Everything I Loved in September
And a fun fun fun announcement!!!
Happy October, Blueberries!
Beautiful news for a beautiful month:
I have MY OWN TEA NOW!!!!!!!
Yep, you heard that correctly!
I’ve been smelling and tasting and reading about tea ingredients for MONTHS to create the prettiest, tastiest, loveliest tea I could possibly imagine, in collaboration with Art of Tea—a company whose values form a single circle with mine on a Venn Diagram.
We both cherish intentional travel, commitment to community, joyful aesthetics, care for land and people, ritual, artistry, rare finds, attentiveness to the human body, etc etc etc.
I just love them!!!
I created Creativi-tea (hehe) to be a comforting and uplifting companion as you work in and out of flow state, push through those pesky creative blocks, and spend cozy quality time with the creative love of your life.
The tea has a touch of caffeine for brain power, but mostly just a lot of luxurious botanicals to help you feel more like the monarch of your own artistic world, and less like an awkward peasant who is just trying to get included. I feel downright QUEENLY when I drink this elixir, and the potion worked as I drank it exclusively while working on my book edits the past month. No need to ask me how many cups I had a day—that’s between me and God.
I’ll write more on these ingredients later because they are so special to me, but here’s the list for now:
✨ White Peony
✨ Rosehips
✨ Roasted Dandelion Root
✨ Rose Petals
✨ Sage
✨ Marigold
✨ Cornflower
Don’t you just love that combo? I need to adopt 7 more cats ASAP with those ingredients as names :)
Here’s the beauty herself in her first professional photo shoot:
Shop here! I made it with my beloved Blueberries in mind, and really really hope you enjoy it. :)
So…that was the most exciting thing that happened in September! (and it launched on my birthday!!!)
Here are some other jollifiers from the month…
LISTENING
Let’s learn about sharks!
I’ve included the podcast Too Scary Didn’t Watch in a former monthly recap, but I listened to my new favorite episode this month: a ‘deep dive’ (sorry) on the lost-at-sea shark horror movie The Reef.
I hadn’t heard of Wes Larson, the guest interviewee of the episode, but I became an instant fan the moment he challenged the hosts’ on their use of the phrase “shark-infested waters.”
I learned that Wes is a very cool wildlife biologist who provided some detailed and fascinating fact-checking for the recap of an ultimately wonky shark movie. (I immediately followed up by listening to his guest appearance on the Cocaine Bear episode!).
I looked into Wes’ work and found that he has his own podcast: Tooth and Claw, all about animal attacks that could have gone differently.
He’s one of those unusual animal-enthusiasts who has as much respect for humans as he does animals, and vice versa; he’s an interspecies ambassador who would never blame an animal for acting out of fear, but never blames a person for being caught off guard. He’s a tremendously informative, non-preachy, gentle soul, who can help us all see the world through a slightly shifted perspective.
Because I was on a shark kick when I discovered Wes’ work, I listened to his particularly captivating episode, Shark Attack in the Red Sea, detailing a news piece with such an obvious moral that it played out like a fable—even though the story was all too real, and all too recent.
Too intense didn’t listen: When sharks start attacking humans, it’s the fault of humans. Not the specific individuals who are killed—they are simply victims in a much larger, species-wide failure—but human behavior as a collective (About 5 people a year are killed by sharks; about 100 million sharks a year are killed by people.)
This is really, really depressing stuff, but somehow Wes’ podcast makes it all feel more manageable. There are a few simple things we can do, and respect for all creatures is the first step.
Listening to shark podcasts twisty-turn-led me to the absolutely delightful book, Sharks Don’t Sink by a young Black marine biologist (and founder of Minorities in Shark Sciences) Jasmin Graham, who identifies with her favorite animal:
“When Black women fight back, we are seen as the enemy,” she writes, “just like sharks, who, more often than not, bite only when provoked.”
A charming companion to your shark podcast consumption!