Endings and Beginnings
Hello Friends,
I hope this finds you well and safe and enjoying the season of Mabon. Here in Western Maine we have moved from the warmth of late summer into crisp, cool mornings and evenings. Life has been busy, but I’ve managed to get outside and enjoy the changing of the seasons. One of my favorite places to walk and think is a big field near my house. It has beautiful views of the mountains and runs along a quiet little river. I always joke that this place is my church, my gym and my therapist’s office.
Do you have any special places in nature that you enjoy?
Turns out I am Not Taylor Swift and I Can’t Do It With a Broken Heart
You may have wondered where I’ve been for the past month. I mentioned over on Patreon that I was taking a hiatus from Mabon House while I got my bearings around nursing school and life in general. But that was not all that was the full story.
One area of life that I rarely share about is my personal relationship. My significant other and I have always kept things private and low key. We’ve been together for well over a decade. We don’t share kids or live together or co-mingle finances. We just had this kind of unique relationship of his place/my place and it worked for a long time. Until it didn’t. So on top of school and work and life in general, I’ve also been weathering a rather gut wrenching break up. I have forgotten how much heartache hurts. I think the worst is over, but for a few weeks I wasn’t able to do anything beyond the bare minimum, while listening in turns to Taylor Swift and Noah Kahn on repeat.
I’ve experienced enough loss of loved ones over the past few years to recognize that what I am feeling most right now is strait up grief. I’m just grieving for the relationship and the empty place where it used to be.
It was not a dramatic, angry ending. Rather two people who love each other, but recognize our paths no longer align. I’m glad that we left things on good terms. But there are moments when I think it’d be easier if I was just angry. Anger blunts the sharp edges of loneliness, grief and sadness.
To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to continue writing at all, I was feeling so overwhelmed. And I know there are more ups and downs to come, but today feels like a good day.
The leaves are beginning to fall and my gardens are full of delicate asters and dancing goldenrod. The growing season is in its last act and soon we will bid goodbye to all the reminders of the past year. It is both an ending and a new beginning.
So thank you for being here, friends.
side note: I love Noah Kahn, but one should not listen to his music if one if already feeling sad and depressed.
Moving from Mother to Crone & This Week's Free Printable
Hello Friends,
I hope this finds you well. It’s raining today. Which is a welcome sign, as Maine is experiencing a pretty bad drought. There is something magical about rainy days. I have always loved them. While lots of people like to curl up with a good book on a rainy day, I actually feel more motivated to get things done on rainy days. Is that weird? I absolutely love writing on days like this. Are you a rain person or a sun person?
From Maiden to Mother to Crone
As summer winds down, I’ve been thinking about my upcoming birthday (okay, it’s two months away) and the fact that my youngest is going to be a senior in high school this fall. After 27 years, my active parenting days are winding to a close. And I find myself wondering, what’s next? Who am I, if I am not a full time parent?
I’m going to be 46 in October. From my vantage point, it’s neither young nor old. In some ways it feels just right. I’m comfortable with myself. I like the person I have become. I have plenty of life experience to instill the right balance of confidence and prudence.
Biologically though….it feels like a hormonal dance (rave?) is happening inside me. Just like puberty, when you move from the spring of life into the summer, the move into the autumn of life (aka perimenopause) is marked by a lot of changes that are hard to ignore.
To put it less poetically, some days I am a hot mess. My uterus has no rules. Mood swings have taken on a whole new meaning. And I could take a nap at any point in the day.
Anyone else in this boat? Anyway, if you’d like to read my full ramble about moving from the Mother phase to the Crone phase of life, by all means continue….
This Week’s free printable is inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose biography I’ve been listening to on audible. I often think of him as one of the earliest slow living influencers of his time.
In other news not related to influencers or my raging hormones, the 2022-2023 planner is finished! But given my history of typos, I still need to go through it one more time before releasing it into the wild. So, for those you waiting, please hang in there!
I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and I’ll see you next week!
Follow the Adventures
Mabon House in 2022 - A Letter to My Readers
As I write this post winter has arrived in all its simple splendor. Outside my window the gardens and trees sleep peacefully, awash in soft shades of white, gray, green and brown. The blue skies are softer this time of year, as if the sunlight is perpetually filtered by thin clouds and sharp air. Every season has its own beauty and winter is no exception.
I’ve wanted to write to you all for some time, to let you know I have not fallen off the face of the earth. The seasons turn and here in Maine, it’s a time for nature to rest and recharge. And that, dear friends, is what I’ve been doing these past few months. My body and spirit were both calling out for me to slow down, wayyyy down and pause. And I’m finally old enough to know that when the body and spirit call, you had best listen. And so I’ve rested. I went on a total creative hiatus and just spent time focusing on the present moment, my health and my family.
And I spent a lot of time thinking about Mabon House and if I still wanted to keep it running.
What had started as a lovely creative idea had morphed into a full fledged micro-business almost overnight. It was delightful - who knew so many people would dig my printables? - but also added a new layer of stress to an already over-stressed life. I felt pressure to produce a steady stream of new prints and planners. I began thinking in terms of SEO, keywords, traffic and open rates. All the joy and creativity that had motivated me to start Mabon House in the first place was gone.
And there was also the imposter syndrome.
I’ve been open about the fact that I don’t identify as any particular denomination or as a witch. While I do draw strength from nature and the seasons, my interest in the Wheel of the Year was more cultural & academic than spiritual. I have my undergrad degree in history (at the time, my practical parents were not thrilled about my liberal arts major - what kind of paying job will you get with a history degree?!) and I have always been fascinated by the history of holidays and other cultural celebrations and how they have evolved over time.
I saw a gap in the digital printables market - there were like, 8 million Christmas planners on Etsy, but nothing for Yule let alone for the lesser known holidays like Imbolc or Lughnasadh. And the few witchy printables I found all looked like Halloween party invitations - so much gothic fonts and skulls and bats. To me, that did not represent a celebration of the seasons and nature. So I decided, on a bit of whim if I am being honest, to make my own and share them. I chose the name Pagan Planner because it sounded catchy and would be easy for folks to find in a search - not because I was a pagan.
As Mabon House grew, occasionally readers would reach out with very specific questions about sabbats or manifestations or how to honor loved ones who had died, and I was kind of like…erhhh…I don’t know? I mean, I have trouble meditating during yoga - I would never be able to cast a spell that worked. And death is not something I am at all qualified to discuss with strangers. And so all of this gave me an uneasy feeling that I was fooling people and eventually someone was going to figure out I was full of beans. And so, rather than deal with all that anxiety and stress, I just opted out.
But the thing is, I really like writing for Mabon House and creating pretty printables. And I love sending out this newsletter and hearing from folks (but please don’t ask me how to honor your late cat - it’s just not my thing).
So, I’ve decided on two things about the future of Mabon House:
The first is that I am not reopening the Etsy shop. Thank you to everyone who bought something from Etsy - you helped me grow this site and printables library so much over the past couple of years. Moving forward, all the printables I make will live right on Mabon House in the Members Library, for free. I’ll be adding in printables previously only available on Etsy over the next couple of months, including the 2022 Pagan Planner.
The second thing I’ve decided is that I am going to write more from my heart about things I enjoy. This will include some Wheel of the Year topics, but also more content on styling, saving money, sustainability and simplifying life (AKA minimalism for people who don’t want to give away all their stuff). I love sharing with others how I live beautifully, inside and out, on a budget.
I think the world - especially the digital world - needs more authenticity and transparency. And I want Mabon House to be a reflection of myself, not a carefully curated brand.
So, over the next few weeks I’ll be sharing more about the new look and feel of Mabon House, new content and new printables. You can check out all the free printables right in the Members Library.