Luna Garden. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…⠀⠀⠀

But first some back story…⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

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About 3 years ago, we were still living in Maryland. We were miserable. The toxic energy was palpable. The local housing market still hadn’t recovered from the crash in 2005. We were stuck. Paralyzed. So much of our time was spent thinking about how and when we might be able to get out, where we’d go, how we’d get there, and of course how we’d afford it. It was all-consuming. Exhausting. We lived in that house for almost 13 years half of which we spent panicking about getting out.

The tipping point came in 2016 when I came up for air after unexpectedly losing my mom to cancer. I needed space. I felt trapped in my house and my yard. All I saw when I stepped outside were other houses. Don’t get me wrong I was super grateful for what we had. The struggle came from the lack of privacy.

Here’s where I started to understand why quiet alone time is so ESSENTIAL for highly sensitive empaths. We process deeply, we’re overstimulated easily, we feel all the feels and have a sensitivity to subtleties. Quiet Alone time, especially in nature, helps us recalibrate and recharge.

I longed for this kind of radical space in nature but continued feeling stuck.

It was on a coaching call with, Sarah Jenks, in the late fall of 2016, that the fire in my belly was lit. I no longer felt guilty about wanting more. Following her sage advice, the manifesting began.

I called in the space and energy we craved. Most importantly for me NATURE!!!! I spent SO many hours showing gratitude for our backyard and dreaming about a private nature sanctuary to call our own. A place to connect to the Earth, to my mother, to me. Space where our kids could run free and be exactly who they were meant to be without the disapproving eyes of neighbors.

Was it that ridiculous to dream of a fairy garden nuzzled sweetly into our new land? I didn’t think so.

I dreamed with no limits about the house and land where we wanted to raise our family. To this day my husband shakes his head in disbelief that so many of the things I dreamed for us came true.

In the Spring we put the house on the market and started looking for a new place to live. I was working overtime manifesting for a sale and a new home.

According to my Reiki master, here in Virginia, it was divine intervention that called me here to Luna Garden. She told me it was sacred land and I was called here to live my life’s purpose. After being here for almost 3 years I couldn’t agree more. I was meant to be on this land and share it with like-intentioned people on their healing journey.

I remember the first day we visited this house. We walked through completely silent. All the while, calm energy pulsing through the beautifully lit space. Picture windows were facing out on a private spot in nature. It was just as I’d imagined. I looked around in disbelief at all I’d been manifesting these past few months. It was wild, like an out of body experience.

Walking into the screened-in porch overlooking the beautiful garden my heart skipped a beat. Two thoughts raced through my mind:

1. this is the one, you are home, love.

2. you must be out of your mind, you and Jason are brown thumbs, there’s no way you could take care of this land, not to mention how expensive this is, totally over budget…

Funny how the ego goes on and on but your soul, your intuition is more of a quiet, to the point, whisper. As my ego spewed a barrage of reasons why we were unfit owners we started to venture outside. The voice began to settle down and my attention was drawn to big beautiful peony bushes just covered in stunning butterflies.

As we walked down the path, through the garden and down to the lower level I felt like Snow White or Cinderella, with an entourage of winged creatures following behind me. A squeeze against my heart let me know, I’d found my fairy garden.

A loud buzz from a fat bee pulled me out of that fantasy and the ego started in again:

*I know you want privacy girl but this is like way too much. You hate bees. You’re freaked out by creepy crawly bugs and snakes and you’d never warm up to this place. It’ll just become overgrown and too hard and too expensive to take care of and oh yeah…remember OVER BUDGET!

So I walked back up the hill, the little soul whisper fluttering in my heart and the loud ego stating all the reasons it was just as well we couldn’t afford this place. When we walked out of the house our realtor said, “well this checks a lot of your boxes and you were both completely silent the entire time…think that means you liked it.”

We went back to Maryland heavy-hearted, waiting with bated breath to see if anyone would buy our house. In July we got a bite! One buyer was all we needed and that’s exactly what we got. We continued to look at that house with the big beautiful garden online every single day. Still on the market. Still over budget.

I kept believing that somehow we’d figure it out, the price would drop or we’d find something even better.

Flash forward to September. We’re living in a rental. We have 6 weeks to find a home. Curveball, I’ve recently been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Surgery for a total thyroidectomy is scheduled for the day after my kids start at their new school. The school we know they won’t be staying at once we make the final move.

Can you say STRESSED OUT!

This was the first day of their new, new school, about three years ago. Happy to report it went great and they’ve been thriving ever since. Remember your kids are resilient!

But still, I persisted in my belief and manifesting. I stayed positive, with fewer moments of doubt than ever before, but trust me they were still there. Fear, of course, slithered in here and there but I faced that fear with fierce courage and did the next thing. Because sometimes, that’s all we can do, the next thing. I was praying, manifesting, and believing in finding a home, that I would survive cancer, that my kids would adjust to all this insanity and that our life would settle in and calm down eventually. Needless to say, there was lots of praying and manifesting happening with a healthy dose of gratitude, of course.

At my pre-op appointment waiting for the surgeon to come in and do some testing, I hear my husband say:

“Babe, that house, the one with the big garden it’s still for sale and the price just dropped significantly, we should move on this now, I’m calling Harmony (our realtor/friend).”

Everything slowed down. I sat there with the fear of the upcoming test and surgery as a calm washed over my being. The universe and Great Mother were showing up for me. Deep in my bones, I knew this to be true. Every time a friend or relative would doubt our ability to find a house in that six weeks, I stayed the course and kept believing.

I had a knowing, one that I wasn’t prepared to ignore. I knew we’d find the perfect home and land for us. I never knew how I just knew it would be so. I wasn’t about to let the fear and doubt of others consume me.

One day in the little cottage, where I spent my recovery time, I got a nudge. I was finally starting to feel better and healing nicely. We were putting an offer on our dream house when this nudge, this whisper told me to write a letter from my heart to the owners of this incredible home we longed to inhabit.

So I did.

I poured my heart out, sharing our story of how we came to find ourselves in the Blue Ridge Mountains looking for a home. I went through every room of that house expressing why I’d be more than grateful to call it my own. Authentically, I wrote from my heart. The back yard garden, the sanctuary I longed for, I shared just how special this place would be to our family and how honored we’d be to take over its care.

Another couple placed an offer the same day we did.

They chose to sell it to us!

Was it the manifesting? The believing? The positivity? My strong faith? Was it the letter? I don’t know. Maybe it was divine intervention. It certainly felt that way. I mean they were already out of the house and we were able to move in the last week of our 6-week rental!

DIVINE INTERVENTION…

As I type, I sit at my desk facing a large picture window that overlooks that big beautiful garden, and I’m consumed with gratitude, love, and joy. Every day I get a glimpse at the Great Mother Earth and all of her rich magic. All of my inner work, the prayers, the journaling, the dreaming, the positivity, and persistence paid off. I’m grateful to walk outside, have privacy and a peaceful setting to let my heart wander, and my soul recharge.

So.

Healing.

During the first month of enjoying Luna Garden, we discovered the incredibly clear view we get of the moon and stars every night. La Luna just hung in the sky right above us… and so Luna Garden was named.

The journey here wasn’t easy. It was filled with scary unknowns, twists, and turns. But that’s the future, I suppose. All we can do is hope, pray, dream, and manifest what we desire without the guilt of feeling like we’re asking for too much. It’s important to keep faith in the universe, god, the great mother, goddess, intuition—or however, you call the higher power— that helps to conduct life’s beautiful chaotic symphony.

The longer we live here the more connected each one of us feels to the land, to mother Earth. Caring for her is a pleasure and her beauty is a gift that we receive daily. My healing journey has continued and this land has played a huge role in my progress. Having this space to just BE, to get a bird’s eye view of cyclical living, to practice outdoor meditation, to learn from the flowers and the trees, to invite like-intentioned women to share this space in circle, to connect to all the elements in the safety and sanctuary of this garden has been the greatest gift.

On Earth Day, I’m reminded just how lucky and blessed we are to call this beautiful piece of sacred land our home. It’s honestly one of my favorite healing places to be in nature. My sensitive soul is grateful beyond measure that I listened to that whisper, that I trusted that knowing and stayed the course.

So, when you get quiet, what whisper do you hear?

Set your intention on this New Moon and trust your inner knowing, dear one. Remember Mother Earth is holding you, supporting you, and guiding you to stay connected to yourself, and to her.

Gratitude on Earth Day...