The scent of lavender laced smoke encircles the kitchen as tiny feet dash by, pushing eagerly through the screen door. For me, this is the spiritual practice; the presence to recognize the profound beauty and energy of these moments in time. We weave our days with both chores + play, though the chores often feel like play when we are working under the warm spring sun. We delight in counting robins, seeing a nesting pair of sandhill cranes searching for food near where our home will be hopefully be erected later this year, and stop to listen inquisitively to the merl of red winged blackbirds announcing their arrival. There is much to plan and do in this shifting season, hundreds of sapling as well as honeybees arriving soon, tiny pieces of a larger puzzle of our humble farmstead dreams. We send seeds in the post to friends, and have begun to fill trays with our own flower and vegetable seedlings for this years’ garden, my motherhood leg up on rainy days that keep us all about our wits and off the walls. Much of my time and attention has been focused on living joyfully in these days, the excitement of the children alone fills me dawn until dusk. Where one curiosity falls fallow another eagerly takes its first breaths of life. It is here that a deep reverence has evolved for my sense of sound, a medicine I had no idea I yearned for so deeply. Birdsong, the wind traveling around + through the poplars, the sound of stillness. It makes the world feel soft, infinite. It reminds me that I am home, wholly alive in my body.

I watch as the children throw rocks into muddy puddles, becoming a swirling driveway toward the pond. It feels terrifying and vulnerable to share any of it- the plans, the spaces, the love + interdependence, it feels like somehow estranged energy will envelope it in shadows and the worth of it will slip away. There has been a lot over the last few years that has fallen apart so that it can begin to come together again, and I am learning to embrace this way of surrender. If you hold something too close you risk smothering it, so sharing feels like giving this future existence a bit of oxygen in hopes that it will burst aflame. Paper photographs + palettes + textile samples that have been collecting in a basket, an effort to decipher what aesthetic feels good versus what everyone else’s looks like. Be wary of what is commodified and sold as both truth and joy, friends. It was a long winter of needed hibernation + rest, a cultivation of what’s to come, trusting that deep roots are what grounds us steadfastly to the Earth. I am so grateful to those of you who hold me in your hearts in friendship + reciprocity. I am guided by this love every day. I have been drawn mostly to my physical day to day amidst all of the happenings, and would invite you to drop your email into my Letters from Home journal subscription as a sure means to keep in touch for now. It feels as though an integration of sorts is nearing the horizon and I am certain that this time is between spaces, a doorway that I am wholeheartedly standing in with curiosity + anticipation. I wish you all peace and renewal in these emerging days.

In gratitude + connectedness, 

Holly