You can listen to this episode in full, too. Listen to Creative Rest in Fall: How to Gather Ideas Without Forcing Completion
Autumn days are still warm and long enough to keep us active, but many of us feel like we’re out a juice this time of year. For creatives carrying unfinished projects, mounting ideas, and the weight of daily responsibilities, this transitional season can feel especially disorienting. Do we push through or pause? Finish what we started or let it rest?
In this follow-up to our spring conversation on creativity, Blaze sits down again with artist and writer Sarah Bush to explore the reality of creating when your energy doesn't match your ambitions. They discuss what Sarah learned from her summer experimentation, why showing unfinished work can be radical affirmation, and how gardening taught her to trust co-creation over control. This episode is for anyone feeling fried at the end of summer but not quite ready to surrender to winter. This episode offers permission to gather ideas, reflect without shame, and find belonging in the in-between.
🌿 In this episode we explore:
- The "in-between" energy of the autumn equinox and why it feels like both seasons at once
- How to conduct a compassionate year-in-review that honors what actually got created (not just what you planned)
- Why unfinished sketches, notes, and ideas are legitimate creative acts—not failures
- Gardening as a metaphor for co-creation: listening, adapting, and accepting what thrives
- The invisible work of caretaking that drains our creative capacity without recognition
- How to gather and store ideas for later without forcing them into completion now
- The relief of admitting you can't do everything, and why that's actually freedom
- Modeling authentic presence for our kids in an age of curated perfection
- Moving from productivity culture toward a spiritual practice of creative connection
- How collective exhaustion shows up in our creative lives and what to do about it
Blaze: Hello everybody and welcome back. I am so excited to have Sarah Bush with me again doing a follow up to our episode on creativity that we did back in the spring.
And I know I mentioned in a recent episode how nice it would be to get her perspective on creativity on the opposite end, on the opposite equinox, essentially about how do we feel, what's being creative, what did we actually make and finish, and how do we feel about it.?
So I will welcome you, Sarah. How are you doing? How have you been?
Sarah: I'm good, I've been too busy, I would say. And I'm a little bit... fried a little I would actually admit right now, but you know it's all good and I did some hardcore experimentation this summer that was really great for my practice, my own practice.
Blaze: That's amazing. I love that you started with I'm feeling a bit fried because I think that is the general feeling of this season.
We get to the end of the summer, we've had a long haul of like really putting ourselves out there and making things and doing things. And I think when we hit, I don't know, it's like we're expected to keep going somehow. I think that's the energy of right now is just keep going, but we just don't have much juice left.
Sarah: Ahh…. I'm coming…. Yeah.
Blaze: Yeah. Oh my gosh.
Sarah: I’ll be right there.
Blaze: Oh my gosh.
Sarah: Yeah. And maybe it's because the weather stays nice. Like, I've been thinking a lot, mostly because I'm making a piece about this, but I've been thinking a lot about the in-between times and the solstice and the equinox. These are the in-between times in a way.
Like, I've been really thinking on maybe that's not right. Like I've been thinking about I'm making a piece about what I think of as Imbolc, like that, the halfway point between winter and spring.
The point between the solstice and the equinox. And when it to me it's like the season is both seasons.
Blaze: I agree with you. Yeah, they have so much flavor of each other, but I feel like it's like the same coin, but opposite side. It has nuance and difference.
Sarah: And that interests me on this end as well. You know like that you have that the days are still pretty longish. You can feel them getting shorter. It is a slowing down time.
And so it's like this sort of heightened activity time meeting the slowing down time.
And so it's like it's like a both-and situation.
And you know, like so often in these situations I'm thinking as an artist, like I really love the light and the color change from winter to spring where the warmth is emerging underneath and you've still got all that coolness, the blueness.
And then you've got all this pinkness and these other colors pushing up through, but it's also energetically really the mixture of the two.
And that is sort of like it like it almost helpful to just consciously perceive it like that at least for me like to if to start more consciously perceiving it like that.
So that right now I'm in that activity, heightened activity space along with the needing to slow down space. And so maybe it's like they're in conflict.
But maybe not, or maybe that tension helps us see it more clearly.
Blaze: I find that as with anything there's almost like a lag in how we experience it so we hit the equinox, we have equal day, equal night, we know it is getting shorter, but our perception of it and our energy level hasn't yet matched that exactly like we still have a lot of inertia and momentum going from whatever we were already doing.
And I like to think of myself as wanting to hold on to that boulder and roll down the hill as far as I can so that I don't have to work so hard right now.
Sarah: Yeah, right, because the changing gears does take that a different energy and attention. Like transitioning.
You know, the transitioning also really fascinates me because I'm constantly transitioning in my work between things that don't necessarily…
Between things that take different parts of my brain or different parts of my attention and so to transition successfully you really have to honor the transition space and not just assume that you can turn on a dime.
Blaze: I think that's really wise. I have found in my own experience right now, I have a big well of ideas and creativity bubbling to the surface and I'm wanting to like… I'm sketching a lot.
Just little ideas of things that I might pursue, but I feel like the connection of “and I'm going to pursue them” is actually really low.
So I don't know if that's also a part of this transition season is like the creativity is still there. I actually have a lot of… A lot more ideas than I thought, in a more variety than I had earlier in the year, so I have ideas for sketches and card sets and paintings I want to do,
And I still am thinking about my garden and all of these things, but I don't have the wherewithal to figure out how I'm going to do that.
And I'm taking a lot more notes. And to me, like you said, it's a reflection of exactly what I was doing in the spring, which was having a bunch of ideas, taking down notes and plotting what to do.
But I think the difference right now is in the spring I intended and had a lot more energy building up and I wanted to really do it.
And right now I'm building it up and going, "Yeah, that's gonna be for later."
Sarah: Yeah, like that need to rest is there. I kind of feel like that that'll happen later is kind of expressing a need to rest. What do you think?
Blaze: Absolutely. I know that. Oh man, just living life over the last, you know, six to nine months has taken a lot of effort.
And I think I'm in my Great Sorting. Like I really hit this season and I find it's better for me to do my year in review now than it is at the end of December and January. Like by then I've already kind of done it.
Because naturally for me, I'm looking back and going, "Okay, what did I accomplish?" What creative projects were fulfilled? What did I get out of it? What was the success? What did all of those adjustments?
And my brain is really happy to tack onto that and think about it while laying on my couch and holding a cup of tea.
So the mental aspect of me, I guess, is it's geared up right now. I actually think I'm thinking a great deal, but my body itself is just in a sheer maintenance phase and it wants to rest. I'm really tired.
Sarah: Yeah, I feel similarly. And also I think though, that it's important to acknowledge all these idea generation for potential activities as an important creative act itself. Like this is all creativity.
I have so many ideas that there's no way they could all come to fruition.
So, like, I don't have that expectation, you know, like, why should they, really? It's like, and I don't even know how the ideas always feed each other, but I think that they are and by kind of making a space for idea generation or like letting them in. You know you write them down, you make a sketch.
Like they're allowed to be here in this nascent phase, and this is legitimate as all the other phases of our creativity.
And I think we have such a productivity focus in our culture and what do we finish and because finishing is hard…
I feel like we also beat ourselves up when a lot of ideas don't... you know, stay in the sketchbook or stay in your, in a list or, a note making or whatever.
Blaze: You know, I agree with you and I think I personally have made my peace with that, where I understand there's no way I can possibly complete everything into a final painting that I've ever imagined or sketched or drawn or thought about.
And I think maybe that's something that people who make their living as artists maybe have a more lived relationship with. So I'm okay with that.
I know that I’m not gonna make a final product of everything. But I also feel like it's important for me to acknowledge what I actually did complete because I think that's something that I find really nourishing this season is to look back and go,
“okay yeah I didn't do 500 things but I did do five things really in depth and really well,” and I'd like to think about how did that go?
What, why did I decide to do what I did? What spoke to me? What's continuing to speak to me? What am I ready to just let go? Yeah, that was a failed idea. I'm not even interested anymore.
I feel like I'm in this huge sorting phase like it's a laundry basket of stuff and I'm like… still needing to wear it. This (one) is destroyed.
Sarah: I think that's so valuable and I feel like we don't really have a lot of cultural structures in place for doing that on our own.
I think it might happen at work because it's a part of like you're going to a meeting and we have to talk about he last four months went this way. How was that? Talk about the calendar.
You know, like it's an external structure. It's sort of like learning, like when you're in school.
You have the structured learning environment, but when you're learning on your own, finding the ways to make that really real and where you're really integrating the information. Because I had a funny--
Like I was thinking about how I also felt like I totally agree like we have to honor what we finished.
And I was doing all this experimenting this summer because I was participating in a studio tour on Labor Day. And so sometimes I almost feel like in my arrogance, I'll be like, you know what? I'm going to do that, bang a few of those out. That would be cool.
And then I start to do them. And then I'm like, oh my god, there's so many variables here. There's absolutely no way.
And so I thought, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna really make a display of my experiments.
And this is as far as I've gotten so far. And this is what I've learned.
And then I also hung a few works in progress, which is also not that easy to do with the public.
But I thought I labeled them as a work in progress.
And they were far enough along that I felt kind of comfortable and also some prodding from my siblings. Like, I love it. I have to sew this little corner.
So but that was such a great… like for it was almost like an accidentally great affirmation for me of what I've done because I was trying to…
I had this structure of the tour. Yes. And I wanted to offer some.
Yes, and I wanted to show, you know, there's people who came last year, I need to show them new things. I mean, I had new things, but I also had a lot of... experimentation that happened without any resolution yet that I was in love with.
Blaze: What I love is, that you're you know your own process well enough and you're able to go, oh this is worth sharing.
And it's worth laying out and showing someone how many stages this kind of stuff goes through.
And I'm sure even when you're laying out progress work, you're not laying out every single piece.
Sarah: Oh no, right. -You can think of one of the things that are really shabby. - It looks really shabby. (laughs)
Blaze: But it's interesting because I wonder how much that parallels just our lived existence and how we're thinking about presenting ourselves to other people and how much we're ashamed to show or not really by the time we hit this stage of the year.
Because I look at it and go okay, it's September, we've got October, November, December, and then a calendar year changes.
And there's only like there's not that much time left actually. So to think that you're gonna
get as much done in those three months as you did in the whole nine before is ridiculous and I think if you look at it mathematically we'd all agree.
But I think there's such a pressure for us to somehow put it in pressure cooker and get it all done real fast. Start a new thing or have an idea already maybe of where you're going.
And I only find that I'm able to have that idea arise about where I want to go or what I want to do when I've looked at what actually happened and what I actually did.
And I find that incredibly nourishing and informative for myself to go, "Oh, okay."
You didn't practice your viola much this year, even though it's been staring at you on the wall. But you started sketching again and you like - I built my garden and it actually happened and I'm so excited to share that with you. Yay!
It's showing me by kind of going through my year in review to go, "Oh, where did my creativity pop up? Where did I have agency?"
What did I choose to put a lot of energy into and what were the things that kind of just popped up and had to be addressed and dealt with and acknowledge that that took energy.
Because I think when I do that, suddenly it becomes a lot clearer, like, "Oh, I do have a direction." And I actually want to bounce off some things that I hate and move towards something that I like more now.
And it makes it easier for me, which is probably why I'm drawing a lot again.
Sarah: You know what I love about that also is, and I'm wondering if this is true, do you find, like I find this for myself, but do you find that?
Let's say the beginning of the year, these things you think you're gonna do because they're really important to you and you really want to.
Then what you end up doing is often quite different even if it's equally as creative.
Like we don't really know! Like, that's the thing we don't really know what our creative path is so much.
Blaze: Well, so I think it's shaped by double things. It's like the nature versus nurture thing. So you have stuff that arises that you're like, "Wow, this is really important to me. I'm very stoked about it. I want to do it."
And then what your surroundings and opportunities provide make it a whole lot easier to go one way than another.
Or you're just supported by people in general or someone wants to buy something so you find yourself having the resources and capacity for one aspect, but maybe not another.
And I think that's valid and really important for people to acknowledge because I think we can get down on ourselves and being…
We had these great ambitions, where did it all go? And I think when you look at what you actually did, you're like, oh, I actually did a lot of stuff.
But if I was only thinking about the five things that I thought I was gonna do this year, I could be really angry and feel like, "How did I not even do these five things?" It seemed so... petty or small.
Sarah: Yeah, like, how did I piss away the year like that?
Blaze: And I think that's such a common feeling right now to be like, why didn't I get to the stage that I thought I was going to? Why is this work not completed? Why?
And I think it's so important to acknowledge what actually did get completed.
Maybe take a look and see what maybe we're hanging on to or trying to manifest that maybe this isn't the time or your energy isn't really there.
But, in doing that, allowing yourself to either change your mind or make space for where it could happen later if it's still important. So it’s like this big assessment.
Sarah: I think that's really good. I often do that a little later in the year, probably at the more typical time. But I have made lists like I'm always doing something I've never done before.
So one year, which is harder than doing things you've done before. One year I wrote down everything I did the first time that year like new things. Big and small. It was like 80 things.
And I just thought, it was really helpful to acknowledge myself that I did 80 new things.
Blaze: Did you feel like if you hadn't written them down they would have been really easy to forget?
Sarah: Yes! Yeah. Yes. Like especially things that you really integrate in your body. It's almost like when someone has an epiphany.
Like when you have an epiphany you are now a new person like you have figured something out and you're different now and you and you completely, that understanding is completely integrated into yourself.
So you don't really almost remember how you were before the epiphany.
Blaze: I absolutely know. I love that you brought that up because I think that's another way that we subconsciously judge ourselves is we think nothing has changed, but then I find it so helpful for me to just see what happened over the last year.
And I think, remember when it started… there used to be the like write a letter to your future self thing?
Sarah: yeah yeah
Blaze: And I did that many years ago. And I would send one out for like three years in the future or a year in the future. And then I just went, oh, you know what, Gmail will let me just schedule, so I'll just do that with you.
But I would keep myself basically a recap of this is what's important to me right now. These things are what's going on.
And I found it incredibly eye-opening to get this letter from myself that I forgot it and…
And then it would make me go, "Okay, well if I look at myself now and who I was then." So much has changed. Like, I'm like, "Daughter has gone to a new school. This happened. That happened." Like, just so many things.
And then to list them all out, be like, oh, you went here and you did this and sold that and you came out with it all these things as not the same person.
And then it makes you realize without trying, without even setting goals. Your life is going to happen. You're going to do a lot of things.
But then you're equally gonna forget them because they become so much a part of you, like you said. You're just in it. You're in the water so you can't tell.
Sarah: Yeah.
Blaze: I don't want to say like obsessively keep track, because that's not what it's about for me, but I think in trying to remember what were the goals that I was talking about back in January.
What were the things that felt really important that I was caught up with about? And sometimes I do…
I'll write that down and I'll come back and reread it now. Oh my god, wow, yeah, back in March I was like really pissed off.
I didn't have a garden yet, and then I spent two months just out there lugging cement and building things. Getting to know the wildlife and becoming friends with the ravens and all kinds of things. It just felt like an entire new world opened up before me.
That now is part of just – okay, I have a garden.
You could forget that it took a massive amount of money and time and effort and seeds and growing and watering and all…
I'm like, no, that took significant time effort planning all of that stuff. So acknowledging it is important.
Sarah: Yes. And also, like that, that's a big thing!
Blaze: Like, there's also lots of small ones.
Sarah: But I also think it's good to like I think often people aren't perceiving like getting a garden done is a big thing. I would tell them it's a big thing.
Because it is a big. Like I was thinking to myself how when I do this I've been trying to figure out for myself. I've done the studio tour on and off different years and the last I had stopped for a couple years.
And then last year, this group kind of revamped and they asked me, "Would you have to do it?" And I said, "Sure." But I was kind of...
When they asked me, it was all kind of under the gun, and so I had to give it a ton of attention.
You know through these July and August and then this year I thought I'm really gonna do it but I'm ahead of the game.
Labor Day is late. That's awesome. Give me an extra week. Then I was, you know, I had all these ideas.
And then we adopted two bonded kitties and then one of them was really got really sick and then it took two months to figure out why she was sick, you know, or she was sick when we got her but we didn't know it.
And that took an extraordinary amount of attention and energy to care for this cat. And then, so then also I was once again super behind. And I was thinking how...
I felt a little not present to my garden in the ways that I want to be present to it.
And so some things got overgrown. Like I had, and we had a very hot dry summer which was hard on the plants even if you have drip irrigation.
And that, like, it's a relationship I have that I feel like I sort of neglected.
Even though I think superficially it might look like I didn't. You know, like the things are growing.
Blaze: So much of life is like that, I think. Like even beyond the garden when you think about okay.
You have these cats that really need you and one is really sick and you have your relationship with your partner and your relationship with your art and you're preparing for a major event like being part of a tour and having a show is a lot.
And you have all of these things running in your mind. So then if you look at it, you go, "Okay, I've got five wagons that are going downhill at speed and I'm trying to maneuver all of them to not crash and I managed to do that.”
So it doesn't look like I didn't do it, but none of them got the attention or care if I only have one wagon going down the hill.
Sarah: Yes. And also like that notion where I was like, my beloved cat had died two years and a half years ago. And I was like, I think I'm ready. I just thought I was going to get two cats.
And it was, you know, like I really jumped into something without any thought about what you know and not like and you can't know.
But just that way that your attention and your energy, the more kind of like, well, if you include, like if you're a parent, you know, like all those things are huge aspects of your life and then and somehow thought:
I want to rearrange how I handle my time in the summer so that I can better attend to my relationship with the garden as like Almost like a commitment to Gaia, like where I think of my commitment to nature or...
Blaze: You know, like I felt like starting the garden. I had a really bigger daily imprint there. So in the very beginning, it's like four or five hours a day, setting up moving things, and bringing things, digging holes.
Figuring it out, ordering plants, watering them in, and just like getting the kitten like it's timely. So when the plants arrive like I guess it's planting day, you can't not do it so you just drop everything else and attend to it.
And in those beginning months I was out there every morning and it
Some of it I have to say has to do with just weather and time of year where I'm like, man, it was so pleasant. The sun would come up, but we were still in the shade. I could sit out there and the ravens had like a whole family of babies, so I was getting to know them and the trees and they'd be talking and I'd be singing and...
out with them and it became this relationship and then it grew beyond just me wanting to go out and weed my plants but I would go out when I would hear the ravens.
I'd be like, "Oh, it's time for me to go out and talk to them now." So they would wake me up and I'd go out and I would just follow their call and that felt really organic and fun but again massive energy direction there and choice.
As these ravens grew up and moved away, less and less did I have to call to go out there and tend to this garden, so I would go out every day and I'd rake my hand through the rosemary and I'd go for my walk and I'd eat a little bit.
But it was nowhere near the amount of time that I was sinking in in those two months. So I think energy is gonna flow and move and I think some of it might actually just be organic it's like part of what's around you?
Sarah: Maybe it's like your plants are teenagers, so they want you to drop them off at the end of the street. You know, like they need, they need you less in a way, you know, like you think they need you more than they might,
But they need you less on the way. But somehow the listening and the receiving part…
Blaze: I felt like I loved that. I missed it. So here's another thing. You're in a really hotter section of the country than me.
When it got hot and it was peeking here it was hard to get out there and spend time.
So you go out early and be like, "Okay, I can give you 10 or 15 minutes, but not even that much really because I need to do this." And then go from my walk and come back and now it's hot and it's sunny.
And in the middle of the day, I don't want to go out in the middle of the day anymore because it's peak heat, so all I'm really doing is making sure nothing's getting burned.
Yes. And it's only now that I'm like, oh, I could go spend time, but everything's been so soggy here. Like this is been in New England, the cloudiest, rainiest, wettest, like August, July, September that I've experienced, I think, in my life. My God, we're getting like two inches of rain in the week. It’s crazy.
So yeah, so like the whole dynamic changed them like well I don't need the water anymore plus they were established anyway. Now I'm really just like looking for frogs. I'm like, "Hi Frog!"
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you know it doesn't need me as much.
There was so much weeding at the beginning. I like there were so much weeds. And then I guess either I did a good job or things haven't fallen into it yet to start weeding again. It'll come.
Sarah: I know it's almost like... Yeah, yeah. And also, I planted more dye plants this year.
And what was also really interesting to me was trying to keep on top of harvesting. And that, like, can't do that in heat at the day.
Hard on the plant, hard on you. And then it's also that itself, like I thought, oh, I'm honest.
Like, like somehow this whole relationship to time. So I'm on this deadline of the tour.
And then I'm actually doing eco-printing with some of these plants. But I'm looking at them thinking I need to harvest them and press them.
And I need to harvest them and dry them, one or the other. And so I would have to stop my other work because like the season is the season.
The plant has its life like its arc. So I have to pick when they're ready to be picked.
Yes. And then give them my give them that attention. Like I was thinking how I was perceiving deadlines in my life as like I can get a lot done on a deadline and I think of them as sort of human created things.
But I think that the seasons also provide this window into understanding our relationship to time in that same way like I thought. Like when you, like the planting window.
Here in the mountains of Northern New Mexico, I feel like I'm on a, I'm in a race against time.
Whatever I get done before it's too hot to plant things. Like that's what you're doing and you're seeing what you can get done.
And then like up next year, like you can't just keep going like that. That that that portion is over now.
Blaze: It is. I'm wanting to gather seeds right now and I'm like well I can't do it while everything's dripping wet so I've got to let them dry out but it just won't dry out. I'm like where's the sun?
And I know that when I finally get two days in a row that are dry enough to dry them out. That's the day I have to go gather all the seeds.
Sarah: Yes, and if there's something else that happens in your life.
But yeah, but you're right, it comes down to a very narrow moment where you're waiting for that moment, but if you miss it.
It's weird how nature gets like sorry you had that one day.
Blaze: I remember years ago Starling Migration Day happens up here, and it's typically around now but it's changed over the years. And I used to always have it like at the very early mid-September and now it's gonna be October before I even see them. But I remember noticing maybe 10 years ago, I'm like, "Oh, it's late this year." Like, normally I've already seen them go through and it just keeps changing.
And yet, when it happens, it's only that one day. You see them all go through with these big murmurations. It's really cool, and then they're gone.
And I'm always excited to be aware enough to notice that it's happening because it's really easy to miss if you never go outside.
Sarah: You know, that's the other really great point that you're making there is also like as a gardener.
The way I remember different years has so much to do with having… Paying attention to what's growing, paying attention to what's struggling, paying attention to what's in like, oh that was zero, we had so much more.
Or that was zero so hot you know like those those…
Those things that do like your garden does keep you connected to the planet and the seasons even in modern civilization that is so much built on indoor culture.
Blaze: I feel like I need it desperately. Like I'm so grateful to have a reason to want to go outside and spend that time and that it's not just trimming a lawn or cutting back a tree on the edge of the property.
That's fine and it needs to happen but there's something about using plants and for me I made them all about making tea and having herbs.
And this year, I said, you know, they're just going in, so I don't even really want to harvest very much of them. I just want to see how they take off.
And it's only just now where my... Well, some of these things really did get in other ones like I don't even know what to expect I've never planted marshmallow before.
So they're rooting and they're still really low and they don't look like they're doing great. And I said, well, that could be deceptive because next year they might take off. They're supposed to take three years.
So who knows?
Sarah: I know. Like I wish I kept a better track of...
I got a better gardening journal like when we were talking about what we accomplished with our creativity goals, you know, like I think. Did those daisies come up on like March 15th?
They come up and April who's like I like to notice who's first comes out first.
Who comes out when? Did that change? Like how are they experiencing climate change? How are they?
Or they change like I'll I take pictures a lot and then when I stumble upon them from the past I'm like, Wow, the garden really has. This change. You all.
Blaze: Yeah, I'm actually... because this one again, it's fresh and it's new.
I didn't know what to expect. I was surprised that most of my plants are all leaning west. I guess that's where it's less shaded, so it's growing so much.
I was like, "Huh, I really wasn't expecting that, so now I'm taking seeds and throwing it towards the eastern side, be like, "Fill it over there because nothing's ever going to go over there."
But we've, some things reseeded themselves already, but I'm like, I think they're just gonna die over the winter 'cause they're annuals, but it's me learning.
I'm deeply curious and like I don't know how many of these things will come up on their home in the spring.
And some of them I'm wanting to grab seeds now so that I can purposely put them where I think they fit better.
So the perennial plants, I knew where I wanted them, I'm really happy with their locations.
I want to move further east. I'm not going to have the annuals, but I kind of sprinkled in.
The better idea now what they really are. It's like, oh wow, the calendula gets pretty huge. It needs to be further back. It doesn't need to be where it is because now it's hitting the rosemary. This little marigold thing is amazing and wants to sprout everywhere but it'll stay low so it could definitely be closer to the edge and we'll step on it.
So it's like all these like important practical realizations that I'm having with the year.
I love having that relationship with it and to me it reminds me so much of painting and how like it tells you what it needs and it shows you what it's going to be and then you're just in this pruning and weeding process.
Sarah: And a big paying attention process and dialogue. You know, the listening, the dialogue, those are the same in the creative process and in the co- creative process because that's really a garden right? Co-creative process.
You know you're like, "Okay, you don't like this spot. Where would you like to go?"
Blaze: Yeah, where would you like to go or where have you sprung up 15 times that I wasn't expecting?
Sarah: That's right. That's right. It's so um... It's so... fulfilling or I don't think the right word like it does it like fills you up. It’s nourishing.
Blaze: It's, yeah. To me, I've been using the word belonging. I feel like when I have... that garden and I'm out there. I feel like I belong with it or that I've done something that mattered.
There's like living things and they're making flowers and there's leaves and I can make tea and it smells good and then there's nature happening and they're all coming to visit it.
So now I've got like a rabbit that's near the garden and the frogs in the garden and one time I was out there just hanging out and the ravens were nearby and a squirrel came right over across the thing.
It was like, "Oh my gosh,” we scared each other and he ran away. Yeah. And then there was this amazing moment where I realized, "Wow, the more you hang out in a place and become a part of it, you're a part of it.”
Like I had a fox in the next door neighbors yard just taking a nap next to like the other side where I was. It’s like okay there's the fox, there’s the garden. There's me, there’s the ravens, and then a squirrel came up, groomed itself, and then literally like draped all four legs over the branches and took a nap and passed out.
And I said, "Wow, I've never seen that before." And I think it's because we're all just used to each other. We're here every day.
We're hanging out. We know that we can kind of predict each other a bit so nobody's afraid of being hunted or anything and then the party breaks up when another neighbor makes noise and we're like, "Oh, time to go,” and we all left.
I thought, Wow, I feel like I'm a part of something that I couldn't have created by myself, but it was through presence that that was allowed to express.
I think what I'm trying to do right now is go, "Okay, well, what does that look like now? Is it getting colder and darker and migration patterns have changed to the whole landscape of everything is different and why would I expect to be the same so why would I demand the same of myself?
Sarah: That's right and in fact if you were kind of forcing it it would be
It would just wouldn't work. You know.
Blaze: I’d be sad. I'd be out there like, "Where's everybody?"
Sarah: Yeah, I know and then I think like a human innovation and like I watch videos of people who garden in, you know, where you're really stretching your gardening time, like earliest bring you can manage to make food you know and then taking it to the winter but that is tough.
Blaze: It's like it's like you said you're manipulating it. You're saying I can extend this but it's beyond the natural way it was going to be on its own
Sarah:. And yet, like I can see like, oh that can be necessary or like maybe use a cold frame or maybe you have a greenhouse.
Or even like a better understanding cool season vegetables, like how early they can like I has Swiss chard, Swiss chard overwinter last year.
Oh, nice. It feels like wow. And so we got to eat it real early when it came back again and I think like my, you know, it made me understand, you know, I still have a superficial understanding about all that, about how early those things can happen and how late they can happen.
I'm almost trying to get in that vibe of being like, this is a cool, you know, this is a brassica or this, this is a cool season vegetable, doesn't want to be in the garden in the garden in July.
Blaze: No, that's true. That's very true, particularly when we're having this really high peak heat.
It's… I was really struggling to understand like what is my space actually like? How much full sun does this sucker get because it’s shaded on a lot of sides.
I was like you're gonna get a high sun and it ends up being about five and a half hours of peak light. It's not going to be one of those full sunshine gardens. I can push it in some regards, but the things that are going to be happiest want partial shade.
I had to just come to terms with that and go okay, stagger things as best as you can and I'm seeing what's thriving now and what maybe isn't.
It's also funny to me, the plants that I assumed would be the height that they say on the little tag.
And I'm like, "No, these plants are shorties. If I had known they were that short, I probably wouldn't have put them on that side."
But it's so funny because I'm like, you know, this is me just having judgment. These plants are perfectly fine. They're happy. They're flowering. They're doing what happens.
And it's just me feeling like I would be more aesthetically pleased if I moved it to this.
Sarah: Yes, yes.
I have a hard time like my cosmos take over the garden. So I had a cut flower garden and then we expanded into vegetable garden and then my cut flower garden is kind of a mixture of a cut flower in it and dye, you know, a lot more dye plants. And the cosmos reseed themselves.
So energetically and when they're little I just can't pull them out and then I feel like I kind of did my vegetables a disservice.
Like I'm really gonna have to be harder-hearted there in the spring with some of these cosmos if I also want some of these string beans to flourish.
Blaze: There's a ruthlessness there to go, "Okay, I mean, you're doing great, but maybe not over here."
I had some stuff and recognized that I put a lot of extras in. Understanding that this garden couldn't possibly grow to its full self in one year.
I was like, well you got space for something, you will still throw them in, and then I got mad where I'm like, no, the vision I had was the vision I had. I still want it to be exactly like what I had in my head, so I started just pulling things out.
I didn't need this extra, I'm annoyed that it's here. Some things were good. I really love them, like the creeping thyme.
And it's funny where it is going over the edge, so my hope was that it would like to conceal these cinder blocks. And they’re starting to do it.
But they're also creeping into the garden and I'm like you know that actually might be great because it's like this mulch cover that's just living and vibrant and nice and it'll make life easier for me actually.
I hadn't anticipated it and I'm thinking of my head. How could you not have thought that it could grow in any direction? Why did you think it would only decide to go in one side that you wanted it to go over?
So it's interesting how reality is just tempering my expectations a little bit and I'm happy to have a reckoning with that and either get okay or like I said be ruthless and move some stuff.
I know it's not easy for me. I feel bad. I don't want to kill anything.
Sarah: I am not good at thinning. So I actually use a technique that reduce my needed thin. Oh, well I like to use, I start seeds inside and then I like to use soil blocks. And when you use soil blocks,
You know, it's like a little, just have these tiny little bits of like cubes of soil. And you put one seed in each one.
Yeah, and then one, you know, sometimes two come up, but it's much more than, and then you pop them in the ground.
And so you actually get probably a more consistent germination, but it does.
Sort of stop, that issue of I'm sorry I'm pulling you off the ground.
Even though I don't think that's how they think of it, you know? The reason a plant has a million seeds is because it's really hard for something to make it.
Like they need a million seeds in order to have a handful make it.
Blaze: That was the truth. I'm honestly astonished at how well. So this is my other thought too, is when you do
I've historically found this to be true wherever I've lived is the first year everything does amazing because none of the predators and like diseases are aware of it yet
Yeah, and I was like, well, we might find it to be a lot more complicated next year, so I know. We’ll find out what happens (then.)
And again, I'm just deeply curious, like I have no idea what's gonna happen to this garden, like this year.
There were some slugs, but it wasn't that bad, but I don't know what happens next year. And I don't know...
I don't know if all my plants will work or not, so we'll find out. But I'm excited.
And everyone is asking me if I'm going to dig up my rosemary and bring it inside to see if it survives.
I know where I can get more rosemary should I need to redo one next year. I'm really going to try to actually harvest it, dry the parts that I want, and really mulch it in, because I've put it at the southernmost part, it's got the blocks, I've got stones that I put around it to keep it warmer where it should reflect more and if I really like cover it, it could live.
And if it does, it'll come back magnificent next year, which would be amazing. And if it doesn't, I live in New England. I know that's how it works.
So it'll be okay.
Sarah: That's right. Yeah, that's right. And then try and go with it. And sometimes like the saving everything by bringing it inside is also
Oh, sorry. I was just saying like feeling like this sort of pressure to continue on with everything and maybe you know like you know nature is really fine with the idea that everything has a season. It's how nature is.
Blaze: Yeah. Well, I want to live more like that, personally. Like I find there's so much freedom when we allow ourselves to also go like, "Hey, if I was out in the wild, what would I expect of myself right now or what might I be doing?” Am I really clinging on to just one aspect of my year and trying to make that happen continuously? Because that's exhausting.
And sometimes if I think of it that way, I'm able to identify why I'm exhausted a lot faster.
I can say, Oh, well you're just trying to start new projects the same way you were in the spring, but you're lacking the backing of nature as there's not the increase of heat, there's not the increase of daylight, there's not an increase of energy like right now, you know, even when you go shopping.
Like it's different vegetables, like stuff has changed.
Sarah: And also like the dormancy has such an important role to play in ourselves and in everything else. Like if you don't let something go dormant. I mean, every single
or it seems like to me, the non-scientist, everything sleeps. You know, like that's... We have a daily dormancy period.
We have an annual dormancy period. And we have to, you know, like it takes a lot of attention to me to honor that dormancy period because our culture doesn't honor it.
Blaze: I completely agree with you. Yeah, I think that's my whole thing. The thing that I most thinking about in my life over the last several years is really a bit about the cycling.
And how most of us don't get to, or like you said, society isn't really telling us that the cycle is good or it says, you know,
Maximize everything - have you heard the maxxing? oh my god it's crazy and then they're sleep maxxing and all this other stuff and like you can even take sleeping and make it into something to effort about. - A contest to win.
Yeah, and I said this is just the absolute illustration of the ridiculousness of societal expectation is like you have to do everything to the max.
And it's exhausting and no one really wants to do it, but we're afraid if we don't, we won't keep up with everyone else.
I don't care anymore. I'm like, I don't need to keep up with everybody. I just kind of want to have a pleasant existence and what might that require of me?
And I think that's a continual question that I come back to is like, okay, well, if I had a pleasant existence, how would I feel about everything that's happened so far or what I've managed to accomplish? And what might I expect of myself in the next few months and then going into the dark?
And recognizing it’s going to get cold, and it’s going to get dark, and it’s going to feel we’re farther along in the season than we think it is. Like you're gonna be lights out like at five o’clock. The daughter's gonna come home from school in the dark. She's gonna go to school in the dark.
We're gonna also pile on, and we're gonna have basketball and we've got all these other meetings and things going on so I’m like,
Well, what's reasonable to expect then? It probably isn't in addition to all the things that I have to do, adding more stuff. Knowing that I’ve got some really nice blankets to snuggle up in and some really nice books that I haven’t read, and things that I’ve gathered.
And I just love thinking of it. Like, if I was a little squirrel, like, yeah, I'm gathering all of the things.
I wouldn't gather them and then not use them. I would gather them…
Sararh: And the squirrel. The squirrel isn’t saying to himself. I really should be getting more done.
The squirrel is saying, "I'm gonna hunker down with- I'm so glad I- I gathered all my nuts. Here I am resting,” and yeah.
Blaze: I love that and I can't kind of wait for it and I guess, again, looking at where we are with all of the projects and things that I've put into motion. It is this liminal space where you're between seasons, I guess.
Just like in the spring where you're like not sure when you're supposed to dive into work yet and you still have ideas.
And now I'm like, okay, I have ideas and I'm still finishing things. And there's some stuff I do have to finish.
But there's a lot that probably can wait or that I actually have already completed that it's okay to just gather to me and decide that I'm gonna sit on for a while because that's actually like a normal human thing.
And it feels so radical to say that it's a normal human thing to gather stuff and sit on it for like months. I'm talking about like…
What if we sat on it until like March? And that feels so ridiculous because I don't think, you know, a job would be like, you don't get to sit on your ideas until March. Get out there and produce something.
Sarah: I know. Yeah, it's a... But you know, like when you were talking, it took me again back to this notion of being two seasons and like, what can I learn there? What are they offering me?
What is the summer fall combo offering me? What is the winter spring combination offering me? You know these sort of doorways into both like where you have that both/and time.
What am I supposed to see? What's the unique capacity of this?
What's the unique capacity of the winter?
Look, how do I immerse myself in that? And so that I'm serving myself by being in that rhythm as opposed to fighting that rhythm, you know?
Blaze: As you were saying that, I was thinking, what is my garden actually doing? It’s the last of the flowers, it's the last of the produce, but it's also bolting. So I was like, "Oh, what's that?" And my live life, I'm like, "Oh, that's all of these little ideas that are bubbling up for next season. It's like the seeds of ideas."
And they are starting to happen now, so what should I do?
Well, you gotta give them time to sleep, but you kinda need to gather them also because otherwise, just like in nature, like they'll blow to the winds and someone else will do them or they'll die or whatever.
But if I gather the ones that seem healthiest or nicest or whatever attractive to me, Ican hold onto them and give them an overwinter and not worry about forcing them to do anything yet because they just can't. They won't. They're not going to. That's okay.
But I can gather. I can gather the meaning from what I've done. I can gather my people with me. I can enjoy, you know, chowing down on pie and whatever else is gonna happen. Yeah, all those resources.
But it's not a time to suddenly, you know, like I can't imagine putting the amount of effort in that I did in the spring right now.
But I don't mind following things through at a slower pace because I feel like that's where I'm at. Like the summer for me was just cruising. It was like, hey, the theater camps and I had the garden and I had all of the things I had to do and I just rolled with it.
And now I'm still rolling with it, but I don't want to pile on now. It just doesn't feel like the time.
Sarah: And then also, when we do do that, it just doesn't work anyway.
Like I recently, so I've got this deadline moving on Thursday of submitting to this book arts, a juried show locally that, you know, in a way I'm committing to submitting.
And I had three pieces I really wanted to try to get in there. And one of them... was big and I thought this would really even help the show because books are small and the space at the show is going to be in as big.
I'm super excited about that piece and then the time frame that, you know, the studio, I didn't get it done. I fantasized I would get it done in the studio tour.
That didn't come close to happening. So then after the studio tour I'm resting a little and then thinking I'm going to make it and I'm running into all these unexpected obstacles like oh that didn't work the way I think thought it would let me try that again.
And then it was like my desire to try to make that happen was creating like unhappiness.
And I thought, "You know what? You wantd it for this show. It's not gonna happen now."
Let it go. If I can just let it go then it's not a big deal and also Maybe this piece needs this time. And if I'm rushing it and forcing it...
You know, it wouldn't be what it's supposed to be.
Blaze: Yeah. You know, when I think you're feeling like the real energy of the season and going like, hey, I thought I had energy to like create this giant master piece, but it turns out I had to do like 50 other pieces over the year for this other show.
You still have work for it. It's just not the vision that you had in your head. So I think again, it's looking back at all the things that we anticipated that we were gonna do earlier when they was all just a spark of an idea.
But then it really has to be tempered with reality and go like, well, the weather wasn't suitable. It didn’t happen.
Sarah: Yeah, and when you have no choice in the matter, I mean you've had many jobs where I had no choice in the matter and I would have powered through.
But since I do, you know, I'm now thinking, oh, maybe in a year's time, that'll be done. And I'll be like, oh, thank God, I didn't try to make that any sooner.
I made so many other choices. I made so many other decisions. Yeah, you know, so it's like just that tension I feel like that we're all always in in this kind of a, you know, like capitalism is our economic system, but it has creeped so far into the culture.
That even in places where it doesn't have much of a role to play economically, we have internalized its messages so completely that it really takes a conscious decision-making to not indulge those ideas that don't fit.
Blaze: Do you feel like it's almost tapping into this, like, the wisdom of the crone energy?
To realize like oh you don't have to play that game and it's not even what's called for right now and it feels so radical because
everyone's wanting you to produce and produce and consume and make all this stuff? I certainly have internalized the needing to justify how I spent my day.
Weirdly, it's like almost to be liked or something, like I want to give a status report and be like, "Ah, while you work today, I managed to do the dishes and put away the laundry and do this and get this one to the doctors and whatever." And it's just list list list list of a flurry of activity and you're like, okay, some of that, like all of it really.
It adds up to it a day in life and whatever, but why do I feel a need to justify how I spend every minute?
Like why do I not list that I read a really nice book? I'm like, "No, you gotta hide that one because that's personal. It didn’t contribute to the household." -That's self-indulgent. -
Yeah, it's self-indulgence. I'm like, "Oh, you can't talk about that." But if I did a painting, now I have to, like, finish it or make it look good so that I can justify that I spent those hours and like, "Ooh, it's kind of” -- it doesn't feel good to look at things that are kind of moving through our soul in that way or becoming.
Sarah: And also, but what also complicates that to me is that, like a lot of the things you mentioned on your list, those are invisible. So in a way your status report desire is trying to make them visible.
Blaze: Absolutely true. Yeah. And that's matters, you know?
Sarah: Yes! Because it seems like, oh, you've just been knocking around all day and kicking back and, you know, like,
No, there's all kinds of invisible work that you do. I mean, that's...
Blaze: Oh, man. Yeah, I definitely have some parenting rage, but I know a lot of people feel we're like, "What do you think I'm doing all day?"
And I said, "You're not here when I'm waking up with my daughter and getting her breakfast ready and making sure she has her snack and making sure she got up early enough to take her medication a half an hour before she's allowed to eat. Then gathering stuff and like listening to all of the emotional stuff going on with her. That's like the whole start of my day is an hour and a half of just emotional field work triage and practical stuff.
Then I get home and I'm doing the regular maintenance so we'll just even set that aside. That invisible word.
I end my day with another hour to two hours of getting ready for bed, making sure that everything's ready for tomorrow and again hearing all of the emotions.
And I don't even know that it's advice giving, it's just like presence-giving to help her feel solid in her day. And I'm like, I know that she's choosing me and going to me for it.
But it's a lot. I said it means I'm not sleeping as much as I want to because I know how my days are book-ended.
It's a problem, it's hard. -That's right.- No one else is stepping in and I don't know that they could.
So it's difficult, and I think there's a lot of us in caretaking positions or whatever we're doing with just managing households, whoever we are that gets not even necessarily deliberately overlooked, I think it's just overlooked because it's not someone else's daily reality.
Sarah: And also if it looks like you're good at it, like it doesn't look hard when you're doing it.
Or it looks like you chose this and you want to. All of those things could be true.
Blaze: They can, but they still took energy. They took effort in real planning.
Sarah: quickly. Yes, and they took, and that energy couldn't go to something else.
And you can still feel fine about that, but it's something about the invisibility of it that's the hardest.
Blaze: Well, it's the you should still be getting all that done, but now I have another thing that came up that I need you to manage for me because it's like you forgot that I do all these other things.
Sarah: Yeah, because they're invisible. Yeah, but they're invisible and I mean that is the plight of women I feel like like..
Even if you like when I was taking care of my cat, and I don't have kids, and when I I'm always super committed to my animals. But, you know, I thought, it's so difficult make art if you're a mother. Like it's so hard to me.
Like yeah. I just think it's amazing to get any of it in there. Like it's just...
Or when I was, you know, like I feel like, oh, I gave my 40s to my parents. Yeah. And they died in my 40s.
Because it's, and it's as you say, you know, I would, um, stop what I was doing, drive my, drive to get my dad, drive him to the cardiologist, have that conversation, then drive, like, then, and then I had to get over it.
Yeah, even when it was all done. And I was all the way home. Then there was like the processing and the...
Blaze: But sometimes you don't get that because another person comes in. Like I definitely am in the book ended caretaking where I've got a young one and I've got an elder.
And I'm like, this is massively demanding, it's emotionally draining, everyone isn't happy.
And I'm, again, like it's emotional triage with the young one about what she's sensing or feeling about the other one.
Just things happening all the time, so I'm like I am in it all the time and my role apparently, and I think, chosenly, like I enjoy being that kind of a caretaker.
Sarah: And I, you know, it makes me think about like how do we rearrange or how do we reperceive what creativity can be when people have this much relationship work to do?
How do you know, how do you feed your soul, your creative part of you, or how do you when the other parts of you are really maintaining so much: family, order, or even subtle things like that when someone opens the refrigerator, they're still like the milk is there or whatever because you were anticipating when it would probably not.
Blaze: Yeah, and no one else was so now they only notice when you missed it because you were sick or something.
Sarah: I've said to my husband sometimes when I've been hardcore working on my art and he's like oh there's no milk,
Like, oh yeah, we're both acting like you.
Blaze: I know. And it's tough because I think there's so much that is brought to the table from the other person too. So I do feel like that needs to be acknowledged and I try to acknowledge it a lot with my husband. I'm like, you're working really hard, you're providing so much.
I get it. I have definitely noticed, like, as the caretaking of his mom increases, that he's taking more time off for doctor's appointments and things like that.
And he's like, "Man, how does America expect families to function?"
It doesn't seem to care about how health works and how time works.
Sarah: That's right. And, um, that's right. I totally agree with you and, you know, like my husband's like my engineer for my artwork.
But that whole, even when I think about that, like when you're saying like, how does America expect you to take care of your family? And I think, well, historically that was like families lived together.
Everyone in one hand and that woman in the middle would be doing it all.
Blaze: Yeah, and like, oh, everybody wants a wife. I think so. Yeah, I definitely feel caught in that at this moment in time where I thought, could I even manage to get a joby job, get an hourly daily wage job?
And I thought, I don't know that I can because there's so much demand in the middle of the day randomly and at the end.
I don't think there's even a window where I'm hireable. It's just gonna have to wait until it's a different season of my life.
Sarah: But it is that funny thing and I don't know you know it I You know, maybe just that our whole cultural structure is just makes it hard on all.
Blaze: I think again it's this demand of productivity from every single member of society in only one regard which is to be a part of the corporate machine and make money and then become a good consumer.
Because I feel like the caretaking part has been kind of neglected or you could hire someone to do that.
But now it's gotten so to control you can't even really afford to do that. So you're like, well, how many jobs do I need to take to hire someone else to take care of my family for me?
It's kind of ridiculous. So certainly I've been feeling that for many years and I'm learning to just be like okay well what…
What does it take to live a good life for me and how much consuming is actually necessary? Could I be satisfied with less and really make real human connections with the people around me?
Because I find I'm feeling most nourished and most whole when I'm hanging out with my neighbor, just having tea, what I'm out in my garden, what I'm having a day where we're playing board games that we already have with friends that we have.
I was like, well then we don't really need a whole lot more. So what can I reduce and what does that allow me to be present for?
And it's making me make like more considered choices about like what are the extras my daughter for myself, like what are the big things that we're going to go do and what can I kind of release, having to worry about or strive for I guess in some regards where I'm like,
I don't need to go on a cruise, I don't need a huge vacation. So, yeah, different choices, different feelings.
Sarah: I know the things that you were saying that I heard about you know cutting down and what are the things that we make space for, the extras or the...
You know, I think that is so important. And I just wonder what you think about, like, at your an artist.
You know, like how you make time for that when it can be sporadic.
Um, like I feel like I have more luxury of consistency right now.
Blaze:I was gonna say like with fits and starts and some resentment, honestly. Yeah, I have a lot of smaller projects. I guess like my ambition has gotten much tinier, so I'm not even thinking or entertaining the idea that I could do like a 46 by 24 painting or anything.
It's really like, could I work in this sketchbook? Could I knit this one tiny hat that'll still take me a month to do because I've got 20 minutes once a week to do it?
So it's recognizing that I might need it, but I can't do it in a big way.
So that's like the anger portion is wanting more and feeling like there are many things that I don't even want to start when I know that they're interruptable.
I'm like, I don't want to sit down and get into a drawing only to 20 minutes into it. Be told time to go get somebody. Time to answer the phone.
I hate that, so I'm recognizing that I have set much of that aside, but what I do have is a lot of time in this season of my life for idea generation.
And like you said, recognizing that, yeah, I'm probably not going to do them anyway or not in this form, but they are building up to something that will happen in five to 10 years, absolutely.
And that seems like such a far away away, but it's me going, eh, blink of an eye really. When I look back at it, it'll be fine.
Just acknowledging that these moments matter, that my ideas matter right now, that I don't need to always create something tangible to have it have mattered.
I guess that's an important aspect that I'm noticing right now.
Sarah: Yeah, that's good.
That's good. Because even like in the arts, there's so much of that sort of capitalist idea about... productivity and success and accomplishment.
Defining like what or who you are, you know?
Blaze: I draw inspiration from artists that you hear about where they're like they didn't even really get their start until their 70s or their 90s and they had this giant oeuvre and I'm like man,
That makes me have hope that even if I have to wait, maybe like all of my life experiences, of course they're informing what's possible later and what I might choose to do.
And in my own life, my interests and my outlet for creativity have shifted so many times and I'm learning to count things like making a garden as this huge creative work that is very co-creative. I don't have to do all of it. I get to plan a lot of it. I need to have my hands in there and be a part of it.
But ultimately I designed it such that I could ignore it for a season and it probably would come and exist on its own and do its own thing.
And then it would just be a matter of maintenance later. And I did that because of the season of life I’m in. I can't have a vegetable garden right now that takes way too much work. But if I do a perennial garden, it'll kind of-- maintain itself in some way and require less resources and time. Which is good.
I’m just locating myself like where am I in my own timeline and I'm like you are in a very hardcore, very compressed. A lot of things need to happen and I seem to be at the center of it.
So, okay, that's where I am.
Sarah: That's right. It's a funny!
I mean even if you have a ton of time for your work, there is, we're still in a culture that's not that interested in the arts and finding ways of making it meaningful to you specifically, seems so necessary to me.
Blaze: You think of it almost like you're trying to just identify with or connect into like magic in a way? Like I think of nature as having so much spark and magic in it and that I find things like having crows nearby who talk to me really magical and watching a flower that's blooming and it surprises me in what colors or how it manifests, like that's so magical to me.
I have a friend that I would travel with and she always had incense in her backpack. And we would just find a really nice hilltop or something and she just would like smack one into the top of the hill and the light incense and be like this magical wonderful afternoon.
Celebrating it and making it more ceremonial, I guess. And I like that too.
It feels like when we're making a product or you're creating something, it's like into something beyond ourselves, right? Like what's flowing through you and that makes it meaningful even if at the end of it you're like that was an experience I'm never going to show anybody. I learned a lot, but it’s not a final product.
Sarah: Yeah, and also that like I almost feel like to me like I think of it as turning your art practice into a spiritual practice.
Even if you also do other things with it, like show your work. Like it has to have that backbone of serving, you know, like your connection to the divine to nature, to Gaia, to, you know, like so that it is… because it's not…
Otherwise, it's just offering like the, the, the, society part is offering so little in return. Yes. Yeah. So you really need to figure out how to take it back so they, society's not deciding about your, anything about your art.
That you are deciding about your art and understanding that the level of arbitrariness in the societal deciding.
Like the way it's not an meritocracy in the way.
Blaze: There's so many things like that. I also want to acknowledge that there's such an epic disappointment that I just have for the state of everything currently and I'm hoping that that again is just a season of my life and we all pull together as a society and as humanity.
But I think that does play into energy levels and what we can expect of ourselves and what we're trying to pull in and out of all of the things that we're doing. I think just acknowledging that there's a lot of exhaustion.
And I think for many people, like we're just tired of doing everything the way that we've been told all this time because it's really deeply unsatisfied and we're looking for where is that satisfaction coming from and I think as you describe that's coming up with where is your connection to the divine to what you believe in, to everything that exists.
And when we tap into that, we do feel a lot more whole. And I think we find that there's a lot less required of us in order to be happier to belong there. And that's really believing as well. Just like the squirrel wasn't worried about how we feel about it. It's just gathering nuts and taking a nap. So, be cool bro. Go do that.
Sarah: And modeling that for us.
Yeah, they're modeling all that reminding us. But also like I think like, oh living in an age of such uncertainty, it really helps me when I...
Look at my role at some sort of cosmic scale. Like it helps me feel more comfortable with the uncertainty. If I'm here to lay down a few bricks on this path for someone else or for, you know, like, oh, if we are in the
If we're trying to birth a new way of being, you know, how can I be most present to that? And how can I help that?
With the understanding that I'm one of millions trying to do it.
Blaze: And that there is a lot of relief realizing, like, yeah, as one person.
You can't expect yourself to be like the one person that made the huge difference, but all of us together made a huge difference.
So that's very comforting and I love that you got that.
Sarah: Yeah, because it just keeps me grounded and then it keeps me from feeling hopeless or trying to even like for the Pink Teacup of I'm doing these in cafe meetings where I want to talk about conflict like like…
I feel like oh we're in this sort of social conflict right now and how we handle conflict in societies how we, like how I experience the conflict that's happening. It's like mirrors how I experience it one on one, you know?
It's true. Yeah. Or how I behave one on one. And so if I can almost
So it's like the desire to try to have the conflict be over versus the desire to have actually like really good and proper change. Yes.
Blaze: Yeah, well I think you nailed something there, which is we're all coming at it feeling exhausted and wanting things to just, can we just stop? This is so crazy.
But we're also we don't want to just give up because we're exhausted. We want to actually have some kind of resolution that's cool within it. I had a really good conversation with Liz Moyer Benferhat.
And she was a guest a couple of weeks ago talking about how do we carry the pain of the world and how do we create circles where we're able to just accept us. Like, yeah, we do feel upset and how do we...
move through those feelings. And I think she's right in that it requires a much more feminine energy, like it's not about resolving it. It's about the missing piece there is allowing everybody to feel how we feel about it and really allow that without the story, without adding in what we think we need to do because from that space, our bodies kind of know what we need to do next or how we can show up for each other.
She talks about she had a book that she wrote too, how in allowing everybody to have that experience, the next step just kind of becomes obvious or it's a lot easier to see the commonalities and want to be there for each other and find the thing that we all really want to do rather than continue, like you said, just fighting to go like
Please just let this be done.
I liked her perspective that it's a whole world breathing this new experience and that
We're not the first people in the world to go through it, but we are the first to be bombarded on every freaking plane of existence about it.
Sarah: That's right. And also like, you know, giving birth is, you know, a lot of labor. It's not. Yeah, and - I thought that was beautiful. - And being willing to
Like for me, I think about it as can I be, can I not resist that I'm in a conflict?
You know, like there's so much energy put into resisting that it's happening.
I don't want this to be happening.
Blaze: Yes! And that comes right back to fall energy, where you look at your whole life and think, I didn’t want it to come out this way! Why is it this way and not some other way?
Why haven’t I finished everything yet, and why does it seem like everyone else have this better thing going on?
And oh, I love it. Yeah.
But the truth, I think, is that often what we're shown is manufactured. I don't think that it's even honest or true most of the time. I think that we've also been taught to really polish ourselves up and only show like that space forward all the time.
And it makes everyone believe that everyone else is doing better than they are.
Which makes you feel really lonely. And I think the truth is that we're all lonely together, like we're all kind of tired, we're all.
No one's exactly where they thought they'd be at any point in life. Like let's just throw that out as even a possibility. No one achieves that life.
It's a lie. The people who do aren’t happy anyway because they're not, they're also has weird expectations so.
Yeah, there's a lot of relief in community with them.
Sarah: Yeah, I like how you're saying that. That creates a loneliness. That's a very astute observation, that misunderstanding or... that illusion of what others are doing and then it's just been so amplified in the last decade plus with social media.
Really making that the forefront thing, like the appearance of things, not the way things really are.
Blaze: Alright, so I know that I should wrap this up, but I do want to do this one. It's a juicy bit.
I remember growing up and feeling like my mom in particular, but like my parents like the adulthood around me really had a way that they wanted to present everything.
So when you’re in public, you're gonna dress up and you're gonna like go out wearing your beststuff and even if you're just going to go to Cumberland Farms to get gas and a thing of ice cream. Like this is the face that we're presenting to society and don't talk about these things and we don't do this, we don't do that.
Don't mention that so and so looks tired, that there was so much decorum and politeness about how we presented ourselves to the world that I found really grating and horrible, particularly as I became a teenager,
I'm like, why are we lying all the time about our life, and this is before social media became the thing. Then I watched that happen and I'm like, "Oh, it's like that on steroids."
All of a sudden, everyone is presenting exactly how they wish they looked to the world and then telling you that that's how it really is.
Telling you that that's the truth of their life and you can have that too and it all became like this big epic advertisement.
It's really upsetting so I'm trying to protect my kid from that by pointing it out to her and saying like none of this is real, this is all just what people decide it sells the best and it does because it's made you anxious and it's made you feel like you made you change yourself.
Yes. And the times where you're happiest is when you're actually in your group with your friends being honest and saying like this is what really happened, this is how I feel. I was like please really look around yourself and recognize what's real and stop buying into this mass hallucination that we have about what things are. And now I was saying, AI is getting into it. Like it's even...
Sarah: It's so true. It is.
And then, you know, full of your daughter's age, they don't know the world in another way.
Blaze: No, it's bananas to me. What would it even be like to have always had this stuff? And she’s even better months ago at saying like, "Oh, that's AI. That's AI with everything that would come up on the screen."
And now I'm like honestly at this point most of it probably is, which is a bummer, and I'm really longing for like actual conversations with people like you really meeting up with my neighbors and hanging out with her groups of friends and grounding myself in action with reality and setting aside devices and really reckoning with the fact that
We've made our lives so dependent on the computer and the internet and everything.
That could turn around real quick, in a heartbeat the way things are going right now. So what will we do when we can’t use our computers anymore we can't trust online banking anymore because it doesn't exist? What will you do then?
Sarah: I know it's yeah. Yeah. Like and that's the part where I think can we just be present and not resist the difficulty and just want to run past it?
Blaze: Yeah, so again it comes back to like maybe we need to really embrace the slowing down times and have this period of reflection. Like I feel like the winter is even more, it expands on this reflection that’s starting now. I feel like this is where it starts as closing out the summer and we're finishing up all of these big projects.
That's where we start reflecting. What is it all about? What do we want to have going forward but we need to stop and go down and stop doing stuff enough to even have an idea of that?
Sarah: Yeah.
Blaze: I appreciate you so much. I'm gonna wrap this up for now, but we can-
Sarah: Yes, thank you, Blaze.
Blaze: It was wonderful to see you. I will put your links in the show notes.
The Pink Teacup, Sarah Bush, she’s amazing. Go check out her work and I will look forward to seeing you on our regular episode on Monday morning.
Sarah: Fantastic, thank you so much!
Related Episodes
Seasonal Reflections & Gentle Productivity Series
If this conversation resonated with you, you may also find these episodes helpful for navigating year-end reflection without shame:
- How to Use Your Imagination Without Overwhelm (Creative Energy in Spring) — Blaze and Sarah's Spring 2026 collaborative episode on creativity, inspiration and avoiding perfectionism when embarking on projects.
- Ep 09: Reflecting Without Shame — A Year-End Ritual — A shame-free way to look back on the year using a gentle garden metaphor that honors nourishment, resilience, and survival—not just outcomes or accomplishments.
- Ep 41: The Ripening of Your Life: How to Trust the Process and Stop Rushing — Learn to settle into the life you're actually living rather than the one you think you should be living, and trust the natural unfolding of your garden (and your life).
- Ep 20: Spring Equinox Energy — Why You Feel Restless, Irritated, and Full of Ideas — The companion piece to this fall conversation: understanding the surge of energy and ideas at the spring equinox and how to channel it sustainably.
Want to stay connected as we move deeper into this season together?
Subscribe to Soul Letters, Blaze's monthly newsletter where she shares reflections on seasonal rhythms, creative prompts, and updates about what's emerging in the community. No algorithms, no noise - just honest writing delivered to your inbox.
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