Reflections: wealth, weavery and fermenting vegetables

small brave thing #224

Welcome to new subscribers Sarah, Sara, Jessica, Marina, Jacqui, Penn, Shalini, Jansue, Frankie, Brenda, Tirzah, Sharon, CL, GM, Suzanne, Thomas, Renee, Richard, Cassandra, DG, Emily, Kelli, Marc, Christina, Mike, Janine, Polly, Martha. I’m so glad you’re here and that you’ve found your way to An Inviting Space from the vast interconnected inter- and ether-worlds. Some of you I can only discern initials from email addresses, I don’t even know your names! Thank you to each of you for your presence as we listen for new stories and weave new possibilities, together, here in An Inviting Space.

Hello beautiful human,

Thanks to Daylight Savings Time beginning, this morning as I was groggily making coffee in the kitchen, I once again caught the first glimmers of green predawn light in the east. It was worth dragging myself out of bed for that. The early morning air still frosty, the world still quiet in my neighborhood. Writing as the sunrise slowly comes on and admittedly, feeling heavy in my bones from the way we jerked the clocks around. Anyone else?

As you know if you’ve been with me for a bit, reflections is the word I landed on this year, to my own surprise. It’s a quiet word, a word that asks us to hush a minute and listen, to attune our senses to the moment. Reflections is a watery word, a receptive word. It carries the spring thaw as it drips, ripples, splashes and stills again. It also brings with it mirrors (which I hang like artwork in my house), and physics diagrams, and, of course, the wonder-wanderings of the imagination as I muse over the past months, and years. Over the life. And on Mondays, I choose to find out where that last definition might take me.

This is my invitation to you to slow a moment and do the same, when it feels right.

1.

One year ago, on the second Monday in March, I wrote these paragraphs in an attempt to wake myself up from the herky-jerky exhaustion of setting the clocks one hour ahead. And one year later, they again call on me to wake up:

Creativity—our human birthright—emerges when we pay attention and get curious. We can be creative in relationships, at work, driving down the highway. Poems, paintings, songs… those are one kind of byproduct of a creative engagement with life. But our creativity can also be expressed in breakfast, in gardens, in good conversation, in the scarf we toss over our shoulder on our way out the door.

In other words, we can’t help being creative. We are creating from the moment we wake up til we fall asleep. We can become more aware of what it is we create around ourselves, and we can grow and deepen our creative engagement, or even change it up, through paying attention and getting — and staying—curious. And that is a question of intention.

Good morning! Okay, younger self. I hear you. Where has my intention been these days? Am I staying curious? Am I paying attention and if I am…what am I paying attention to? What am I helping to create by my choices and actions?

What are we paying attention to and how best to pay attention? How to stay curious in a way that feels healthy and self-nurturing rather than doom-scrolling or fear inducing?

In March 2025 these questions resonate with a difference for sure.

2.

This weekend, I had a house filled with people who love each other. We laughed, talked, ate good food and made more good food for the coming weeks, rich in nutrients, vitamins, minerals, all the things we need to take care of our guts, our hearts, our brains, our moods. Kinship. This feels like a healthy resistance: the nourishing of bodies, the insistence on love and joy. It feels like we were truly grounding in the wealth of ourselves, enjoyment and sensory pleasures, relationship building and memory making.

We felt, I’m going to say it, rich in the moments shared. A kind of wealth that money can certainly contribute to, but can never buy.

Also, we made vegetable ferment to support the biome of our guts. Yay tiny helpful bacteria! Yay kitchen magic!

Along similar lines, last week I enjoyed a beautiful, luxurious conversation with my friend Elizabeth who you may remember from the very first Practice Session. It was the kind of talk that reconnects and invigorates, as ideas and experiences flow between two people. We casually say, “we should catch up,” but what that means is slow down, relax and settle into a true sharing and the receptivity of good listening. It can’t be rushed, it can’t be forced, and this morning I want to lift that up wherever and whenever it occurs, and honor it for the important exchange and weavery that it is.

Yes, I just made up the word weavery.

One idea that came out of that conversation (one out of many) was the notion that sometimes, when we sign up for a program or class and then for whatever reason need extra time and pay a little extra for that deadline extension, we’re buying time, spaciousness, luxury. It’s a gift we can give ourselves. Rather than feel bad that we couldn’t finish in the allotted time, we can give ourselves permission to feel supported and nurtured by the choice to pay more to extend the time we have for engagement, learning and growth.

Another friend has talked about something similar with his family’s summer pool pass. When they buy a one-day pass, there is a sense they have to make the most of the day, stay as long as possible even if people are getting tired, cranky, sunburnt. There’s a pressure, acknowledged or not, to get the “full value” of the money they paid for the day! But, he told me, when they invest and buy a season pass, they have the luxury to come and go as feels right. Stay or don’t. Come back again even in the same day, or the same weekend.

3.

Maybe it’s just me or just the morning, but these sorts of intentional choices with our money and spending seem to me to be slightly differently based than insisting we get “full value” for our dollars or getting a “good deal.” Do you feel that too? It’s as though a significant part of the value is not the bottom line or the budget, but in buying ourselves more choice, more time, more flexibility, more capacity to flow. Or to use a word I find myself repeating, we purchase luxury: to have the experience on our own terms.

In a time when we’re becoming more aware of how we spend our dollars and who and what we support with our purchases, I’m advocating for putting ourselves right in the middle of those choices, with love and a sense of what might almost feel like decadent self-care.

Does this purchase support me and my thriving?

Does it add to the luxury and pleasure of the day for me in some way?

Does it help me align with my values, my purpose, or the energies I want to put into the world around me?

Sometimes, in all honesty, my answer is not really, no, it’s just feeding a numb emptiness, or a bad mood, or a lack somewhere in the spirit. I’m gonna give myself permission for those moments too.

4.

All of this requires that we center ourselves in our own lives.

This could sound selfish and self-absorbed. Honestly, it could devolve and become self-absorbed. So let’s be clear: that’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m asking us, as we move through the world with compassion and commitment, that we not lose track of our needs, our body’s desires and messages to us, our energy levels and moods. It’s challenging! Maybe, as I circle around this morning from last year’s post to today, what I’m reflecting on here is the invitation to stay curious and pay attention to what I myself am experiencing in the moment. Because we need to be well-resourced in ourselves to keep doing the work we need to do in the world.

Speaking of…

How’s it going with your ten minutes a day-ish actions and activities around celebrating and growing the wealth of the self? Anything surfacing? Any surprises? Any rememberings? Do you feel well-resourced in this area or do you struggle?

I admit, I haven’t been diligent in this practice although I am well-intentioned, and yet, as I read over what I’ve written here I realize somehow, without meaning for it, quite, I’ve been celebrating and growing my physical, mental and emotional health and reserves this past couple of weeks, getting caught up on sleep, and focusing on how to bring my energies into the world in ways that support me even as I try to support others…all of this even without conscious effort or decision, just naturally in my activities and conversations.

Thanks to Rachel Shenk at La Bonne Vie for keeping the conversation around wealth and how we define and experience it going and flowing. It’s in the in-between that something new emerges…

…and in writing that very gratitude I prove my point as something new, a new question, emerges…so here’s prompt to end on…What if wealth flows like water or electricity?

So often it feels (to me anyway) solid state, like the gold bars at Fort Knox, the vault of coins and bills Scrooge McDuck used to dive around in, the chink of change in the pocket. What if we can imagine it as fluid and flowing between us, all around us? What if wealth hoarded becomes stagnant, polluted, dank, threatening? What if it’s meant to stream, rain, soak and pour between us?

xo
S

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A Celebration Corner for sharing the Good Goodies

There’s been more talk recently about the importance of empathy and one easy and obvious way we build empathy is reading novels to ourselves and to each other (more people should talk about this!). Read something. Listen to an audio book as you drive. If you don’t have a current read, find one at Baker’s Dozen Books, my imaginary bookshop with real books in it.

Rob Brezsny always writes with passion and vision. I’ve been reading his work for years now and I’m grateful he continues to share his radical (in both senses) words with us.

“Wealth flows from energy and ideas.” - William Feather

I believe our world needs new stories. what if those stories lie curled within us like seeds? This is An Inviting Space to experience where and how we might discover, recover and nurture the secret, magical gardens of soul day by day. Starting where we are, as we are.

(Not quite ready to subscribe, but want to show a little gratitude? You can always buy me a coffee.)

Your attention and time are the true gifts. Thank you. xoS