So, on October 1st, 2022 the business officially went live. I spent all of the summer of 2022 getting ready for the launch, and truly I couldn't have been more thrilled with how well the launch went, for the public perception of our new business, and the excitement that people have for all of the products that we've launched so far.
Let me take you all back to where this all got started.
May 2022:
I am just about to gleefully celebrate my first birthday in my new life with my new partner. I get added to a business call at the last second right as I'm coming back from my lunch break. I get laid off. No warning, no last call with my team or my manager with whom I had developed a great relationship. No closure. I can't even check my email to let my friends or clients know what has happened. I take a couple of days to lie fetal on the couch and get my bearings, trying to figure out what the heck just happened. I have never been unemployed before. I have never had an issue with finding a job like this before. I have a specialty in my field, and I have worked in the same industry for a long time, so I just assumed that my comfy life would continue as is.
Lilith had other plans.
When I say that manifestation and stating what I want gave me everything I've ever wanted I mean it, but I also know that the pain that I experienced could have been made a little easier on me if I wasn't so damn impatient.
I know that I have bills coming up, so I of course file for unemployment. It was a very complicated process made more complicated by my moving to a new state less than a year before and my job being a remote position. I am sitting here now 6 months removed from initially filing unemployment and I still have not received one red cent in government help. I'm not sure what people on the news are talking about when they say that it is easy to take advantage of the government for benefits, because I legitimately lost my job and still haven't gotten any help.
So, I had to devise a plan for how I was NOT going to be in this situation again. Thus, Sherwood Hearth started to grow.
At first it was just a little seed. Something that I would think about at night when I had exhausted myself with panic and frustration and calling and waiting and sitting on hold. What would I do if I were able to provide for my family without having to have a regular job? Those were the kinds of hopeful thoughts going through my mind.
Could I make enough money to be able to finally have a child? What would that look like for me? What is success for me? How much money would I need to make in order to make all of my bills? What is a living wage for me? What is a thriving wage for me?
Can I make a business that I would be proud to raise my children understanding?
These were the thing that got me through this hell of a summer. I also would work some little side jobs to bring in some money through the summer time. I weeded people's gardens for hours in the hot sun. I got more sunburns this summer than I had ever gotten before, but I also met some really great people! And they let me take plant starts for my own garden! And people would give away things that I would find useful. Things like bricks, and stones, and pavers, and 4x4 posts, and pieces of fencing. All the things that I would need in order to start building the homestead of my dreams in my new backyard.
I start seeing new plants that I had never seen before. Since I just moved to Ohio from Michigan I had thought that most of the plants would be the same. Afterall, it wasn't that far away from where I grew up. I'm still not sure if its just because I finally turned my eyes on to actually see what is around me, or if the plants truly are different here, but I bought an app on my phone to start identifying all of the cool plants I was seeing while I weeded gardens and went on walks with my dogs.
I would check and see if they were edible, if they were endangered, if they were poisonous, if they were magickal.
I started taking little pinches of the different things that I found and including them in my spellwork around my own home and started to see major changes in my life. I think this is because the spirits of the land know what to do with the plants that have been here forever. They don't know what to do with these species of plants that were brought from all over the world. The indigenous plants of the United States sing to the land, and the land WANTS us to listen.
So, I started keeping records of the things that I found. How I was using it. What I found on the internet. How my mom taught me to use it. This is how I started developing the zines! I wanted to have information that was readily available to me, but also that would be inexpensive for me to hand out to other people when I go to events or they see me picking up plants on my walks. (Maybe then I won't get as many weird looks!)
By August I have devised a plan. Smudge sticks, loose herbs, educational materials, Tiktok, and a can do attitude. I decide that my best friends' birthday is the best day for me to open up the shop. That way I can set everything to go live and then if things go terribly badly I can hide in the wine at her party. If they go really well, then she can party with me and it will make for a great night!
I was not ready for it to ACTUALLY go well, tbh.
The first week we sold out of Mugwort. (I made a plan for where I can plant more for next year and triple the yield!)
I got feedback saying that people wanted to have more options (I started making herbal mixtures and explaining what the mixtures would be good for)
I was told that memorizing the properties of all of the herbs was too complicated for a baby-witch (so I started making DIY kits to explain what all of the herbs were for, what order to put them into the vial, and what incantation or manifestation they can use while performing the spell in order to ground them in the moment)
I was told that some people just aren't interested in doing ALL THE WORK (so I made pre-made witch's balls so that they can just be hung up and let them do their work!)
I worked my butt off all summer, and on October 1st, 2022 I started a new chapter in my life. It is only a month later, but I already feel so much more aligned with my goals and who I am on the inside.
So, cheers to one month of Sherwood Hearth!