The past two weeks contain enblazened views of outstanding lore, love, uncertainty, admiration, connection, and fear. We traversed gravel road potholes, twice we turned around after realizing we were unable to climb a mountain, hunkered down in areas not meant for humans, and watched the moon and the sun in the same morning sky. Most of our unsuccessful tries to camp due to filled up and overpopulated campgrounds, dispersed areas, and parking lots weighed heavy as boulders in our path. One night, this dear creature beside me was called my beloved for the first time as we watched the full moon light up the darkest night sky while we were surrounded, and spied on, by what seemed like a legion of wild felines. We were welcomed by the dearest of friends along the way and that fact has kept us steady as we go.
Clove and I moved from roadstops to parking lots, tree spots and loving dots, on the journey to our landing squats. These peoples and places have held my exhaustion and languishing thoughts. My journal writings stopped as my noticeable anxious insides have showed themselves to be tethered with a life long safety mechanism that I have used for decades. Run, Jen, run. We will be working on shifting that mindset from here on out.
Hopscotch Towards The Forests and The Sea
The next steps are already in motion, we leave out for our next journey later this week, to the area in which the sights have been set. Applications are being sent, interviews are scheduled, meetups on the calendar, our life and camping gear in the car. This continuation of roaming is about to slow down and center our movements around one area in particular. The priorities are to secure revenue streams, lock in a homespot to rest our heads, rebuild and expand from there.
The Return of Under The Root
In 2003, I began the blueprint and architecture of Under The Root from this well of desire to create intimate apparel from reclaimed, sustainable, and discontinued fabrics. It began as a way to learn, express, grow, rebel, and take back my agency from scarcity. It worked for such a long time… until it burned out and needed a major rest area some 20 years later. The studio is still purring and has grown to be populated with a different kind of rebellion, smoother edges, deeper core of belief. I have taken the years of dedication, with its skill and mastery, down a path towards mortality, death, dying, grief, psychedelics, and transitional thresholds.
The past 3 years of education, volunteer work, and community involvement have begun to overflow, with me creating community resources in the form of pdf downloads, recorded workshops, collections of care for support services, and handcrafted goods from my designs. At this point, I have been creating and making for such a dearly long time that it makes complete sense to keep growing in ways that listen, serve, help, and care.
The Listening Table
One of the most bubbling over actions for this next Under The Root chapter is underway. The outreach for The Listening Table began a handful of weeks ago. The Listening Table is a pilot program that branches from the larger vision behind The Listening Atlas. These workshops are inperson and carve out time for older adults and our elders to be offered creative conversations, artistic presence, expansive curiosity, and meaningful connections. This is the beginning, with or without The Listening House.
Thank You for Holding Space for Us to Grow
For all the donations, shares, purchases, the check ins, the offerings of places to rest, the open doors, and the kindness of reading these updates…
ooooo, we see you and thank you with every ounce of our essence. The original strategy has shifted a bit and the story continues to grow.
