Happy Thanksgiving friends!

We have a lot to be thankful for on the Hearth & Heart homestead. This year has been so full!

I’m thankful for my health, of course, and how much the plants have come to support it this year! Breastfeeding has taken a lot out of me and I feel like I was sick at least once a month until I started taking the Mushroom Trinity daily. When I was sick, so many plants nurtured me back to health. My lungs needed the most support, and I am so thankful that the plants helped me heal from pneumonia without antibiotics.

I am thankful for my partner, Adam’s, health. About a year ago, Adam broke his collarbone and could not work or hold his baby son. After surgery, a metal plate, some screws, and some bone grafting, he had a lengthy recovery that was hard on all of us. I am thankful for the medical professionals that worked to put his collarbone back together. And I am thankful to the plants, once again, for their support in his healing process. I am thankful that the antibiotics he took prevented any infection from the surgery or foreign objects in his body, and I am thankful for the plants we used to recover the gut health those antibiotics damaged. I am also thankful to the plants that have supported his mental health during this time.

I am thankful for Adam, for his love & support. Without it I would not have had the time to form this deeper relationship with both my son & the plants.

I am thankful for the health of my children. I am thankful for both the allopathic medicine & the plants that have supported that health. I am thankful for the ability to feed my children richly nutritious meals using whole foods provided to us by Mother Earth. I am thankful for the joy & laughter my children have given me this year & I’m also thankful for the challenges. Together, we’ve grown so much!

I am thankful to all who have supported the formation of Hearth & Heart LLC. We began with just a few products at Manifestations, NY Metaphysical and Alternative Wellness Center and we are thankful for the shelf space that motivated the production of what we have now. We are thankful to Corning Community Engagement & the Civil Advocacy Project for their assistance in the formation of our LLC & we are thankful to IncubatorWorks for the program that helped us determine what our brand means to us and how we can share that with our community.

We are very grateful to the Painted Post Farmers’ Market, the Montour Falls Farmers Market, & Corning’s Gaffer District for providing us the space to commune with our community & share our love of the plants with them. We are thankful to the community members that have stopped to chat about this passion of mine & those that have purchased the products that I have lovingly poured so much of my energy into.

I am thankful for my teachers, Andrea & Matthias Reisen at Healing Spirits Herb Farm & Education Center, for sharing their knowledge & helping me see the world around me with new eyes & new appreciation. I am thankful for Rosemary Gladstar‘s mission to share the knowledge of the herbal community’s elders with young people such as myself through her books, her curriculum, & her podcast.

I am thankful for the love & support of both my family & friends. I am thankful for the new friends I’ve made, the old friends I cherish, & also for those that I have lost. Each has played a valuable part on my journey this past year.

Thanksgiving has become my favorite holiday as an adult. It’s one of the few holidays left that hasn’t been commercialized or turned into a glorification of consumerism for capitalist profit. Instead, it celebrates coming together with family & friends, eating delicious comfort food, & being thankful and appreciative of the abundance we have been provided with this year (everything a Taurus woman wants in a celebration) Yes, there is the tragic history of the first Thanksgiving and the genocide of the indigenous people of the Americas. While we cannot rewrite the history of the past, we are writing the history of the future every day. Holidays are what you make them, and I choose to spend this holiday celebrating love, abundance, & gratitude!

Have a blessed holiday friends!