what those thirty one thousand photographs made me feel today, but they created a silence so intense that my intuition sang a song of experience so pure, it belongs to me undoubtedly.
wholewovenhome.com 