Why I am doing this? Why is it important to me? Why continue the struggle of a small business and make less that I would working for someone else? Why do things the hard and long way when most of my customers might not even know or care about the difference?
For the love of it.
And I really love it.
These days, why waste time doing anything that you don't completely love and believe in? We don't really have time. Maybe it doesn't always make sense to everyone else around you, or sometimes even yourself, but these are the times when I have to tell the "logical" part of my brain nicely to just shut up, and remind myself that life is so much more than what we see on the day to day.
One person coming to our booth or writing an email with a story or sentiment about the way herbs, our products, or a class has touched their lives is enough to see me through many long days. I cry listening to podcasts daily, I talk to the plants about my deepest feelings, I hug trees, I pray for this planet and the beings it sustains, and I do my best to promote positive change in my own humble way.
I would like to share something that a woman, granddaughter and herbalist of African descent said at an herbal gathering that has really stuck with me:
"My grandmother told me to always remember three things:
Share the teachings and pass on the oral tradition,
Don't let machines do the work your hands were meant to
and Everything you do, do it with love" <3
These are words to live by :)