new blooms
Hiya.
it’sBeen a minute.
I have been completely and totally tapped into a season of deep, deep sleep. A nurturing, soothe your bones and release built up tension kind of rest. Now I have entered a brand new season all-together, one that brings a bit more uncertainty than I’m used to.
By the end of last winter, I felt deeply compelled to re-assess, pull back, and restructure my creative and business priorities. My balance was out of whack, with too much time devoted to work; and some of that work was not very fulfilling if I’m being completely honest, and could feel myself too heavily leaning into spaces that took me away from my main priority, which is time with my family. I knew I needed to chill.
Rather than pursue clients over the winter, I invested into myself as a creative and did a mentorship with another artist, Sasha Casta. It was a month long deep dive included journaling, self reflection, looking into my human design to use to my advantage, editing, and thorough conversations about anywhere my mind led me while working through my weekly guided lessons. I will forever sing the praises of Sasha and how seen and understood I felt, how intentional I felt she was, and the way I have come away from my mentorship much more confident. By purposely taking a step back and by doing this over the winter, it allowed me plenty of time to marinate and digest all of the new information without a bunch of pressure to produce and put things into practice before I was ready.
A week or two before I started my mentorship with Sasha is when I found I was pregnant. It almost felt serendipitous, the timing of everything. Before it happened, I felt like I was living in a way that wasn’t sustainable for us and was prepared to make a change. I was devoted to slowing down and getting back to my roots of pouring into our home. I was intentional in taking time for an unearthing of myself as a creative and business owner. All while my body was, unbeknownst to me, coming up with its own plans that fit my mind’s intention. This was happening right after the hustle and bustle of the holidays, in the dead of winter, when the entire world is dark and ready for hibernation. It all just felt so incredibly right.
My pregnancy has been mentally and spiritually positive, happy, and filled with light. It feels revolutionary because every other pregnancy came with bouts of crippling anxiety and an extreme mental mind fuck. I feel beyond thankful to be feeling joyful and present this time around. The trade-off has been that for the past 5 months I have experienced hyperemesis gravidarum, meaning I have been sick beyond normal morning sickness. It has been very persistent and I have lost quite a bit of weight. It has kept me very much home bound (not mad), and has forced to tune into whatever my body needs, and to let myself listen to it without feeling selfish. With 4 small kids I am in high demand, mom guilt is real, and I have to put in some work to fight my instinct so I don’t let myself feel like I’m being unproductive or lazy some days. My children, husband, and close friends and family have been an incredible support helping fill all the gaps during this season of life, and it makes all of the difference in the world. I am almost 22 weeks now and starting to feel more human, with bursts of energy/motivation, have been gaining some weight back, and the days of hugging the toilet seem to be spreading thinner.
For my business, it looks a lot like going with the flow right now. I am a lucky one in the sense that I work with really amazing people. Kind texts, offerings to help, meaningful chats, in addition to patience and continued support have meant the world. It would be a disservice for me to take on more than what I can handle, to myself and to all of you. I take a lot of pride in running my business in a way that allows me appropriate space and time to nuture each experience with my heart and to put a lot of love into the work that is created- before, during, and after a session. In this period of time, I can’t work at the same capacity as I have in previous years. I am and will continue to take on as many clients and mentees as I can between now and August. I am also giving myself as much space as I need from social media sharing, which does come with it’s sacrifice of connectivity, so I am extra grateful for those of you who reach out and continue to allow me back in your lives, to those of you who have told your friends, and to those who stumble across and feel connected despite my shotty presence. It makes a difference to this one-man-show-of-a-business, and to the family it helps support.
I am excited that this time allows me to further pursue and expand on all of my creative interests. Most of you already know that as a family we do all kinds of things with wildflowers and what we grow in the garden, we love making candles, and soaps and wines. I don’t have big market plans or anything, but it is nice to be able to explore and do all of these things especially with my husband and kids. I hate the idea of announcing a rebrand, because I’m not rebranding anything. I’m still just the same old me, and I’ve always been transparent with the human aspect of how I run my photography business. I did change the name of my “brand” in order to better reflect all of the bits and pieces that make my photography what it is. As someone who is deeply intertwined with my roots of living a simple life in our rural ramshackle, who is unable to flip a switch and become a different person during working hours, who is so much deeper than snapping a shutter, I needed something that felt more aligned. Grassroots Collective gives me space to let my whole human, whole creative-self, come through- just as it always has.
Well, that about sums it up. It’s not really all that exciting, but it’s an update none-the-less. Most importantly I am extending a deepest thank you and wholehearted appreciation for all of you.
