Behind the Scenes: slow harvest days… and introspection.

“There is not one big cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person.” Anais Nin

This past week has seen the event of Lammas or Lughnasadh or the Beginning of the Harvest season… however you want to look at it. I celebrated by eating heavily from the fruits of my garden labors – a million yellow pear tomatoes [seen here] plus crisp cucumbers and a goodly amount of plum tomatoes that I mixed with baby balls of mozzarella cheese and basil that I grew, drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. YUM.

I also celebrated – and I use that word loosely – by having a really tough week filled with conflict and introspection and anxiety. This is not the harvest I want to reap, but sometimes you have to get through adversity to get to the good stuff, right? I’ve found that it seems that when one thing needs attention in your life, everything that’s in need of patching or correction gets feisty, too. Because of course, why wouldn’t you want everything to go batshit all at once?

One of the ways that I deal with the stress is to come home every day and have an extended cuddle session with my cat. Usually my Mom joins me on the patio/catio/sunroom [whatever you want to call it, I just call it AWESOME] and we catch up on the day, drink iced tea/iced coffee, and talk to the Squeege about how lucky he has it. It’s a saving grace to every day, because it is so peaceful and lovely. We listen to the local birds, I check on the garden and gloat over the day’s harvest – and usually end up with tomato pollen all over my arms. It’s blissful.

Sometimes, people ask me why I dye my hair with the crazy bright colors. Here’s one really big reason – it makes me happy to see myself with my hair like this. I get a big grin when I catch a glimpse of my reflection. Honestly, I’ve felt weird and wrong everytime I’ve tried to go back to a “normal” shade… it’s a simple happy thing for me to be red or pink or purple. When I’m feeling really down or stressed, I often realize that it’s time to freshen up the dye job, and things get back to being a little better. 😀

Then of course, there’s SPINNING. Fiber in general makes me happy, gets me re-focused on what I’m doing this for, and gives me the ocular and tactile thrill that I crave. This fiber that I’m currently working on from Atomic Blue is soooooooooooooooo happymaking.

So what’s my Harvest so far this year? Determination to make my business work and thrive. A wealth of information gleaned about how to be better at what I do, from the fiber arts aspect to being a better business person. A plethora of new contacts, friendships, and additions to my personal Community. The knowledge that I can live on much less than I thought, which was pretty small to begin with, and that having less doesn’t have to mean scarcity or automatic panic. And sometimes what I have less of in what area is balanced by what I have a fabulous abundance of in another.

Love. There’s a HUGE amount of love in my life. For that, I’m infinitely grateful.