What are we really bottling up?

As a practicing witch for nearly three decades, there has been one through-line that has been the thread of my entire practice: intention is everything.

I find myself pulling that thread a lot this month, as it is the heaviest canning season I’ve ever embarked upon. I knew four years ago that it was time to sell our new build home and seek out a place where I could garden, build a food forest and create a more sustainable life without the rules and regulations of an HOA breathing down our necks.

And so, after a lot of twists and turns, we ended up here, at The Enchanted Manor.

Week after week, my cupboards are overflowing with jars of jellies, vegetables, meals and more… and this morning it occurred to me that the intention behind my production ramp-up this year has been a reaction to the chaos that we find ourselves currently in.

From the escalation of deportation, to tariffs, to the ongoing conflict in Iran, to reduced safety measures resulting in a cyclospora outbreak that isn’t even attempting to be contained… the fragility of our food system has never been more at risk - or more expensive.

But when we decided to choose this path four years ago, none of that was even a blip on the radar… I just knew in my gut that it was time to make a change. One where we were the ones who were infusing intention into the things that we ate at every reasonable level.

And these days, I find myself wondering far too often: What is my real intention here?

Whether or not you believe in Masaru Emoto’s theory that water holds memory, at the very least it hold energy. As does every living plant.

At every retreat that I host here at The Enchanted Manor, I do a simple exercise. We stand in a circle around one of my magnolia trees and ask the tree to touch us. Without fail, every time we do it, the tree bends and moves to caress a face or gently touch a shoulder. Every woman who stands beneath the tree and connects with the energy of it finds that the tree responds and will move itself to touch them.

We’ve all seen the elementary school projects of where there are two house plants. Students speak kindly to one and then poorly to the other. Guess which one thrives?

Because… Intention is EVERYTHING.

So as I’m working on putting up all of the oodles of tomatoes and beans and peppers and okra that are flowing out of my garden and into my kitchen to be packed into jars… I have to set the intention that I’m doing this out of love - not fear.

A love of gardening. Of building a relationship with my plants, my land, my own eco-system. A love of cooking, of kitchen-witchery and of creating gifts for the upcoming Witchmas season for my friends and loved ones.

If I am choosing to do this work rooted from a place of love and joy, rather than if I am doing it from a place rooted in fear and scarcity… I have to believe it will nourish my body differently.

That the energy packed inside the jar will respond differently.

Months from now, in the dead of winter, I’ll pop open a jar and remember the warmth of the summer sun gazing upon me, dirt beneath my fingernails and the damp grass beneath my feet, filling up baskets and carting them to the kitchen while the robins sang in the trees all around me.