Today walking through our field, a truck drove by, beeping its horn and waving at me. I didn't recognize the truck, but I was delighted with the hello nonetheless and waved like a girl in a parade. It made me the simplest kind of happy. I was recognized as someone in this community.
I've felt denied by this community recently. I tried multiple avenues to get into the local art community. With a brain full of rejection I’m in a moment of reflection on what life is bringing me. Because of the ways in which occupying a creative space helps my very being, I am not so easily willing to walk away from art.
Paint covered canvases, journals full of scribbled words, bellies full of home grown food, medicines made from this land, new perspectives, deeper connections, new connections. It’s all very much a part of the oxygen I breathe, and it will not stop being that, even if I decide to take on a new means of sustaining my life here.
Although I’m not entirely sure if art will expand in the ways I had originally hoped it would I feel more joyful and excited about what I create and the time I spend doing it. It’s all inspired heavily by this whimsical land I get to occupy and be surrounded by. In truth, that makes what I’m making stand on it’s own in providing for me, because it’s filling me with an energy that I can’t tap into in other spaces.
This land is my dream; getting to have chickens and my garden producing more than I expected in it’s first year has filled a piece of me I didn’t know was empty. Meeting new people and forming connections with them has shown me different sides of myself. There’s an ever evolving energy and it’s source comes straight from these mountains.
The Blue Ridge mountains being the second oldest mountain range in the world and how it’s changed over millions of years, is a medicine that seeps into everyone’s being when they experience this land. It’s rich in it’s history and energy. It’s heavily becoming a part of my art, my writing, and my core.
This land is offering me far more than I am maybe worthy of already. Wild elderberry, yarrow, passion flowers, reishi mushrooms, walls of honeysuckle ,and blackberries. So much wild, delicious beauty I can't even observe it all. Heron visits, otter visits, new birds I still haven't identified.
In many ways, I have to check myself when I even question my path, cause I'll say things like, “I thought when Steve passed, life would present this path forward for me,” as if life didn't already do that. I'm here, and I have to remind myself that THIS is my path. Many questions remain for me, but there is one thing I am certain of I am full of gratitude. So much so that I live to the point of tears daily.
I've been having visions of me walking through tall grasses, seemingly lost, and turning around, being able to see it was a path all along. It speaks to this waiting I spent many months in, the waiting to know the answers, the waiting to share my life for when I’m “established”, the waiting for this big life moment. I’m no longer in waiting, and more into trusting.
So, today I’m checking in as a girl who doesn’t have all the answers, BUT is known enough around here that people beep at me, wanting to say hi. I harvested herbs + food from my garden three times now since I planted. My chickens follow me when we do our free-range time. I still write and have books living in me working there way out. I’m forming relationships that will have lasting effects on me far beyond my understanding currently. Most importantly, I’m a girl showing up to her days, ready to work with what it’s bringing me, gaining confidence walking through these glorious wild grasses. Even if I can’t always see the next step, I’m taking it.
I recently added new paintings and weavings to the site and your continued support is why I am still able to have hours in that creative space that provides so much healing to me. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for believing in me. My pain oil is also available with some other herbal remedies brewing sourced straight from this land. I am thankful for the opportunity to share these healing medicines with y’all. I’m thankful for those who see me and believe in me, and that includes every one of you reading this.