Gate & Garden

Herbalism has always been the doorway, but it was never the final destination.

If your wild heart has been searching for this, welcome home! I hope you stay a while & browse the offerings I share; from gatherings to programs, mentorship & more. 🖤🌿

✨Garden party photo dump part two! ✨

You know, every time I host one of these gatherings, people thank me for creating community.

But I always reflect that gratitude right back.

Because I can open the gates, set the table, and extend the invitation—but community only exists because people also choose to show up.

It’s easy to stay home couch rotting, doom scrolling, & drowning in apathy. Our systems reward isolation & convenience by design; so I see your courage to lean in, to come alone, to trust strangers, and to make space in an already full life for something that nourishes rather than distracts.

You are the ones helping to weave the web- taking the tendrils and extending them through your spaces too, rippling the connection & devotion further.

The mothers, the maidens, the crones; the witches, the wizards, the fairies, the dragons…Thank you for saying yes. Thank you for choosing connection over convenience, presence over apathy, and community over isolation.

This is how we remember our aliveness ❤️

ps: a million thank yous to Jinx Aesthel / Jinx Aesthel for the captures & everyone else who shared their photos of joy with me!

Friends. There have been very few times in my life that I have been rendered nearly speechless; where no words known to me ever seem to adequately capture the dynamic complexities of being human & living this life. And somehow, even after 4 years of Garden Parties, I am here again.

To say that I am honored, humbled, enthralled, full, & grateful is an understatement. What began as a simple spark of an idea has now fully transformed into a truly awe-inspiring display of epic proportion.

The better world we’re desiring doesn’t live at some specific time or place destination. It lives in the now, and in our daily choices that provide the architecture.

It lives in 50 people choosing to arrive in a random back yard when they could stay home. It lives in sustained connections among new friends year over year. It lives in slices of homemade cake made to share. It lives in the wonderment of bees on a flower. It lives in “let us help clean up!”

Though I brewed the idea, I never execute it alone, & in true communal fashion- I had immense help! Endless thank you’s to my dear friends, family, Ancient Heart The Faerest Realm GRAIN REAPER BAKING CO 🖤💀 GOURMET DESSERTS Larissa A , Jinx Aesthel / Jinx Aesthel & more for your astounding contributions and immaculate vibes. 🙏🏼🤎

And for each of you who stopped by: I hope the day served its purpose; I hope you felt a sense of joy & lightness. I hope you felt the warmth of others like a quilt. I hope you felt a reprieve from the quick pace of life. I hope you met new friends, met new plants, and were able to just “be”, embracing the entirety of the magical beings that you are. It was my honor & pleasure to have you, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Community is the thread that tethers us all together. It has always been, and it will always be. Regardless of larger, louder narratives, we need each other. And we are here. 🤎

I got curious on the actual dictionary definition of “patriotism” this morning.

And while I don’t ascribe to basically any of it within the context of American colonialism and what this modern country was founded on, there are, perhaps, thematic threads I understand well— love, devotion, responsibility, & belonging.

If I look at “patriotism” from a lens oriented toward place, land, people, and collective liberation opposed to blind nationalism, then maybe it could be different.

Maybe I’m just trying to untangle these snarls in real time by speaking into an echo chamber of digital nonsense. Idk.

What I do know is that with every day my feet touch the ground and likely thereafter in this spiral of time, I remain committed to living a life of care over conquest, responsibility over pride, and being the biggest menace & pain in the arse I can be towards oppressive systems.

Some full moon inspiration for you 🌝

My email list got this story a month or so back, but this felt like an auspicious time to give it to the algorithm.

We often think changing the world requires a bigger platform, louder opinions, or grander gestures.

And while I know nothing for certain, my body & the land continue to show that the lives we embody ripple outward in ways we may or may not witness.

The world doesn’t need you to become someone else. It needs the fullest, most honest, weirdest, queerest, quirkiest, most devotional expression of who you already are.

So here is the reflection for this full moon (and every day, really):

✨What gifts are asking to be lived through you?✨

Calling all the feral forest hags, village crazy ladies, herb nerds, and nature gathering goblins to pull up & ZOOM IN 🤏🏼👀

Share, repost, & call out your friends if you’re with me

Woohoo! July’s Candlebright coven box reveal is here! And encased in it are bottles, potions, flames, & talismans of the midsummer sun.

July’s coven box is an exclusive product collection; a curated selection of micro batch herbal potions steeped in summer devotion. The love in this box is celebratory; a physical expression of the sun, abundance, and light energy at its zenith.

Inside this collection, you’ll find a trio of spellcrafted offerings to honor this season in its glory, including:

☀️Citrus Sky- a unique sun & moon molded candle that reflects the father of the sky in its flame, crowned with a gilded veil. Fragranced with light agave and mixed citrus.

💫Midsummer Magic Wand- a hand & heart crafted ritual totem of the wild. Mixed citrine, amethyst, and selenite crystal points adorn foraged wands of pine & oak entwined with home tended creeping vines. One of a kind reflections of nature’s brilliance.

🧡Sunspell Sugar- a bright blend of sugar and sun ripened orange crafted on the solstice to bring a touch of sweetness to tea, baking, and ritual alike.

Boxes begin shipping on the 1st for existing coven members. And, if you’d like the join to get this fiercely held altar, just drop me a comment below! 🌻✨

In the liminal portal of midsummer, I made a commitment to carry the tongues of the old gods.

Story & the spells it casts has captivated me for my entire life. From delighting in the tale of Beauty & the Beast infinite times as a young child, to the sheer mesmerization of my middle school mythology class, to excitedly wading in the waters of mythopoetic archetypes in my undergraduate studies…the wisdoms of the ancestral hearth fires have always beckoned.

Indeed, it is not rare for me to dance with story; and I had been feeling the urging of the cosmos to waltz & twirl harder for some time.

So when the universe placed a talented & traditional teller within my wandering path, the smoldering embers within were set ablaze. I heard Dougie Mackay tell a tale a while back, and knew right away that this is how I wanted to learn, & who I wanted to learn with.

The resonance of his telling- so clearly rooted in history, reverence, commitment, advocacy, and a belief-in-better (all with a dash of humor no less)- made the choice simple.

Come the turning of autumn, I begin a myth singing journey- learning the craft of storytelling from one of the best. It will challenge me & it will change me; but I have always found enchantment in the dark.

So when that time comes, may I hold my end of the thread with honor, adding to endless weave of something older and larger than ourselves.

📸: Kim Pettella

What has the garden been making this season? 👀

Ohh, just a collection of sun-blended teas, candles of ocean winds, botanical perfumes, & elixirs of the magic all around!

Every season brings its own intelligence & stories, and these tangible offerings are my way of bottling a small piece of midsummer’s abundance.

The Midsummer Shop Drop is now LIVE!

Which offering are you most excited to explore?

And, as always, should you choose to call one of these heart crafted potions home, my unending gratitude travels with it to you ❤️

Blessed Midsummer, my friends!