Reading back through these entries, I realized how I’ve used this place: to record my days and make memories, but also to offer a deeper glimpse of who I am as a philosopher and a mythological human being. It’s a living archive of the woman I have been, the places I’ve called home, and the things that have moved me along the way.
My herbal self, so deeply tapped into the elemental energy of Northern California, its rivers, estuaries, and wild landscapes. My connection to the Earth through mythology, healing my sister wounds, and following the path of the deer at the cusp of my 27th birthday.
There is something about the deer that has stayed with me. Its quiet intuition, its gentleness, its ability to move through the forest with grace and sure-footedness. To follow the path of the deer is to learn that not every passage requires force, that sometimes we must become quiet enough to sense where life is leading us. Perhaps this was one of the initiations of those years, learning to soften without losing my strength, and to find my own way through the woods.
This year, I returned to Spirit Weavers after two years, coming back to a place of deep healing as part of the Areola Collective. It was a magical experience, one I wish all women could have. Sisterhood and laughter. Happiness = health, as DeAnna says.
As the days grow darker, I look back on a year with more magic than I can articulate, nor will I try. Banyan Farm’s teachings and connections reaffirmed my adoration for Ayurvedic pharmacology and mythology.
At Oshala Farm, inspired by Elise, so much of what I love came together: honey and medicinal plants, and theatre as mythology, a way of connecting people through story. Gatherings like that hold the power of memory. We remember together, we learn from each other, and something in us is restored. I believe this is medicine too, and that enough of it could heal our worlds.
I turned 29 this year, and as I prepare to receive my thirties with open arms, I find myself slowly emerging from my Saturn return, victorious and quite humbled. I don’t know where I’ll be next summer or what this next chapter will ask of me, but I know I have matured.
There is something tender about arriving at this threshold. To look back and recognize how much has changed, how many versions of myself I have had to shed, and how many others I have yet to meet. I am learning that becoming does not always look like forward movement. Sometimes it means returning to the same places with different eyes. Sometimes it means allowing the seasons to do their work, trusting the unseen, and letting the next path reveal itself in its own time.
Grateful to this land we call America, and to all the herbalists, hippies, organic farmers, and yogis who have helped create the counterculture I adore. The people who have kept alive a relationship with the Earth, with plants, with the body, with ancient wisdom, and with the possibility of living differently. A culture that has given me room to explore, to heal, to study, to get my hands dirty, to follow my curiosities, and to remember that life can be a practice of devotion.
As I approach thirty, I feel less concerned with having all the answers and more interested in remaining receptive to the mystery of it all. Perhaps that is what following the path of the deer has come to mean to me. To walk gently, to remain alert to the world around me, to trust the wisdom of the body, and to move with grace through the unknown.
I feel so lucky to have lived this chapter of my life in such intimate relationship with this land and the people who tend to it. Whatever comes next, a part of me will always belong to these forests, these rivers, and the women who have walked beside me.
If this archive does anything, I hope it brings you a little closer to the land, the plants, and the people who tend them. And I hope that one day you’ll come experience one of my therapeutic cocoons, try the seasonal products, or simply become a friend.
