the memory that changed everything

my first-ever herb garden, which I planted as my "practice garden" at Roots to River Farm in 2014

In the previous post, I wrote to you about my sadness at saying goodbye to my garden of five years, unsure when I will have a space to grow plants again.

I was deeply feeling the sadness of not growing plants, and I felt like an entire aspect of myself was dying.

Until a memory resurfaced during a conversation with a friend…

It was April of 2014. I had just moved into a neighbor’s barn loft (remember, the one with the fireflies?). At the time, I was working full-time on a veggie farm.

One month prior, I had started my first herbal training program. That winter, I had done serious soul-searching and Dream Bubble Mapping (I teach this process in Ritual & Potion) and realized that my dream was to start an herb farm that would be open to the public.

I also had a story I really, really wanted to write. The story was knocking at my heart. So was the herb farm.

I’m an optimistic person. But I’m also practical. I knew I couldn’t do both: writing a story and starting a farm were two all-consuming projects that would demand a huge amount of energy and take up all the spaces-in-between. I knew I had to choose.

I was 24 years old. I had helped a friend start a veggie farm at 23. I knew how much energy it took to start a farm. I was already tired. I wasn’t getting any younger.

The choice was clear: start the farm while I was young and energetic; focus on writing later.

The choice was clear, but it wasn’t easy: it felt like I was closing a door on a whole part of myself, my identity. I felt a sense of loss, and I did look back a few times — until, as predicted, the farm project became all-consuming and left nearly no time for other pursuits.

Over the past eight years, my “farm project” has grown and morphed and become so much of my life and identity. I was right: I have less energy now. The timing of starting Locust Light was perfect. I have no regrets.

(For those of you who are wondering, “why don’t you just start another small garden in the meantime?” this is the answer: I’ve started multiple farms in the past ten years. It’s exhausting, inefficient, and discouraging to keep leaving them. When I started this recent garden, I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t start a farm again until it was the forever farm. I have no interest in breaking that promise.)

So there I was, talking to my friend about my sadness at leaving the garden, and I saw myself sitting in the barn loft at my low table, journaling by candlelight, realizing I needed to make a hard decision.

When I made that decision, I closed the door on one part of my identity. Perhaps, I realized, it’s time to open it again.

Perhaps the part of me that spends all her extra time gardening is ready to step aside and let the storyteller step forward. Perhaps it’s not a death-of-self, it’s just a shift, a change in the part of myself that I'm expressing.

As we move through the phases of our lives, it's natural to bring forth different aspects of who we are. Different situations call for different skills, different passions. And as multi-faceted beings, we've got a number of skills and passions to choose from.

Allowing different identities to cycle to the forefront is natural, it is fine -- I'm reminding you of this because it was the reminder I needed last week.

I know I'm not the only one in transition, or even in limbo, right now. And when you're in that moment of cycling an identity to the background, it really can feel like a part of you is dying. Feel those feelings, grieve the transition. And then look at the new opportunity that is opening, the new identity that's coming forward. Perhaps there's something that's ready to be celebrated.

yours in life cycles,

Amanda