Welcome Home

"Home isn't always a place, is it?"

Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

Summertime is a time
+ for travel
adventuring outward away from schedules and routines

+ for returns
college-aged children home-coming
friends and family re-gathering
us returning from summer vacations

Upon return from a recent family trip, I was struck by the sensation I felt upon my return home:
A deep inhale
A deep exhale

And I felt within
A Peaceful Welcome Home

In his Poem, "Little Gidding" T.S. Elliot puts this sensation it to words...

Home is Ever Changing
"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

-T.S. Elliot

Each spring and early summer, I return to my frost-hardened fields.

The plants begin to wake.

The bees begin to forage.

And I remember that this sacred space is my home.

Home is a Place We've Always Known
But looks different each time we visit

Your favorite hike
Your favorite teacup
Your favorite book
Your favorite poem
Like my fields, each time we return, there is something new "Home" has to teach us, no?

Home is Through the Gate
"Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;"

-T.S. Elliot

Home beckons us back.
This space:
Where my teas are created

Where each leaf, berry and flower passes

Where so many children have come to visit

Where creativity is admired and shared

To walk through its gates
is to be beckoned home.

You?
A front gate?
A front door?

Sometimes the beckoning comes to you simply from: The Teacup Cupboard
To sip
To pause

Home is Stillness
"But heard, half heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea."

-T.S. Elliot

Home is...
  The valley between
    Where we settle
      Teacup in hand

Perhaps...
A journal
  A camera
    A paintbrush
      A pottery wheel
 

But no matter what...

Home is a place that is:
Still
Settled
Grounded

Dear Tea Drinker,
My blessing to you this month: May we enter into the beautiful peace of a welcoming home.
 Appreciating the alterations that have occurred in our absence
 Responding to the beckoning through a gate leading to our sacred space
 Honoring the stillness of the truest home we know

As always: 

Thank you 

I'm honored to be your herbal tea farmer. 

Be well,
Shannon