No, I'm not dead.

Didja ever go to a site and really connect with it? So you go to check out the blog and it's like yonks old. I mean, a year or two. Well that was my blog. Mostly because life is what happens when you're busy doing other things and because well 2020? One hot mess!!

First there was Covid, and m my hols in Cornwall, England cancelled, Philadelphia shut down, everything seemed to close the blinds and draw the shutters, and the world changed.

I’ll admit I was one of the lucky ones. With my vacation canceled since I already work from home I was still working every day. My husband has a butcher was deemed an essential employee so we both continued as always, with the largest Interruption being having to mask and social distance at the supermarket, and doing my twice weekly kettlebell sessions with my trainer via Zoom.

Since I was still working, I didn't get the chance to binge Netflix or be bored, or have enough time on my hands to explore a new hobby, but as Monday through Friday was really starting to smush together, I began studying Japanese and Spanish in my coffee break, just to break it up a little.

Then on my late father's birthday, May 25th, George Floyd was killed, and suddenly the world changed, again.

Black Lives Matter was everywhere and some of the things we've been talking about for years, disparities in schools, housing and healthcare, being stopped by police because you were doing normal day to day activities while being black and being scuppered from scalIng the lofty heights within corporate America because "they're just not like us".

Suddenly Colin Kaepernick's kneeling took on new significance and people seemed to finally "get it", what racism was like foe black folks in America.

So while all of this was happening outside, I was thinking inside. Thinking about how to help and how to connect and how to create something that would do both.

I released #buddhasforbail Buddha shaped soap and donated a dollar from the sale of every bar to @phillybailout, Because many people were being arrested for protesting and the inability to post bail affects black and brown people more adversely.

And then I decided to do something to empower myself and other black and brown herbalist and that was to create a line that simply recognized we are here. As with aromatherapy, herbalism tends to be at the domain of largely white women and although there are black & brown practitioners, often times we are diminished as if our knowledge of herbs and plants often from our ancestors isn’t as important as the knowledge gleaned from expensive schools. I even remember one herbal conference that said if we even discussed racial issues amongst the herbalist community you could be ejected from the conference and not refunded.

Just discussing! Think about that.

So I created the Decolonize and Indigenize line also now available through my Etsy shop. I want to shout from the route tops that I’m here what I know is valuable And we need to show our faces to inspire the next generation. And even if I don’t have the followers of someone like Empress Karen Rose, I can do what I can with what I have. And I want to make sure we’re seen!

So while I’ve been quietly creating behind the scenes, I am far from dead. And if you want to see what I’ve been up to feel free to drop into my shop. There are lots of new products from a facial cleansing powder made entirely of plants & clay with no preservatives and completely vegan, to new elixirs and soap. Sometimes the creative process requires thought, silence and solitude.

Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.