While Mother’s Day can feel commercial at times, it does offer something meaningful: a collective pause to reflect on the role of the mother in our lives.

It is all too easy to move through life disconnected from what I think of as “mother energy”: love, compassion, sacrifice, nurturing, healing, and safety.

Our culture leans heavily into the masculine into speed, output, and constant forward motion.

Mother invites something different.

She asks us to slow down.
To be steady.
To reflect, adjust, and move forward with intention.

You can live this way but you will feel friction. Because it does not match the pace of the world around you.

My first year growing flowers for Mother’s Day was a success. This is my fifth year growing cut flowers, and usually our first bouquets aren’t ready until June. To have flowers ready by Mother’s Day required planning that began in January, planting in February, and months of careful management.

There were many nights I worried about deep freezes, even inside the high tunnel. Shade cloths, tarps, constant monitoring. Days spent checking irrigation, adding compost, venting for temperature swings, adding netting for support…

And then finally, harvest.

We hosted a pop-up at a local bakery Saturday morning and sold out quickly.

It felt like a confirmation: this little experiment had worked.

But more than that, it felt like something deeper had come full circle.

What keeps a farmer going when the harvest is months—or even years—away?

Prayer.

I kept imagining mothers receiving these flowers. Every seedling I tended was an act of devotion, to beauty, to joy, to care.

My offering to mothers.

Upcoming this week…a post on how to grow the easiest flower you can get your hands on.

Opportunities to join us at our farm:

We are currently looking a teacher to spend the summer with us, here is a quick description:

We are 20-30 minutes away from the Lake of the Ozarks which provides water recreation and summer activities, one hour way from Springfield which has big city amenities. Our town of Lebanon is growing, offering more and more activities and community connections.

We have been educators and farmers for over a decade and merge the two on our farm. We run a market garden, cut flower garden, medicinal plants, raise animals (dairy goats, pigs, sheep, chickens, guineas, dogs, cats), offer classes and education to our local community and beyond.

My two boys, 6.5 and 4 are amazing, smart, free spirited, love being outdoors, and very active. We have been homeschooling and this February I created a homeschool co-op so we could continue our journey with other families. Bloom Homeschool Nature Co-op.

This summer I am looking for a teacher to live with us to spend the mornings with the boys. Continue the rhythm of learning, adventure, crafting etc The afternoons would be open for you to participate in the farm life in the ways that inspire you. We had this model last year with a woman who is a teacher and it worked beautifully.

Since spring/summer are our high season we always bring in apprentices to support with the farm efforts, and bringing in a teacher fits into this nicely.

The exchange we can offer:

• room and board

• organic food

• training in herbalism, beekeeping, market gardening, animal husbandry from either myself or my husband

• official training and certification in permaculture (our in person course will be held in September)

We also may offer again events for children in our community through our Farm Camp program. We run a 3 hour program for kids to attend based on different topics around the farm. If I had a teacher here in time, we can run it together and a majority portion of the sales from that would go to the teacher.

If the teacher is interested in more profit sharing from product, market sales, events, etc that would be available. Please read about us and I sincerely hope you consider joining us! Feel free to pm me with any questions or follow up.

Other ways to engage with our farm:

• In person monthly beekeeping apprenticeship

• Permaculture Design Certification in September - one of the best programs you can attend in the US

• Partnership opportunities to join us for the long term

This spring has been a hard one for farmers in our region.

Storms brought heavy hail and wind, damaging crops and infrastructure across many farms, including ours. Our crops are now off schedule, which means our income is too.

This is part of the reality of farming that often goes unseen.

We continue to replant, repair, and move forward as farmers always do but it stretches us.

If you’ve ever considered supporting my work here through a paid subscription, this is a meaningful time to do so. Your support directly sustains our family, this land, and the work we are building.

I’m deeply grateful you’re here! Whether quietly reading or walking alongside us more closely.

Subscribe now

Hi, it’s me. I’m still here.

The shift from winter to spring didn’t arrive harshly this year—but it came with energy.

The farm wakes up all at once. Shoots pushing through soil, bulbs rising, wild medicinals returning, insects humming, bees stirring with purpose. It’s one of my favorite things to witness, plants emerging from what looked like nothing just weeks before.

It feels like magic every time.

And with that magic comes movement.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been swimming in ideas—thinking deeply about the world, about this life we’re building, while also tending to the very real, immediate needs of our little world here.

Two young boys. Animals. A growing market garden. Flowers. A marriage. A business. A life that doesn’t pause.

In permaculture, we often talk about the micro and the macro lens—how we zoom in to tend the smallest details, and zoom out to understand the broader system. Living on a farm means moving between those lenses constantly, sometimes within the same hour.

One moment, you’re thinking about soil health and long-term design.
The next, you’re chasing goats back to the right side of the fence.

In the last month alone, we’ve planted the market garden, started more flowers, expanded our medicinal beds, added another high tunnel, launched our beekeeping apprenticeship, hosted a mushroom workshop and seed exchange, celebrated my son turning four, gathered with homeschool families, and continued the everyday rhythm of life between the forest and the soccer field.

This is the natural expansion of spring.

And it asked for my hands in real time—not my words on a screen.

I’ve been sitting with something in that.

This deep desire I have to be a consistent writer… paired with the reality that I live very cyclically by nature—and even more so because of the life I’ve chosen.

Algorithms reward constant presence.
Even here, consistent engagement promises growth.

But the land does not operate that way.

And neither do I.

I will never be a high-producing machine—unless we’re talking about what’s growing in the garden that week.

What I am learning, slowly, is that life has its own rhythm of output:

• seasons of movement

• seasons of rest

• seasons of creativity

• seasons of integration

Farming, mothering, and writing all exist within that same ebb and flow. They are not separate—they are intertwined.

When I’m not writing to you, I am living.

Walking through the woods with my children, looking for mushrooms and fairies.
Harvesting and preserving herbs.
Planting St. John’s wort and native flowers.
Planning lessons for our homeschool co-op.
Cooking, tending, building, repairing, observing.

This is where the writing comes from.

Time away from the screen also gives me something I’ve come to trust more and more:

Space to refine.

To reconsider what I’m saying and why.
To let ideas compost.

Because that’s what it feels like—compost.

Taking in experiences, thoughts, questions… and allowing them to break down, transform, and eventually become something new.

My best writing has never come from urgency or deadlines.

It has always come from living first.

So, with renewed clarity and energy, I’m returning here with intention.

To write about what I love most:

Bees.
Flowers.
Medicinal plants.
Food.
Motherhood.
Resilience.
The land.

And no—I won’t be narrowing it down to just one thing.

Because this is how my life exists. Interwoven.

Moving forward, I’m settling into a rhythm that feels both supportive and realistic:

Sundays — reflections, things I’m reading, pondering, and exploring
Wednesdays — herbalism and plant-based teachings, how-tos
Fridays — the rest: food, farm, bees, motherhood, life

I’d love to hear from you.

What have you enjoyed most in my writing so far?
What are you craving more of?

Your reflections genuinely help guide what I create here.

Leave a comment

And if you’ve ever considered supporting this work through a paid subscription, now is a meaningful time to do so.

Early spring on a farm is full of promise—but also uncertainty. Weather, crops, inputs, timing… so much is outside of our control.

Your support here directly supports our family, our farm, and the work we’re doing in the world.

If you’d like to learn more about what we’re building, you can visit Sun & Bloom Farms sunandbloomfarms.com

I’m grateful you’re here.

And I’m looking forward to walking through this next season together.

Feel free to message me to discuss anything!

Let’s gently, transition from winter to spring.

I highly anticipate the changing of each season. I love taking mental notes of the subtitles that show up - buds on the maple trees, bulb flowers emerging from the soil, insects and spiders scurrying about, nettles and chickweed waking up - it is a magical time to witness.

In order to witness all this magic however, we have to slow down enough to pay attention. Give your body a chance to feel into the shift.

The bridge between winter and spring is a lingering energy, taking its time to fully commit. The overlap between warm 70 degree days then hard freezes days later. You don’t see animals fully committing to the change by stepping out of hibernation, and you don’t see the plants waking fully either.

Nature knows best and is always a great teacher. The easing into each season gives us the perfect timing to align ourselves with our bodies and the world around us. After months of slower movement, heavier foods, and inward energy, it can be tempting to rush into spring—to clean everything, start new routines, push forward.

But the body doesn’t transition that quickly.

Spring is not an explosion. It is a thaw.

And if we move too quickly, we often feel it: fatigue, irritability, sluggish digestion, or that strange sense of being both energized and depleted at the same time.

This is the body asking for support, not force. Don’t rush it. Now is not the time to fully book your schedules and spend full day benders cleaning and purging.

After years of following the seasons, living an agrarian lifestyle, and working with plants and healing modalities, here are my favorite tips for winter to spring transition.

1. Movement: Breaking Up Winter Stagnation

Winter naturally slows us down. Less sunlight, less movement, more time indoors. By early spring, that can translate into a kind of physical and emotional stagnation.

You don’t need intense workouts to shift this.

Instead, think:

• walking daily, even briefly

• gentle stretching in the morning

• working outside when possible

• simple, rhythmic movement (sweeping, gardening, carrying children)

The goal is not exertion, but awakening circulation. Letting the body wake up gradually.

2. Supporting the Liver (Gently)

In many traditional systems, spring is associated with the liver—the organ responsible for processing, filtering, and moving. After a winter of heavier foods and less movement, the body often benefits from gentle support here.

This doesn’t mean extreme cleanses or restriction.

It means:

• incorporating bitter greens (dandelion, arugula, mustard greens)

• drinking warm lemon water in the morning

• using herbs like nettle or dandelion leaf

• allowing the body to naturally release what it no longer needs

• the liver also stores and processes the emotions of anger, rage, and resentment - this is a perfect time to work on releasing those emotions through therapy, prayer, meditation, counseling etc

Think of this as encouraging flow, not forcing detox.

3. Re-aligning with Light

One of the most powerful shifts you can make in early spring is simple:

Step outside in the morning light.

Even 5–10 minutes can help regulate your circadian rhythm.

Winter often disrupts this:

• later mornings

• artificial light

• more time indoors

• wired but tired feeling

• exhausted by 2 or 3 pm but unable to rest or nap

As the days lengthen, your body is ready to recalibrate.

Try:

• stepping outside shortly after waking

• opening windows daily

• reducing artificial light in the evening, look into softer amber lighting

• not using screens 1 - 2 hours prior to bedtime, and consider blue light blocking glasses if you must use screens

This alone can improve energy, mood, and sleep.

4. Gua Sha & Lymphatic Movement

The lymphatic system thrives on movement—but it doesn’t have a pump like the heart. We must move the body in order for the lymphatic waste to be moved out of the body. Honest truth, I’ve been scouring facebook marketplace to buy a vibration plate (as I do not want to buy things new as much as possible). I came to the conclusion that it is so easy to fall into a trap of wanting to buy a solution, when more than likely we have access to it already. I’m committing to more intentional lymphatic movement using what I have.

After winter, things can feel slow, puffy, or stagnant. If you are dealing with water retention, swelling, puffy faces - these can be signs of thyroid disfucntion and high cortisol (I will share more about this soon). These will need to be addressed separately.

Simple practices can help ease the bloating, swelling etc:

• dry brushing - a large bristle brush you move gently over your skin (extremeties in towards heart) before a shower

• gentle massage - following the same movement as dry brushing

• gua sha along the neck and face

• even light stretching and deep breathing

• drinking lots of tea, water with minerals, coconut water

Focus especially on the neck and collarbone area, where lymphatic drainage pathways are concentrated.

You don’t need a full routine but a few minutes consistently makes a difference.

5. Protecting Against Temperature Swings

Spring is deceptive. Warm afternoons can easily trick us into shedding layers too quickly, only to be met with cold winds or sudden drops in temperature.

This is one of the fastest ways to get sick during seasonal transitions.

Pay special attention to:

• keeping the neck warm (scarves, bandanas)

• layering clothing you can adjust easily

• avoiding getting chilled after sweating

The body is still adjusting, give it time.

A Slower Approach to Spring

There is a cultural pressure to treat spring as a fresh start—a time to overhaul everything at once. But nature doesn’t move that way.

The trees don’t rush to leaf. The soil doesn’t force growth. The bees don’t break their cluster until the conditions are right.

You don’t need to rush either.

Let this be a season of:

• gentle movement

• simple nourishment

• quiet recalibration

• paying attention to your body’s signals

Spring will come fully and how glorious it will be!

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I was a new mother, freshly postpartum with my first son, navigating life between breastfeeding sessions every two hours, in the light of day and the dark of night. I had always wanted to be a mother. I imagined it clearly: a baby in my arms, meals cooked together, laughter around the table, women friends nearby as my child grew. I never expected to finally reach motherhood while also being struck by loneliness and rage.

I had a wonderful community, but they were far away in California. I had moved to Missouri with my partner to pursue our dreams of farming and living in community with like-minded people. Those first years were bitterly painful. I struggled to reconcile the loneliness with the life I had chosen.

I had everything I dreamed of: a partner, a son, land, animals, and open space.

Yet what I wanted most was to spend afternoons with my cherished group of women friends and soulmates as I grew more fully into “mother.” I wanted my son to experience the magic of having many loving aunties in his life. I needed those women in my life to carry me through this massive transition from maiden to mother.

My attempted antidote to that isolation was social media.

Instagram and Facebook became my threads back home. It was the way I stayed connected to my community — learning life updates, seeing their faces, celebrating their wins. It felt like the closest I could get. What began as a bridge slowly became a crutch. It helped me survive the massive adjustment of becoming a mother, not having a community to help me mother, moving to a rural place, and living far from familiarity.

Waking three or four times a night to breastfeed has a way of wrecking your brain and circadian rhythm. Most nights, I reached for my phone while feeding my son — to stay awake, to “catch up,” to feel less alone. Without realizing it, I was flooding my nervous system during the very hours meant for rest.

My phone became my comfort tool.

It has felt shameful to admit this out loud, and honestly, I never really have. Only recently, as I’ve seen other mothers struggling in similar ways, have I begun to speak about it.

The community I so desperately desired was not, and will never be through my phone.

I know someone could argue:

What about Substack?
What about the people who followed you during your viral beekeeping days?
What about the students who learned from you through online classes and workshops?

Yes, those people matter deeply to me. They are part of my extended community, and I cherish them.

But they weren’t the ones bringing meals during the forty days after I delivered my babies.
They weren’t there to hold my hand through sleep deprivation.
They aren’t the aunties my sons run to now.

What I believed was a healing space was, slowly and quietly, overstimulating my nervous system , drip by drip through comparison, information overload, and constant engagement.

And I know I am not alone in this.

Many mothers feel the same loneliness I felt. Whether you live in the center of a city or out in the countryside like I do, you may find yourself experiencing loneliness, rage, frustration, depression, restlessness, or even addiction to distraction. It can seem like these feelings or states of being come out of no where. Or slowly creep in and take hold over time. It can show up like low self confidence and anxiety you have never had before. It can feel like being too emotionally paralyzed to make decisions or think clearly.

My suspicion is that beneath much of this lies a shared root. Overstimulation.

Modern mothers face a relentless stream of information and expectation: parenting advice, health trends, biohacking culture, endless comparison to thousands of other families, global news and tragedy, pressure to document motherhood beautifully, pressure to look perfect, never age, never gain weight, build businesses, stay relevant, keep producing. All while raising children and keeping a household alive.

Our nervous systems were never designed to hold this much. And when it does, it will show some way or another.

Motherhood already places us in a heightened state of alertness, especially with newborns and young children. We are meant to use the small quiet spaces between feedings, diapers, and bedtime routines to recalibrate and recover. But those spaces have largely disappeared. In their place are phones with notifications and endless content.

Our nervous systems rarely receive a moment of true rest.

Sometimes people say to me,

“But you live on a farm. Aren’t you outside all day? How could you be overstimulated?”

The truth is that overstimulation hides in many places. Notifications for texts, emails, weather alerts, and news updates constantly ping for attention.

Yes, we farm — but farming is also our livelihood. That means content creation, blog writing, marketing, educational videos, and social media posts to sell our products and grow our audience. The few minutes of doom scrolling after making a post add up. The podcasts meant to make us smarter while working the fields pull our attention away from the meditative rhythm of planting and harvesting. Music through headphones prevents us from hearing birdsong, children’s laughter, or the quiet of the land itself. A drive to the feed store means exposure to mainstream news media and current headlines.

We collectively have lost our ability to sit with silence.

Mothers existed I believe in greater harmony before technology, social media, and mainstream narratives took over. Some people say those times were “simpler,” as if simplicity were something to be ashamed of. That mothers one or two generations ago were mostly only concerned with their children and family, cooking, cleaning, growing food, their spiritual practice, and tending to their community.

Somehow along the way we fell for the trap that all of that isn’t enough.

So now I am asking questions for myself and for other women/mothers to reflect upon:

• What if I didn’t need to know everything?

• What if I stopped believing the lie that social media is my pathway to connection and substance?

• What if I actually didn’t know what was happening in the middle east?

• What if I didn’t watch the latest genocide taking place somewhere in the world?

• What if I stopped comparing my body and aging face to anybody, including the body positive women (who let’s be honest we are still comparing ourselves to)?

• What if I was small, as in i didn’t have 10k followers online? What if my only followers were my children?

Motherhood, moves at an entirely different pace.

Motherhood is the antithesis of speed, performance, and perfection.

Yes, mothers are constantly working. But that work was never meant to exist inside a state of frantic overstimulation. It is meant to happen slowly, with reverence for the fleeting nature of childhood. To sink into the repetition of daily care, knowing it will one day disappear. To learn how to sit in the quiet between the chaos. To slow the mind by focusing on one task at a time. To minimize the constant flood of technology, news, gurus, courses, podcasts, and comparison. To return our attention to what is actually within reach.

Letting go of the belief that we must influence the world outside our homes. Returning our focus to those within them.

My impact can be deep instead of wide.

I deserve to mother, love, and lead from a nervous system that is calm. A nervous system that can rest. I deserve peace in my heart, my mind, and my home.

And you do too.

So I leave you with a few questions:

Where does overstimulation show up in your life?

What would it feel like to step back?

What do you actually want your attention to belong to?

What steps can you take to create new boundaries to protect your nervous system?

Leave a comment

Share The Honey Matriarch by Anna Maria

Today carries the energy of Imbolc.

After two weeks of frigid temperatures, grey skies, and land blanketed in snow, the sun returned—warm and generous. It softened our weary bones, human and animal alike. On the farm, bodies stretched after weeks of sheltering in the barn, conserving energy against the harshness of winter. Chores were met with snuggling goats, snoring piglets, resting new mothers, and playful goat kids testing their strength.

Today felt joyful.

Imbolc is one of the ancient cross-quarter festivals of the Celtic seasonal wheel, marking the midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. Traditionally observed around February 1st–2nd, it signals the first subtle stirring of life beneath winter’s surface—not spring itself, but the promise of it.

The word Imbolc is believed to come from Old Irish, often translated as “in the belly,” referring to pregnancy: ewes heavy with lamb, seeds resting in the earth, ideas and life quietly gathering strength in the dark. In agricultural communities, this was a deeply practical time. Days were lengthening, milk returned as animals began lactating, and families took stock of what remained to carry them through the final stretch of winter.

Imbolc is closely associated with Brigid (Bríde)—a pre-Christian Celtic goddess of fire, healing, poetry, and smithcraft, later syncretized as Saint Brigid in Christian tradition. She represents the hearth fire, the spark of inspiration, and the quiet flame that must be protected through cold and scarcity. Her presence ties Imbolc to renewal, creativity, and gentle preparation rather than outward action.

Historically, Imbolc was a domestic and pastoral festival. Families tended hearth fires, cleaned and blessed their homes, and honored wells, springs, and sources of water. Offerings of milk, butter, bread, or porridge were common—gratitude for nourishment returning to the land. Brigid’s crosses were woven from reeds or straw and hung for protection through the coming year.

What I love about the rituals of early people is how rooted they were in gratitude for the land, reverence for what is holy, and actions that ensured regeneration. Regardless of who they named as God or Goddess, I resonate deeply with these values: living within the seasons, relying on the land, and remaining in close relationship with all that surrounds us.

You don’t need to be of Celtic ancestry to weave these themes into your own life.

You may be feeling anxious after weeks of cold, grey weather, or caught in the rush to consume and spend for Valentine’s Day. February can feel heavy—sick children, creeping schedules, obligations returning before we feel ready.

I feel it too.

February begins the farming year. While December and January are for sleeping and dreaming, February is for planning and preparing. We pull seed catalogs and make planting schedules. We celebrate new life on the farm as reminders of the cycles of birth, death, and renewal. Conversations turn toward soil preparation, fertility, and bed building.

Oh, how easy it is to get swept up in the stirring of the heart. The dreams that carried us through winter long to be expressed immediately. Let us not waste time, they whisper. We must act now.

It is in moments like these that I look to the bees.

The weeks before spring are among the most dangerous for honeybee hives. Honey stores are what sustain them through winter, and without enough to last until the first blooms, a hive will not survive. It is a precarious time, resources dwindling, uncertainty lingering, the promise of abundance not yet arrived.

This mirrors how humans so often live.

Instead of storing honey, we might store rest. Recalibration. Nourishment. Grounding. We might allow ourselves to wake from winter feeling resourced—full in body, heart, and mind.

Most of us don’t meet spring this way. We arrive weary, anxious, eager to produce and achieve. We’ve spent everything, leaving nothing in reserve, and begin scrambling to feel full again. We cycle through feast and famine all year long—eventually risking collapse, just like a hive without enough stores.

The bees remind me of what becomes possible when a collective rests together. Of the layers of consciousness available when we pause, breathe, connect, and root in. When we hold one another and sink into shared stillness, the future opens in ways we cannot yet imagine.

You won’t see a honeybee flying when it is cold and there is nothing to nourish the body. The bees remind us that burning energy too soon is not a virtue, it is a threat.

Practices for the Last Half of Winter

Dream.
Not of achievements or milestones.
Not of vacations or financial markers.

Dream of feelings: nourishment, joy, peace, love, fulfillment.
These are the seeds of what is yet to come.

Sink into your hive at home. Feel the hum, the pulse.
Keep a dream journal by your bed and write as soon as you wake—even in the middle of the night. What feels unforgettable often disappears by morning.

Nourishment.
Work with mugwort as a tea or tincture to support dreaming and dream recall. Mugwort also expands perception, helping the mind wander beyond daily tasks and schedules.

Drink a nourishing herb daily, like nettles or oatstraw.
Lean into bone broths, soups, and mineral-rich plants and mushrooms. (See Rooted: The Herbal Year for inspiration.)

Movement.
Humming gently breaks up stagnation and opens the nervous system.
Tai chi supports lymphatic movement and encourages rest and recalibration.
Gentle stretching and somatic movement allow deeper restoration during sleep.

Slowing down is not failing.
Rest is not lazy.
Expansion is not something to fear.

A life of hurry misses the sweetness available—the honey, the connection, the ebb and flow.

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Julia was a 5-foot Sicilian woman who cooked her whole life—for her immigrant family in New York, for her daughter, and later for my sister and me. She taught me how to bake, make desserts, roll pasta, and create her secret tomato sauce. She was devoted to God, prayed the rosary, taught me how to grow flowers, and chopped her own wood until she was 86.

One of the safest places I have ever felt was resting my head on her short legs as she stroked the hair from my face.

Julia was abused by men, suffered from bad luck—or perhaps bad decisions—and survived the Depression. But she was a force to be reckoned with. That force was not rooted in her trauma, but in the incredible kindness, compassion, and nurturing she gave.

Her heart ached from grief, yet she carried joy in it all the same.

My Noni—a matriarch.

Julia Mastrantuono, 1928 - 2017

Matriarch

I chose to include the word matriarch in the name of my Substack because it carries so much weight, her-story, meaning, and value. Matriarch is not a word to be brushed off lightly. The responsibility that comes with this title is vast and sometimes frightening.

I have always been drawn toward what scares me most—it’s where my greatest growth has come from. Stepping into the matriarchal role within my family has been no different. It has not been easy, but it continues to shape and mold me from the inside out.

Matriarch: a woman who rules or dominates a family, group, or state; specifically, a mother who is head and ruler of her family and descendants.

Obviously, this definition is lacking—pitiful, even—in its attempt to capture what the word truly means.

How about this instead:

Matriarch: a woman who holds the weight of the world while simultaneously nurturing and growing life. Period.

The matriarch is not just a grandmother. She is the new mother raising children without elders around. She is the woman mothering her children while also learning to mother herself. She is found in the garden, in the homemade bread, in the beeswax candles adorning the mantle. She is land, body, and spirit.

The matriarch is wild yet grounded—feminine power embodied. Always here, yet somehow forgotten.

The erasure of the matriarch destabilizes society.

Through myth, legend, and oral tradition, we see countless stories of the matriarch’s essence under attack. A woman rooted in faith, family, and purpose is a menace to society. She gets in the way. She brings strength to her husband and children that the system cannot. She carries tradition and ceremony that keep communities grounded. She lives on through war, famine, loss, and pain.

She is a living spring of life.

Society has made a valiant effort to distort the role of the matriarch. To turn her strength and intuition into rebellion. To make her feel guilty for caring for her body and mind instead of sacrificing every second to her children. To take her from her home and thrust her into a world of work and busyness.

To remove her from communities of women by replacing true sisterhood with social media “connection.”
To take away her creative vessels and replace them with things of convenience.
To disconnect her from God—at all costs.

Dear friend, this may feel familiar. Whether you are a mother or not, this may stir something in your bones. The matriarch is inside you, waiting to surface again.

Waiting to exhale.

Remember Her

I invite you to breathe. Take an embodied breath of Mother. Let her fill your entire being. Make a cup of tea. Sit with her.

Many women are looking for her. I was too—desperately seeking her counsel in the longest nights of my life.

A new mother with a baby who wouldn’t sleep. Dark nights fill my memory as I walked the halls and land of my high desert farm. When the moon was full, I felt comfort—as if she were there, bathing me in her light. But when darkness came, I felt so alone. A shell of myself, my heart and mind at war.

I had longed to be a mother, yet here I was, drowning in shame, loneliness, and the inability to navigate my new life.

I have two sons, ages six and three. Only in the last year have I begun to feel truly embodied as a mother and matriarch. The first few years of postpartum transition rocked me and set the tone for everything after. I sometimes feel shame admitting this—like I wasn’t a natural mother. Maybe I could have been, but I had to walk that dark night of the soul to step into the woman I am now.

It felt like the underworld. Maybe you’ve been there too—the crushing weight of fear, grief, and shadow that feels infinite. For me, it was depression, anxiety, loneliness, and the inability to trust men—even my partner. When this “dark night” arrives alongside the initiation into motherhood, it adds a whole other layer of disorientation. So much shame. So much pressure. So much disappointment—all directed inward.

When I reflect on that time, I see now that I was a matriarch all along. I carried the heaviness of my heart and mind while still being a damn good mother to my son.

Even delirious with pain and lack of sleep, I still smiled, fed, nourished, loved, and walked through life with him. His name is Helios—the sun that led me through the darkness.

Ultimately, I was like every woman who has come before me: holding darkness and light in either hand, with a baby at my breast and my heart raw and exposed.

Helios, a few months old. We started a farm in the sacred land of Anza Borrego.

Reclaim Her

It hasn’t been an easy path, but I now feel more affirmed as a mother, matriarch, and wise woman than ever before.

When I became pregnant with Helios, my partner and I made it a priority to find land outside the city to grow our family. Rural living on a farm has been incredibly difficult in many ways (more on that later), but it gave me the space to walk my path.

Had I stayed in the city, it would have been easy to ignore my suffering—distracting myself with entertainment, places to go, people to see. Life in the country offered no such escape. The land held me. It rooted me deeply in the rhythm of the seasons, which became my anchor.

My devotion to the honeybees has also been a pillar of my transformation. The hive is a super organism, with the queen at its center. She doesn’t command or give orders all day; rather, her steady, fertile presence anchors the entire hive in its purpose. They cannot survive without her. The workers are female—the hive is pure feminine energy (though we must not forget the beautiful masculine offering of the drone bees).

The plant path has also guided me back to myself—and to the matriarch. Plants carry ancient wisdom stored in the memory of soil and the mycelial web. I find comfort knowing that the women before me reached for the same herbs: yarrow and witch hazel for postpartum healing, blessed thistle for milk supply, milky oats for anxiety, passionflower and blue vervain for depression.

Aside from my closest friends, the plants have been my greatest allies. Another reason why having our own farm was non-negotiable—so I could grow all my best friends around me.

Finally, spirituality. God, my guides, ancestors, and angels have carried me. I’ve walked the path of the Goddess, explored Vedic astrology, kirtan, kundalini, and more. Each offered wisdom at different times on my journey.

Now, I’m exploring the nuances of woman and man in the image of God. What I was taught as a girl—that women are inferior to men—never resonated. It turned me away from the church. But now, I see the capacity woman has for grace, strength, purpose, resilience, and nurturing when she is rooted in her Creator.

Man needs her for this. The masculine cannot exist without her immeasurable capacity for love, forgiveness, intuition, and fertility. We are equal—and beautifully, not for the same reasons.

Now I am choosing not to rush through my day. Now I choose to lead my family with stability, compassion, emotional regulation, nourishment…instead of hustling, financial gains, and future planning. And while, yes I am still deeply connected and integrated in this way for my family, with my partner, and for our future…I have stopped fighting to carry it all on my own. I don’t have to be fight the warrior path anymore. I can put my energy into grounding, intuition, safety, and connection. I can lead my family with spirituality, tradition, ceremony, and peace.

Our current home and farm, in the Ozarks of Missouri.

I have come home to my garden. Myself as Matriarch waits for me there.

She weaves flowers into crowns, steeps leaves into tea, and shows me the way of beauty.

Wild and free, she is me.