ISSUE NO. 15 | Feb 11, 2026

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Shifting Focus: Choosing Beauty as a Practice of Sanctuary

I don't know about you, but when the world feels heavy, I shift my focus.

I turn toward beauty.

Not as escape - but as a deliberate, grounding act.

A quiet form of defiance against despair.

A way of choosing life.

Transforming a garden into a sanctuary of peace, beauty, and healing is a practice I return to again and again - to regulate my nervous system, reclaim clarity, and cultivate wellbeing through design.

Right now, I’m in a deeply planful season.

Winter naturally calls forth mapping, writing, designing, and dreaming.

Planting seeds.

Though I can’t yet take leaps and bounds in my new garden physically, my hands and heart are busy in other ways - intentionally focusing on the joy, beauty, and healing that will live right outside our (remodeled) front door come spring.

I collect and select the seeds.

I imagine the garden at twilight.

I rearrange plants for the fourth or fifth time in my mind, step back, and quietly say - to myself and to whatever unseen presence might be listening -yes… that’s it. That’s how we’ll do it.

This act of designing beauty - even before it physically exists - steadies my nervous system.

It gives my mind something constructive and life-affirming to hold. And the vision holds me.

I think of it as my personal resistance against darkness, heaviness, overwhelm.

It’s a way of engaging with the world that’s proactive, positive, and life-giving - solving a problem I can actually influence in the immediate.

This isn’t distraction.

It’s intentional redirection toward what nourishes my -feeling joy.

Maybe you’re not sowing seeds right now like I am.

But you are choosing where you place your attention.

And that choice matters just as much.

Choosing beauty - in a garden, a home, or even a small daily ritual - is a way of deciding:

Peace matters.

Joy matters.

I matter.

This new garden of mine is bare. A blank slate.

And while I often work most fluidly with spaces that already hold history, form, and character, the last time I created a front garden from scratch - also after a home remodel - it turned out to nurture my joy, my connection with community, and my tenacity to express me and come home to myself.

What I’m reminded of again is this:

Sanctuary doesn’t arrive fully formed.

It’s cultivated - through intention, attention, and care. Practice.

Where are you choosing to create beauty right now - in your home, your garden, or your daily rhythms?

I’d truly love to hear.

However you’re feeling, the intention is the same: choosing to create and focus on beauty is a way back to yourself, joy, and your “calm and clear”.

Here's to beauty blooming,

. . .

P. S. If this reflection stirred something in you - a desire for more beauty, calm, or connection with nature where you live and work - there are a few ways I support this practice of sanctuary-making.

Some begin by inviting beauty inside first - through Red Bird Florals, with floral creations (bouquets, arrangements, workshops) that bring nature into immediate view. Flowers have a way of softening and enlightening a space - and a nervous system - almost instantly.

Our Something Wild flower subscription notification list is open to join. This is a flower CSA in what we're growing at Amabel Heer Farms and includes flower arranging teachings and rituals monthly - and our Flower Happy Hour events on the farm.

You may feel ready to change things up directly in your outdoor space. Through garden design planning and planting design consults, you receive near 30 years worth of thoughtful, wellness-informed, soulful creative guidance - virtually or in person - to help you create space that is simply, beautiful, healing, and reflective of you. Blooming with depth, beauty, and meaning as your healing garden.

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