| THE EPISTOLARIAN |
After our son, William, was born, my heart beat inside another. Even the smallest acts, like holding him while he drank his milk or watching the bumblebees buzz around the lavender bushes in front of our house, made life feel so existentially fleeting and precious that I lost patience for nearly everything inconsequential.
I sat in Zoom meetings at work wondering why we were spending so much time discussing things that didn't matter. It felt as though a great asteroid were hurtling toward us and everyone else still believed themselves immortal.
By becoming a mother, I wanted my entire life to feel as meaningful as the moments I shared with William. The calling toward the arts had existed in the cracks of my life for years. Before him, I approached those cracks almost like kintsugi, the Japanese practice of repairing fractures with gold, trying to hold everything together beautifully while limiting beauty to the broken pieces.
After he was born, though, that feeling splintered. The calling became more primal, more like water seeping into fractures of granite. Eventually it froze and split something open inside me, a wild bird breaking free from stone after believing granite its home.
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Two New Seals
In honor of my children, I’m introducing two new seals for Mother's Day: Sweet William and Helenium.
My friend Michelle, a master gardener and florist, heard me call William “Sweet William” for years and assumed I knew of the flower. I didn’t.
Sweet William traditionally symbolizes gallantry, but to me it means something deeper. It is the gallantry he inspires in me, and the tenderness of all that he is.
| Sweet William Floriography Seal |
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Helenium is associated with tears, memory, and emotional intensity. Its mythology traces back to Helen of Troy, whose grief was said to give rise to the flower itself. Blooming brightly at summer’s edge, helenium reminds us that longing and radiance often exist together. Helen’s Helenium features a small lion’s head at the top of the cartouche to represent the sign of Leo, for which she has a stellium.
Side note: Helenium is sometimes called “sneezeweed,” not because it causes sneezing per se, but because it was once ground into snuff believed to have salubrious sneezing effects when snorted. Achoo!
| Helenium Floriography Seal |
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| Sweet William Floriography Seal |
| Helenium Floriography Seal |
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The Hastings Étui
This week, a new penny will release on the new moon. Those who have a Hastings Étui will receive priority to this special penny.
I have prepared more Helix Étuis, which I can send you this week, and give you the option to add the new penny. I recommend ordering today.
| The Helix Edition Hastings Étui |
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Additional Goodies
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In Case you Missed It
Marian Grace designed a beautiful pendant using the Hastings' Lily of the Valley seal. She offers it in both silver and gold, and it makes such a lovely gift for Mother’s Day.
I brought mine to France and even ran into a fellow quaintrelle during tea at the The Ritz Paris. She was wearing a Marian Grace pendant too. It was such a fun moment of serendipity.
| Lily of the Valley Pendant |
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A Final Note
Happy Mother’s Day to the women who have made life and shaped life, often through thousands of small unseen acts.
To the mothers who planted gardens, literally and metaphorically, for their young to flourish. Who remembered birthdays, made houses into homes, preserved family memory and tradition.
To the mothers who revealed different ways of living through their careers, their passions, their capacity to heal, their curiosity, their creativity, their pluck, and their ability to find joy in life.
And also to those grieving mothers, missing mothers, longing to become mothers, mothering others, or learning how to mother themselves. That may be lifelong work.
May today invite peace and prosperity, including for Mother Earth,