Logo's, eclipses and self care....

I'm in the process of designing a new logo slash labels for my herbal makings, and it's been a time of reassessing. Who am I kidding, I'm always reassessing, I have little choice! Ha! However, attempting to simplify essences of your tangent, with enough detail to include what's important, whilst being able to fit on a 30mL dropper bottle, can be tricky. Although, the recent series of eclipses seem to be aiding in the honing down!

I wanted to write about nourishment, gentleness and self care in such times. These may seem like obvious traits for any apprentice to the green folk. Yup, that's the textbook version. It's an indicator, when you haven't showered for days, or attended to self care. I've experienced this in times of peak mental health challenge, if you, or someone you love, have too, know you're not alone.....

That being said, by goddess when you can pull it out of the bag to do what's kind, it's both a good feeling, and waving flag! If I am making a herbal infusion before bedtime in prep to drink the next day, or a cuppa specific to whats going on, making medicines with the moon, remembering to reach out to my spirit kin, smudging our home, getting dirt between my toes in the garden...well, the stars (at times despite them) and my self care, are aligning. We all have these signs, different and diverse. Yay!

Fish in rivers rarely swim against the currents to the point of exhaustion. Ok spawning Salmon are an impressive exception, lucky for our Bear cousins. Most finned ones however, rest in the eddies and pools, periodically retreating as they navigate their waterways. For those of us who live, play and work with underlying distress, allowing for this with gentility is a gifting.

Internalised stigma can have one flagellating about the fact I'm utilising pretty full on pharmacetical support. In my dream world, I would be wholey managing my life with love, herbs, music, spirit connections, fresh air and good food. Skip de skip, tra la la! Clean and pure, aarggh watch out for that type of language! Just ain't my reality, yet. I'm emphasising the YET folks, not the pure bit, not interested, mayhaps the clean, and all for the skipping ;).

Growth, and indeed healing, take time. She says who goes out each morning to check if those seeds she planted are flowering yet! Anyone who says otherwise is selling something, which is ok, as long as there's honesty there. It takes about 15-20 minutes for a benzodiazepine medication to kick in during a panic attack, I find Motherwort tincture, tea and support, about the same, BUT getting off benzo's can take years. Therein lies the catch. Rebuilding wholth and integration, especially after experiencing trauma, can be slow. This is basically the best of what pharmaceuticals are allowing the space to do.

I don't get the stuff about the science of altered receptors in the brain, and the truth is the drug companies don't either really! However, I do gel with the fact that these are mind altering substances, which suppress and change us. Everything we imbibe through our senses, and body, does!

Whilst at times for various reasons I have been forced to take these meds, they have at times been useful tools to help my situation. In the same breath, I try to work with reclaiming and exploring other ways to nourish, I believe these tangents can co exist, and be in process. That's what I live, and want to share with my story....

So I will continue to sketch my designs, journey, experiment with cheap, accessible ways to make food n medicine, and I'm enrolling at Tafe to take a course in anatomy and physiology. To get there I catch the bus for 40 minutes, with my trusty spirit kin Moraig at my side. They may not sound like big career moves, ain't, but they are some of my wee steps of reclamation. What are yours?