reflection delayed & other thoughts (erin jean warde)
If I’m going to be one of the emails you allow into your life — and thank you so much for that honor! — I’d like to make sure it is offered out of my fullness.
braiding sweetgrass reflection delayed
Friends,
I’m writing today to let you know I’ll be delaying my Braiding Sweetgrass reflection for this week. As you might have seen in some of my writings, I have ADHD, and if I can be completely honest — my brain is really struggling with reading this week. I keep trying, but it doesn’t get easier.
On the one hand, I knew I could just power through it, find a quote that works, and crank out an essay. But that’s not the spirit I have around this newsletter. I genuinely enjoy writing all 3 posts each week, and I try to always speak out of what’s true in my life at the time of writing. This community — if I may call us that! — is a place where I try to show up fully with my integrity, offering something from the heart, because you have lots of choices of how you share your inbox real estate, and you choose to give me some of it. That is not lost on me.
So, if I’m going to be one of the emails you allow into your life — and thank you so much for that honor! — I’d like to make sure it is offered out of my fullness. Being a subscriber — and this includes free subscribers! — really, really supports me. Thank you.
Next week, I will either do 2 reflections covering each section, or I might do one reflection covering it all. I haven’t decided. The two sections are pages 241-292 (intended for this week) and pages 293-340 (scheduled for next week). Either way, we will make it to page 340 by the end of next week, because I have us on track to finish the book before MY book comes out!
Following my book release — April 18, which I am calling Sober Spirituality day! — I won’t be doing the third weekly reflection post for a few weeks, because I’ll be sharing links to podcasts, articles, and more regarding the book. For those weeks, instead of giving you even more pages to read, I hope these interviews and articles can offer some nourishment and reflection. I will continue to offer the newsletter & healing moment (2 posts per week).
And, after finishing Braiding Sweetgrass and having a few weeks of sharing interviews about my book, I will return to the third weekly post being exclusive to paid subscribers. I really wanted to offer Braiding Sweetgrass to everyone, and I’ll likely have seasons where I open this up again with other topics and studies, but I also want to honor those who have chosen to pay me for my work, because — and I cannot stress this enough — I’m so grateful for every single dollar. Similar to the real estate of your email, I know money doesn’t grow on trees, so the fact that some of you support me financially, thus keeping a roof over my head, means more than I can say. I look forward to seeing where we end up going as a smaller community. And I am open if you have thoughts about what the weekly paid posts might look like! We can always pause on reading a book together and explore something else — you can respond to this email and tell me any thoughts you have!
In closing, if you’ve made it this far, bless you. And thank you even more for being gracious with me and my tired little brain this week. I look forward to doing some reading this weekend so I can be ready to go next week. If you hear nothing else, I love y’all and am so grateful for y’all!
With love & care,
EJW
I hope you are enjoying Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
I’ll be back next week with a reflection on pages 241-292 and 293-340.