Letting the seasons come

Shifting, falling, becoming

I just left the fourth trimester. It’s hard to believe this little human is smiling, giggling, and endlessly impatient to explore the world around him. Seeing him now is like walking into a sunshine-filled meadow after weeks of stumbling blindly through a dark forest of fussiness and uncertainty. There was so much love there, but so much exhaustion. It feels like we’ve finally arrived.

As he naps during the day I rush to eat, clean, wash diapers, throw something in the slow cooker for dinner. But the nights are mine. When the house is asleep I make time to draw, write, read, and carve even when I’m exhausted and just want to watch back to back episodes of Golden Girls.

I found there needs to be a balance between giving myself grace and not making excuses to avoid doing things that help me feel human. So I bring down my favorite Golden Girls mug instead, brew up some hot cacao and chaga, and take out my tools.

I’m not sure I could even do creative work during the day anymore. I’ve always felt most inspired to make things in the evenings, but the stillness there now is even more precious. These long hours are punctuated with night wakings and cuddles, reminding me to take breaks and cherish the way things move in the dark. I want to remember this feeling, to remember him before he becomes the next version of himself.

Now that we’ve entered this new season, the 100 Day Project by

#The100DayProject Newsletter

couldn’t have come at a better time. I mentioned in an earlier newsletter about starting this project to avoid getting stuck in the chaos of the world, to just making something, just keep moving, and to connect with plant medicine in new ways. The project starts on February 23rd, is free to join, and very simple. Just choose one thing to do every day for one hundred days and share it with your community.

After thinking about what I wanted to do for this project, I decided to make one miniature botanical woodcut every day. My favorite work that I’ve ever made was last summer at Don Gorvett’s woodcut workshop in Gloucester, Massachusetts. I was six months pregnant, battling with an intense bout of insomnia (I hadn’t slept in literally three days), rushing to fit in everything I had to get done to make a three color reduction woodcut in one week, while also making time to enjoy Cape Ann with Evan.

I was running on fumes, I should’ve rested more, but the pressure made me let go of perfection. I just had to get it done. The result was a piece that felt lived-in and expressive. It took on a life of its own as a memorial to that wild season of life. I wish I had one more week to perfect the color mixing and printing, but the core of that piece was gold. Every woodcut I’ve made since then lacked that urgency. I’ve spent too much time caught in the details. I want to recapture that feeling in a carving. I’m hoping this project will do that.

I chose pine to work with. The softwood is smooth like butter, allowing for delicious cuts and lively lines. I did a test run with a columbine sketch I made. Once again, I started with too much detail. But I caught myself and switched to a larger carving gouge, forcing my strokes to be more free. I gave myself twenty minutes to carve and came up with something I feel excited about.

I can’t wait to dive further into these plant studies. The plan is to choose one plant every week of the project and make a woodcut of that plant every day that week. I’m hoping to also do some further research and writings on each plant to add to my herbarium.

Columbine has a way of finding me. Not in a flashy sort of way, but in a quiet whisper, letting me know it’s there. They rest in the shade, gently out of the way, a humble companion to chat with on the side of the trail. The brilliant blue columbines of the West first found me on a mountain as I hiked through a grove of birches. A few years later they found me again in Santa Fe, New Mexico behind the inn that hosted Evan and I’s wedding. The small red columbines, no less striking, found me along a river when we moved back to Michigan.

So I planted them in my own garden, under the guardian oak at the front of the house and further back in the woods under the pines. Now they don’t need to travel far at all to find me. It felt fitting then that they would be the first plant I would work with in this project.

In earlier centuries, rosaries and prayer beads were not beads at all, but flowers hung on a string. Words were paired with this physical devotion, a muttering to the cosmos.

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Flowers become prayers and prayers become flowers.

~ The Way of the Rose

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Columbine, for me, is a prayer of wayfinding. They direct you where to go when you’re not looking, or confirm you’re exactly where you need to be. Just look at how they gaze in all directions, sometimes downward, sometimes up at the sun, sometimes directly at you.

There is a deep wisdom of the earth that is expressed through the green world. These woodcuts in turn are little prayers, love letters to all the plants that loved me.

I look forward to sharing my work with this project as it begins. Let me know if you decide to participate in this project as well, I’d love to follow along!

Much love,

Val

P.S. Feel free to share, it’s much appreciated!

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