I know, that’s a weird choice of title for a mid-February post, but what can I say? I wasn’t ready until now.

2021 was yet another weird year to say the least. And for me personally, if I had to choose one word to define its essence, at first I would have picked barren, mostly because if there’s anything that sticks out looking back at that year, it’s the overall lack of content from my part.

Sure, I’ve had some big projects going on that kept me busy, the main one being releasing two different print runs of my first Oracle Deck, Wildera Lenormand. Don’t get me wrong, learning basically everything about this process as I went through it is a challenge that I am happy and proud to have taken on. But aside from that, not much has happened despite all the plans and motivation I had in the beginning of the year.

Nothing happened in particular, Inspiration decided to ghost me some day and never answer my calls again. Just like that. And let me tell you, it is such a scary thought for an artist to know that this can happen at any point without any kind of warning sign. Every idea falling flat. Every plan, out the window. I’ve had dry spells in the past, but this one was the most brutal I’ve ever experienced.

To be fair, I have my theory as to why I lacked the creativity and inspiration I needed to keep going on full speed. At this point I can’t say that it is definitely that, it’s more a correlation than a causation really, but in a sense, I think it was bound to happen at some point.

First thing is trying to map out everything with absolute certainty in such uncertain times. Talking about the outside world here, and all the craziness of the last couple of years. That was a mistake, all right, I see it now. I’ll shoot for less rigid plans going forward.

But other than that and most importantly, I kinda gave up spiritually for a good while – for much longer than I’d like to admit. The truth is that I didn’t practice much this last year or even the year before. I had a really hard time sticking to my routines, I got bored of doing the same stuff, lost connection with the Craft, got stuck overthinking everything… It wasn’t in my plans, but still, I got caught in a deep, deep rut.

I haven’t found the perfect solution yet, but I’m getting there. I’ve decided to do what has always served me best in moments like that: , go back to my roots, simplify, and clear the space.

That last part is the reason why I’ve taken a long break from Social Media, and sharing content in general. I’ve always had a tricky relationship with Social Media anyway, but for the last couple of months I’ve been growing really tired of it, and I often found myself wishing I could make even more distance with it and the Internet in general. You know, spending less time hooked on a screen, whatever the size of it. And so that’s what I did for a while. I’ve taken the concept of hibernation pretty seriously this Winter and have been going inward, refraining from sharing anything until I found my footing again.

As 2022 started rolling, I almost succumbed to the siren’s song. You know what I’m talking about: the resolutions and promises of change and all that jazz. New year new me!… But I don’t want to fall into the same trap, so instead of going crazy with new plans all over the place, I’m just following the gentle path I set myself on. More time around trees and greenery, ground myself in my Spiritual Practice, let it feed my Creative Spirit once again. It’s nothing spectacular, but it’s been working for me so far. It keeps the flame alive and well.

While I was writing this post, I looked up the definition of barren. “Unable to support growth”. In the end, I think I’m gonna have to let this word go because despite what it looks like from the outside, all of the struggles, the uncomfortable times, the pain facing a blank page (or piece of wood), despite all of it, growth did happen. Somehow I pictured last year as a desolate landscape when the magic was all hidden underneath the ground. I guess sometimes you do have to look for it to actually see it.

All right, I hope you didn’t mind a bit of a ramble to kickstart things again over here. Let’s find out what 2022 has to offer! I hope this year has treated you well so far, and if it hasn’t, I wish you the very best for the months to come ♥ Remember, you are worthy and rare, a beautiful and essential part of the Living World.