One Year ago, I had a miscarriage. One Year ago yesterday, my nephew’s birthday, I was at 8-9 weeks pregnant, the fetus had no heart beat and my options were, take a pill, have a procedure, or “let my body naturally expel the fetus.” At this point last year, I was walking around for an indefinite period of time with an “unviable” fetus, the unborn baby that I really really wanted inside of me and had to let it go. The day before this, I was on my way back from Florida with my sister and girlfriends. One of them had been going through a hard time, so I really wanted to plan this trip to help lift her spirits. On the way to Florida, I started to get nervous that maybe I shouldn’t go and that I may be pushing myself too far at this point, but the whole Idea of the trip seemed great and honestly we had so much fun. This mindset of “putting others needs first” was something that I had a tendency to do, so just noting that in this moment in my pregnancy, I was beginning to learn this lesson for myself. We had a great time, but the day before we left to come home, I really pushed it. We walked for hours and visited places we wanted to make the most of our short time there. I was exhausted, I remember laying down and resting any opportunity I could. I remember putting my bra on that morning and thinking how strange it was that my boobs didn’t hurt anymore. On that final day on the beach my friend and I had a sweet moment together about being moms and she gave me a coffee mug as a gift that said “strong as a mother” and it was so sweet, I was really excited and happy. The whole pregnancy held a huge feeling of suspense for me. My partner at the time and I actually “tried” to get pregnant and I knew in my body within a day or two that I was, yet I had to wait weeks before I could take a pregnancy test to confirm. I wondered if my intuition was spot on or not. In that same week or two, my sister called me and told me she was pregnant, we would have been one month apart. We were pregnant for two months together and it was really nice and sweet. We were both pregnant in Florida too. On the way home from Florida in the airport, I started spotting. I was so scared. I kept looking things up on the Internet and everything said spotting is normal and doesn’t necessarily mean miscarriage. I was hopeful until the last second. I did find information saying that spotting with a decrease in breast pain was likely an indicator that the pregnancy hormone was gone and miscarriage was likely. My partner at the time was not home when I made it back from my trip. I called him to see when he would be home and he shoots into how I’m stressing him out and he has all this “stuff to do” and how it shouldn’t matter to me if he is home or not after I have been away for a few days. He hangs up and shuts of his phone. For the next couple of hours I lay there alone and sad and have no one to process all of my fear with and do my best to try to relax. When my partner calls I tell him what I am feeling and worried about and we decide to go to the emergency room first thing the next morning. Again, just noting a pattern here of putting others’ “needs” before my own. I often wonder what it would have been like to have a truly supportive partner and I am so happy for all women who go through a miscarriage and have that kind of support. The sadness is indescribable. I don’t know if I have ever cried that much in my life. Every. Single. Day. Especially during the time I still had the fetus in my body before the miscarriage. It was so sad. I wanted a baby so much. I wanted family life and love and I really really wanted it in that moment, no matter if it was “right” or not. I can’t even tell you the amount of times in my head where I said to myself, “if I have a miscarriage, I am breaking up with this person.” There was so much wrong. There was so little emotional support. After maybe a week? It was like I wasn’t allowed to be sad anymore. I wasn’t comforted, I felt alienated. Not to mention, the day of my “missed abortion” (that’s what the doctors called it), was the start of COVID. Fortunately I had undergone the miscarriage by the time my partner’s son came to stay with us for a couple weeks and before grandma came to “visit” indefinitely. They showed up two days after I “released the fetus” and were there for my entire “recovery.” I bled for two months. The prolonged bleeding led to prolonged sadness. I tried everything. I had healing sessions, I wrote, I painted I took baths and slept, but my body was not healing. My partner worked full time. He just didn’t have the sentiment for other peoples’ emotions and needs that I have, and I felt myself responsible for the comfort and care of his mother and son while he worked and pretty much did as he wanted. Also, we were in a bit of a time crunch to fulfill a project to ensure that we would get the grant money we had applied for. There was a lot going on and I truly didn’t have the healing environment I needed. I may have had a day or two where I could shut out the guilt of laying around, but the overarching feeling was less around the trauma that I had gone through and was going through and more around the tasks that needed to get done. There was pressure, which I don’t do well with and I felt I couldn’t slow down. I kept going. I pushed forward and beyond my capacity to care for those around me when I should have just taken care of myself. Notice a theme here? So, while it was devastating for a time and I have never felt heartbreak or pain as deeply as I did during that experience, I walked away learning a whole lot. Bleeding out of your vagina for two months does something to a woman. I suppose it would be different if I had actually given birth. I may have had the oxytocin to get me through the perpetual reminder of what I had gone through, but with a miscarriage I was just sad and depleted. My mind was not right and clearly my hormones were out of whack too. I just really needed support and empathy and love (especially from my partner) and the support to nurture myself in whatever way I needed to heal, which meant for me to do nothing until I felt better, but I wasn’t granted that. I did my best to grant it to myself, but I could feel the confusion and judgment around me from others wondering why I couldn’t “snap out of it.” I believe I didn’t bounce right back because I was learning some of the most important lessons of my life. First, how to honor and care for myself above anyone else or as well as I would anyone else. But also I was learning how I needed to be cared for. Now this is where Human Design came in. I won’t get into that too much here, maybe I will write a whole separate blog about that. What I will say, is that a new system Human Design came into my life right at this moment and helped me to understand how and why I process energy differently from my former partner and how our “best functioning selves” need very different things to thrive and that it would take very conscious, aware and open communication for us to grow into this together in a stable partnership. I believe partnerships that function with this conscious and open awareness would bask in this understanding and realization of one another’s differences. In this case, though, the self-awareness was one sided and doing any emotional reflection felt like a chore to my partner and growth was therefore, not possible and that’s okay. The relationship itself in truth had maxed out its potential long before this and we had both hoped one another would change something so that it could work out, likely out of some deeper fear of being alone. If you ask me, “being alone” is so much more gratifying and growth oriented than beating your head against the same dead end wall of communication, but I wouldn’t have known this if I hadn’t gone through this devastating process. It took a real trauma for me to know that what I need is just as important as the needs of those around me. The moment I understood this, in my whole body it resonated and I stopped feeling guilty. I laid in bed for days and the moment I felt any weird flack because of it I smiled and knew that it didn’t matter what anyone else’s experience of what was “right” for me was. What was right for my healing process may be completely different than what is right for someone else. I had to have my own back and just be a loving support for myself in an environment where rest and slowing down seemed to really be frowned upon. I slowed down anyway. And within a few days, my bleeding stopped and the whole dynamic of my life changed, truly. I had a clearer vision of what a nurturing environment looked like for me and rather than being upset or mad at my partner, I understood now, that he just couldn’t give that to me, or we weren’t compatible to create that together. While it is still sad, some part of me feels grateful that that little being, who I do believe will come back at the right time, had some divine wisdom to show me that this was not the right scenario for our best future. I honor the pain and suffering of all women who go through the process of a miscarriage. It is not easy, or talked about much and often it is very isolating. I honor this experience and with gratitude and grace, move forward with more empathy, love and understanding.

Tonight, self care for me looks like lighting my new beeswax candle, sipping rose petal kombucha in my soda water and eating an almond coconut cake infused with calendula petals, and topped with a chamomile rose petal maple glaze, delicious! Today self-care for me looked like exercise and stretching, spending time with my body, making two phone calls I have been procrastinating and filling out some paperwork online, another thing I have been putting off. Sometimes, against all of my brain’s judgment, self care for me looks like laying down and recharging when I am tired. I admit, i’m fortunate, and i am grateful to be able to do this, but it has not always been easy or possible to take this time for myself. Over the past year it has been a practice for me to love myself more. To listen to my body, really listen and give it what it needs. Caring for myself in a way that I would care for those I love has been a challenge for me, but I am committed to consistency and being a reliable lover of myself now. Self care is next level stuff! It’s such a rare gift for so many and is such a powerful tool to transformation. Love yourself in the way you have always wanted to be loved! And watch what happens. Watch yourself blossom. How do YOU self care? What are your rituals? What practices do you have to remind your body you are doing your best to love every part of it. How do you resonate self love? Start small, listen to your body. Rest when your tired. Floss your teeth! Bake yourself a cake! Do a mask, or take a bath with flowers in it. Turn your phone off if you don’t feel like talking. Do what FEELS right for you today. Treat yourself to some self love and be creative.

Forge & Blossom is the outcome of my life experience to date. The progression of a a life's work that continues to grow and fluctuate in response to what life throws my way. A natural wanderer, I have never found fulfillment in one craft. The more I explore, the more I want to explore and I never want that to change! Life experience though, brings a resonance whether we want it to or not, to the things that come through us and demand our attention. The products, offerings and experiences of Forge & Blossom, come out of intention and love from a deep reflection of what life has offered through me thus far. There have been times in my life where outside and reflectively, my inside circumstances leave no room for creative expression. In the moments of life where it flows though, I leave it open and enjoy participating and whatever comes through. Over the years I have discovered an interest in working with different mediums. Leather crafting was something I picked up from a woman I lived with on a school bus. We spent much of our time creating with the materials we had on hand, traveling to festivals and making our way with our handcrafts. What a ride! Leatherwork is something that I enjoy and am drawn to but feel the need to make room for. It requires a lot of attention to detail and time, so I always feel like I have to “accomplish more pressing things” before I can make the time to do leather. I can feel the space opening for this work and look forward to offering more in the shop. Similarly, I have experimented a lot with feather earrings and jewelry. From a young age, my dad has always pointed out different birds as they fly overhead, so I have always appreciated them. I find myself attracted to birds and their feathers, if that makes sense. Feathers of different birds often appear to me on walks in nature and around where I live. I find them beautiful and have enjoyed using them to create as well as on my altar. But again, this feels like something that I must make time for and look forward to incorporating more of in the shop. It is different when I work with plants and herbs. Maybe sometimes I feel overwhelmed or tired, but for the most part, growing plants and using their abundance in my creations is motivating and I seem to just “find the time for it.” It tends to flow. I mean what can we say about nature's blessings? Every plant is a gift, offering, and friend, ready to share their essence with you! Experimenting with and observing the life cycles and medicinal uses for plants is something that fascinates me. When I get to work with nature and earth medicine, I feel grounded (which isn’t always easy), present, uplifted and in the moment. I feel like I am participating in an evolving, conscious, reciprocal relationship with plants. It has been the most influential learning experience to date. There is a path I walked with my dogs daily for near a decade in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. I could walk out of my house and be on the path, through the woods and on to the beach in ten minutes without seeing another person. This path has been most influential in my plant journey. Cape was ironically the first place I lived for an extended period of time since I moved out of my parents. Being able to explore such a beautiful piece of the earth so regularly, it was the first time in my adult life I could just witness nature and learn her rhythms. It was here that I began to notice things change on the trail the more I walked her. Up until a certain point, that trail could have been a game trail, or at least very few people had been walking it. In fact, I haven’t lived there now for a couple of years (hard to believe) and when I go back to visit, it feels untouched and overgrown, and wild turkeys are the only ones I run in to. There was a time though, after the first few years of getting acquainted with that trail, consciously harvesting some of the beautiful plants for food and medicine, I noticed things change! I witnessed mullein come when I couldn't find her the year before and the raspberries and blackberries grew in abundance the more I ate and cherished their fruit. I experienced the gratitude of the roses on the beach and the bounty of the milkweed the more I ate and shared her. I had always been attracted to working with plants, but I wasn’t aware of, or consciously participating in a relationship with them. Maybe I wasn’t open to what they were communicating. It was this inspiration that began to evolve my awareness and relationship with plants as well as to life in general. What is life communicating to YOU? It is my intention through this website, my products and offerings to share how life is communicating to me (and through me), so that others may be inspired to learn that language. <3 -C

As a philosophy major, I have spent a lot of time pondering. For a significant period of my life, I was under the impression that I had to delve into the depths of what made me who I am (family, life circumstances, trauma) in order to heal from the past and live life confidently, happily and at ease. I read books, wrote A LOT and really looked at my history for answers. Still, circumstances led me to believe that all of the self-work I was doing was having no effect. I fasted, I prayed and I meditated. I took classes, did cleanses, I read and had a good job. I tried really really hard, yet every time I took a fork in the road to a different direction, I always seemed to end up in the same place. The names and faces would change, but the circumstances, the roles the characters played and the scenery would all look the same. Small things evolved and over time I would feel closer to reaching my goals, but eventually, the novelty would wear off and I would find myself once again exhausted and back where I started. I decided to change focus: What if I turn my attention away from all of the things that need fixing, and toward all of the potential outcomes that I have not yet thought of? I directed my energy and efforts into what I could accomplish and offer rather that wasting it on what had already gone wrong. The past was behind me and experience had shown that dwelling in it was not helping me move forward. Nurture and self-care became my focus and slowly, things began to evolve. A conscious perspective shift has changed the way I do life. I have started to listen to my body when it is tired, or if I am restless or anxious, or uninspired, I go for a walk in the woods. These are small things, that may seem irrelevant or obvious, but as many know, giving to yourself what you need, can be difficult when life gets busy. The positive reflections we do give ourselves though, become the reasons we decide to listen and act on what inspires us. We all have a way that we are our best in the world, the things that feed our health, nourish our bodies and empower us to “show up” as our best selves. While life circumstances are out of our hands a lot of times, there is still a lot we can do to maintain our balance and nurture the energy we have to offer the world. It's true, what you put out comes back to you, or you get what you give. But think of this in relationship to energy instead actions. What energy do you want to emit? I don't want to open a whole can of worms talking about the difficult times we are living in, or the state of the world. What I do want to bring attention to is that each moment we individually have a choice about where and what we want to give our energy and attention to. We can let the past swallow us and spend our lives "figuring out what went wrong." Or we can decide right now to change the way we move forward consciously giving attention to the things that uplift and inspire us. The more empowered we are individually, the more empowered we become collectively. There is enough heaviness out there. Each one of us is a significant piece to greater whole. Our collective energies and how we participate and interact with the world and each other will be the transformation. Embody your greatest vision, believe in your highest truth. "Change your thinking, change the world".