So many moments, like birthday gifts, unwrapped furiously by the kids and discarded.

No time to savor! No time to dream! No time to play!

You are lost in the struggle, working hard to keep your family afloat.  New clothes for school, pack the lunches, laundry for way more than one…

Like an army, chores go marching dutifully by. Needs go whirling through, grab your attention, suck you in, and before you know it, you are captured, a prisoner to your day.

Even when you try to slow down, time goes on slipping through your hands in the same infuriating way. Just like water always finds those little cracks and crevices between your fingers, your life is draining away, seeping through the cup of your hands.

Something has to give.

And so you do.

You give up your dreams, bury your desires. You give yourself over to that dastardly word duo:

Have To.

You craft your life around other people’s futures day in and day out.

Until. There. Is. Nothing. Left. Of. You.

Never mind for you!

STOP!

Breathe deeply. Just three, long deep breaths. We’ll do it together.

O-O-O-O-N-N-N-N-E-E-E-E

T-T-T-T-W-W-W-W-O-O-O-O

T-T-T-T-H-H-H-H-R-R-R-R-E-E-E-E.

Let time stand still.

Take my hand. Walk with me into the deep, secret places you think nobody would ever want to see. Take me into the hidden space of your dreams. Bring me to the center of your desires. I want to know, I care to see.

But do you?

Because that is all that matters.

Look up there on the screen of your life. See how every single time you get near this hidden treasure chest of hunger, you begin to fragment:

dinner maker,
booboo fixer,
never needs a break,
sexy wife,
when all she wants is sleep,
good friend,
cake baker,
candlestick maker.

You go willingly, or maybe even compulsively to the spider web of your relationships.

You wrap yourself in the sticky fibers of NEVER and hide out in other people’s needs until there is nothing left to savor. Your relationships grow stiff, sour, cold.

You are angry, yelling, crying over nothing, snubbing your partner...

...quietly, on the inside.

On the outside, you soldier on.

Mostly.

It is getting harder isn’t it?

Yet you don’t know how to stop. You tell yourself you can’t afford to invest in this dusty old bin of silly dreams. You can’t afford the time to reach into the deep recesses and pull yourself

OUT.

But why?

Breathe yourself back in time.

You are now a detective on a mission. You are looking for even one single moment when someone else took the time to invest in you.

I am not talking about the investments they made (with stunning capacity and daring regularity) in the things they found pleasing in you FOR THEM.

I am talking about dollars spent, time given, smiles showered on YOU, the real YOU, the woman, once little girl, you have shut away in this hidden closet, in this dry, brittle dream box.

Now where’s that key?

Oh look. Here it is in my back pocket.

I know. You aren’t quite ready.

That’s why I am here. I’ve brought my Empress bag of tricks and treats, teas and tinctures, sweet scents and silky bath salts…But really I have brought you something far more important:

MY PRESENCE.

I am here with you to witness, to encourage, and when you are ready, when the medicines of earth, and the fruits of fertility have done their work, to help you slip this key in the lock.

The Empress is in YOUR house.

Shall we make a spot of tea?

The best stories always begin with tea, don’t you think?