#22

New Moon in June feels like a fresh start for me at the end of this busy week. I finished work yesterday and despite feeling quite meh, went outside and collected a few flexi buckets worth of leaves for next year’s leaf mould. It felt nice to be outside in the backyard, collecting leaves and listening to a podcast. I felt quite energised afterwards, which put me in a creative mood. 

I spent Thursday hanging out with a playground designer/child environments educator for work. Over a day of filming training videos and exploring a newly installed playground, I listened to him speak about the importance of all these elements of environments, free play and the relationship to emotional regulation. One of my biggest takeaways was the view that negative behaviours stem from your environment and/or lack of connection to the parent or teacher at that moment. It made me think about how getting outside and connecting with nature is such a big part of me maintaining feeling balanced, but also making time to hang out with friends and taking a break from caretaking is important too.

You may have seen my Instagram post the other day about how I have been feeling burnt out and how it has been a slow year for me creatively speaking. After some good chats and some time away I feel like I have turned a corner this week. It’s easy to get caught up in the busyness of adult life, parenting and everything else - when everything is expected now. It’s good to just take a breath and remember to keep taking the time to rest and fill the cup up. 

I planted all my sweet pea seeds a couple of weeks ago along with a couple of varieties of poppies. Since I have a large space to fill in the planters on the deck, I planted every single sweet pea seed from my own garden last year, plus 3 other varieties. I tried out the Sistema container greenhouse idea on the deck (thanks Elly! @daydream.green) and pretty much every single seed germinated! 

I pre-sprouted some ranunculus corms too, but only got 4 sprouted, the rest went mouldy. I may yet buy some more from Mitre 10 over the weekend as my son and I are going to get a bird feeder for the garden.

Over the next week, I will be

• I’m organising for some wood chip/ forest floor mulch to be delivered for my garden paths as I will need quite a lot this year. Usually, I raid the community mulch piles around here with my Flexi buckets in the back seat and boot of my car. 

• Sowing some more seeds, a strawberry blonde calendula and antique rose stock.

• My compost bins are depleted so I’m working on building them up again over winter as homemade compost is amazing. I’m also thinking about trying Bokashi. If any of you have used this system let me know your thoughts.

I got a new sketchbook recently along with a super fine line carving tool from Gordon Harris last month so I’ve been sitting down to sketch most evenings after my son goes to bed. I usually catch up on Patreon videos or podcasts or watch YouTube videos by creators and gardeners I follow. 

Over the years I have collected several beautiful gardening and floral design books and vintage garden magazines so I am never short of reference material. I have been exploring compositions for printmaking while just having fun sketching. 

I love sketching with a light-coloured pencil to get the forms, then tidying up with a black liner before using coloured pencils. It’s a simple style and process, which makes it perfect for my end-of-day brain. 

In random craft news, I have been trying my hand at making a latch hook cushion which is monotonous but also somewhat meditative. I find when I spend 15 minutes latch hooking it helps to quiet my monkey mind and I feel regulated.

I’ve been slowly working on filming a video for the past few months, but whenever it comes time to speak to the camera, I find it is not natural at all. And then I wonder why I’m even making a video haha.

If I were to make videos would anyone watch them? I guess I just need to do it and see what happens, as I feel it’s something I want to try. I just always have that hesitancy to put myself out there in that kind of way despite wanting to. 

Time to harness the potential of the New Moon in Gemini and embrace intention and taking stock. Wishing you all a happy June, whatever you are doing.

Rach xo