Rebirth

You ever get that feeling that you must let go of a part of yourself to create space for a new version of you? That’s how 2024 felt for me, like the old arkansawblk, who was creative, chaotic, unorganized, and full of inspiration had to step out of the way for arkansawblk to be reborn as lavender the herbal fairy, who is able to harness all of that chaotic energy into something that is organized, living in the present and focused so I could effectively share my story: the good, bad, and ugly {still working thru the ugly, but you get what I mean}.

I’ve had to do some DEEP self work. Work on learning how to accept myself, even when I felt “too different”. Learn to accept my sensitive nature and respect my body’s needs when I’ve done too much peopling. Learn to accept that my perspective and dreams and hopes and desires are gonna be different from the person next to me and that’s OK. What a hard lesson, can you relate? I had to learn to accept that my imagination is just one of many in this world and I must learn when to coexist and when to fight with the reality and rules that other people’s imagination have created. Right now feels like a moment in time when I’ve decided to fight back, but in my own way.

As we navigate the first 100 days of the second term with president Donald Trump and everything feels as if it is speeding up, I’ve decided that it’s time for me to protest.

Protest the pressure of having to keep up with the fast paced world.

Protest that we gotta be 100% digital or we’ll get left behind.

Protest that there is only one way of doing things.

Protest against the threats on our nervous system.

My form of protest is to tap as deeply as the root of the dandelion into my imagination, to surrender to the flow of creative ideas, and to bloom a space that inspires connection, belonging, and (re) connection to nature. This newsletter, called shrinking violets do bloom is the start of the blooming process. This blooming protest includes:

• tapping into community and allowing people to be there for me

• really learning what it means to take care and love on myself

• centering my needs and wants in my life

• & crafting magickal and beautiful spaces to gather.

I invite you to join my protest and to come live life in the slow lane with me. Don’t worry, we will stay informed but we will do it in a way that doesn’t overwhelm and stress our nervous system. We can be aware and also be well.

The second act of the blooming protest is to share more videos where I get to play as Lavender the Herbal Fairy and create, like my most recent video about Building Fairy Homes in Nature 🧚🏾‍♀️🏠! In this video, I went to a state park, foraged for sticks, leaves, stones, to create a nature inspired fairy home for the forest fairies. Whenever I visit the trail, I am reminded to play, create, and slowwwwww down. I am a firm believer that there is a time for play just like there is a time for work.

Now more than ever, it’s important we are being intentional with our lives even when it feels like the world is experiencing the zoomies around us. Yes, things are changing quickly, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be rooted while we experience change. What makes you feel rooted in love, joy, and compassion during change? The healthier the soil aka our environment is, the healthier our root system is and the better job we can do supporting ourselves and our community.

The third part of the blooming protest is to share more of my interests to learn more about yours. Let’s talk about books (right now I’m reading Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement), fashion, culture, fairies, magick, love, nature, art and science while also acknowledging our feelings with how we are experiencing the world around us. For paid subscribers, I’ll post analog nature art activities, share plant magick, designing your own garden, and more! Lavender the Herbal Fairy—if you haven’t met Lavender yet, check out this introductory video—was designed to inspire play and imagination not as a way to escape, but instead as a form of protest to co-exist with our current reality by providing refuge in the chaos. If you’re, curious click on the button below to see your options 😊.

Any of you ever work until you’re exhausted and then the corporations tells you that you did not work hard enough or that they need more? The wellness books/podcast etc. tells us that we need to be healthy, but it’s a challenge to find the time to cook healthy meals, workout and do self care with the stressors of day to day living. What do we do, with all these contradictions?

As daunting as it all may seem, nature can provide guiding wisdom. For instance, take the daily practice of the sun, everyday the sun reminds us to:

1. rise 🌞

2. shine brightly, spread warmth, support others growth 🌅🌱🌤️

3. and to rest at the end of the day knowing we did what we could and pass the baton to the person next up 🌑✨. We don’t have to do it all. When we get the chance to wake up the next day we are reborn, so what will you do with all that potential?

Me, I’m going to keep trying, not only to keep trying to be a good friend who’s honest and loving, but I’m going to keep trying to create spaces for people to feel comfortable, to feel like they can be themselves and we can have honest human to human connection and conversation. We must learn how to talk with compassion to one another again, to find reverence in our differences and use it to build kinship. Diversity is such a beautiful word. We are all uniquely different just like the magnificent trees living on this earth with us; we all grow in different ways that shape us and it’s through those lived stories we develop into the people that we are.

Whether you believe in destiny or not our experiences make our reality, they shift our vision and shape our perspective. I cannot see someone else’s perspective unless they share it to me and then I can do my own self work to understand, to the best of my abilities, their viewpoint because I can never fully understand what another person experiences, but I can try and be empathetic.

That means I also must be a person who’s willing to share my story and be vulnerable with others. Maybe we try and be brave together. This is my blooming protest, do you have one? Our stories makes us rich in culture. It’s time to share yours, it’s time to be reborn.

signed, in the process of rebirth,

lavender the herbal fairy 🧚🏾

🌘🌑🌒