Reinventing Self Care
Tooth Powder Tooth Paste left, mouth wash center, minty sugar lip scrub right.
The wind is whipping the leaves around like wild dancers in the air on an invisible ball room floor hanging somewhere above the goat’s hill. It is cold today very cold. And to contrast the leaves dancing beautifully is the roar of the wind as it batters the house, shakes the glass windows and rustles the still leafless spring branches. The sun is rising higher now every day, once again beginning to grow in strength until it becomes a force to be reckoned with. It is the end of what most people call march now, the third month of the new year coming as the wave after the world collapsed… Everyone of us is changed from this experience. Every one of us has learned something from going through this terrible virus shut down and tragedy… Watching the wind whip the leaves feels new again. I am not the same woman who used to watch the spring unfold in all it’s cold gradually warming glory. I have a new appreciation for beautiful days like today after hearing so many stories of tragedy. A new trust in nature, that the sun will rise again. I suspect one day, time will once again be divided, kind of like BC and AD, another such dating mechanism may come to exist. BV and AV. Before Virus and After Virus. We are on our way to AD, and the sun seems to be welcoming us on this cold march day into a new era of existence.
Self care products I keep by my sink.
This experience I think has changed us all. Many, who never expected to lose jobs or to deal with shortages have gone through something at least as messed up and defective as the world war two supply chain. Broken, and with shortages. For a while eggs disappeared from the shelves. For a while bread couldn’t be found. And do I really need to talk about what happened with toilet paper? Really? The result, is I have decided I am too trusting and complacent when it comes to the system of supply and demand, a system which may not always be running. What did they do before this system those of my generation and my parent’s generation and even my grandmother’s generation take for granted? They worked crazy hard that is for darn sure. And they thought more creatively than is common today. They turned to nature and their pantries for the same things we turn to the convenience store shelves for as well as the grocery store. I developed recipes and am developing more to start replacing some of these things that we take for granted on store shelves created from my pantry and my little apothecary shelf in the name of self care.
Here at Wildflower, we do not create for beauty’s sake to sell somewhere online. We reuse things such as jars. We create for utility and the innate beauty in utility. This fact is very visible in this photo. We are an environmental homestead before all else.
The sun has become so powerful, that there is a brightness even though the sky is blighted with small clouds and the wind is whipping. Inside, I am making more mouth wash, listening to the wind howl as a new person forged in pandemic quarantine. It is important to understand, tooth paste is always gross. Mouth wash always tastes terrible. But I like the still gross but somewhat softer less burning flavor of natural homemade mouth care.
For my mouth wash you will need:
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1 tea spoon liquid food grade coconut oil
1/2 tea spoon vitamin E oil.
3-6 droppers full of stevia
1/2 teaspoon witch hazel
3 drops food grade rosemary essential oil
6 drops food grade peppermint essential oil
1/2- 3/4 cups of filtered well water.
Put all ingredients in a small jar and shake. It is that simple. This mouth wash. Avoid swallowing just swoosh it around your mouth a few times and spit it out. It won’t taste good, but I find it far more palatable though still awful when compared to the store bought burn your mouth to smitherines, literally painful junk I get at the store. Most importantly, my mouth feels clean. And more important than most important, this skill keeps me less dependent on supply chains that crash in emergencies, on money and the world beyond my little world here at Wildflower. There is nothing wrong with the world beyond my property line. But here I am queen, and I find living so dependently as I once did to be a thing I personally never wish to do again. I like having the option and to engage with the world on my terms rather than to meet every need and want, and to be victim to every trend and fad while the most important things in life pass me by.
Thank you for reading
Be well, and allow the experience we have all shared to change you into a more independent and better version of yourself.
Soon we will all be able to return to a world we spent over a year now hiding from.
I think we have a duty to think long and hard about how healthy our past normal really was and perhaps, create a new normal. One where technology and fads don’t rule our lives. One where we keep in mind what it was like to be alone in which we treasure each other more, support each other more, and find value in creating a world more reflective of our care and concern for both others as well as ourselves.
Thank you for reading
Amanda of Wildflower Farm
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