the autumn equinox: a move back to the country and back to play

where little me invites little you

Keep reading for an invitation to join our launch team, but first, a different invitation.

This Saturday, September 23^rd at 1:49 AM is the Autumn Equinox, and we will be asleep in our beds for the very first night in our new home. That means we will wake with my chickens and my garden in my backyard as the leaves begin their letting go and the days begin to shrink toward that nurturing darkness where the soil prepares itself for future things to grow. This means that, while we built the new house down on our Goshen land, we will have made it in this rental house with a purple main bedroom for one year and two months. In Goshen, my new bedroom is green. My kitchen cabinets are green. The boy’s rooms, all different shades of green. So, guess what color my pantry is and the mudroom. I bet you nailed it.

Each home has represented a new season for us, and every season is one to grieve as we move forward because it held its own particular beauty. Here, the river through the woods, the bees in the phlox, the dark cave of a kitchen, how each thing fit along the short walls. Seth’s shirts hang to dry and drift like flags over the small back patio because not a thing extra can go in the closet. Giant teenagers sleep in floors, in bunks, and on the sofa. Several kids picked up guitars. Vibrating through the walls, Ian’s strings are “tuned down,” rhythmic, driving. Titus’s basketball, its own rhythm. He flies above concrete and weaves through his legs. Here in this house, I’m not yet gray but rather mousy - a new color peeling back. Seth and I finished writing The Deep Down Things here. Isaac floats in from the university, leaves socks in the floor, finds protein, and then floats out. Jude is a senior now and has good direction. This has been the house of two different seniors, one after another. I hold them folded in close in a short tight squeeze and then open my arms for days and even weeks. In this rental, when I haven’t been running errands, editing the book, directing the house build, or starting a new career as a REALTOR®, I’ve just been standing here open, waiting for a kid to come in.

The house before this one was the healing house of stillness and slow recovery. The rental has been the marching house of hard work, goals, and application. Writing The Deep Down Things was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done. In it, I used every ounce of creative energy available to me, and now for months I’ve been so tapped out that even before it launches, I’ve told myself it will be my last book.  When a life-long writer says she quits, it’s time to ask some questions. It’s time for a new season.

As the airs shifts cool, I put on a fleece to sit outside in the mornings. I’ve started “morning pages” again, and it has brought me to a new honesty. I’ve lacked creative energy for longer than I’ve admitted. I’ve been lying to myself about my art, and I’ve been lying because I’m scared.

My agent bailed on me a few months ago, just as we were getting ready for the release. She explicitly stated that it’s because we are too Catholic, as if our catholicity were a surprise. Also, we call God “Divine LOVE.” I guess this crosses over into woo-woo talk. She had been a long-time friend, and her stepping out of our contract and dissociating her name from ours while still accepting the money from the contract has left me with several untrue stories in my head. It’s been hard to talk about the book or to celebrate even though I know it’s exactly what it needs to be for the ones who need it … but if she would leave me, then wouldn’t they all? I keep being shocked by the ones who’ve read it and said, “this isn’t my story, but it is.” The truth is that there are some of us here who can read or hear a story, and our response is “oh hey, look, this is some human life we’re both in together, and I associate with you in your humanity. It’s easy for me to see the beauty and hope in you, so maybe that means there’s beauty and hope in me, too.”

Something about writing the honest and nonjudgmental things in my morning pages so I can learn to hear again the little amber buried somewhere at the bottom of my soul has already helped me see what this next season will be. The house with a green heart is an open door for this amber kid I barely remember, and through that door is a season of play and freedom. I already know. I already know that as I launch this book something new burns in me. I can’t afford to not celebrate, and nothing tastes sweeter than a feastly celebration of truth in spite of the lies.

Saturday night, some dear ones asked us to go to a Joseph concert with them, and I stood there for the first time in maybe years, arms wide for this little one to come out and play. My shoulders dropped a few inches. I danced with strangers, straight to my own heart – which by the way, is the very place we meet Divine Love.

In their song “Waves Crash,” Joseph sang in their sister harmony:

“You wouldn’t tell a flower it was made of sin.

You know it’s good just for being.”

I heard this line and that’s when the tears made their jump. I risk being cliché, and I risk sounding needy to tell you this. I’m afraid I risk sounding like cheese whiz on a cheezit in some queso to talk about an inner child, but I do it because most children love cheese. Maybe your little self is ready to be heard.

In The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron says, “Your artist is a child.” She quotes Pablo Picasso to say, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once [s]he grows up.” Cameron suggests we write “morning pages” and take “artist dates” to get back to that child and nurture a relationship with her. Many of you have completed The Artist’s Way. This is me asking you if you’re like me and might need to practice it again. I have begun the daily and weekly practices already but will begin chapter 1 Sunday, September 24^th. I’ve committed to the 12-week process. Would you want to join me for twelve weeks? I thought it would be nice to have some check-ins about it along the way.

Help!

“I came here to write.” I just removed that line from my profile description on Instagram because there wasn’t room for it, but it’s still true. I came here to write, though you on this newsletter list know more than I have known (by my absence) that writing hasn’t happened. I’m on my way back to myself, as I explain above, but there’s a meantime here where I don’t just get to write. I have to get the word out about what I’ve already written. This somehow feels more vulnerable (terrifying) than telling my story, and it makes my soul feel emergency-level blah times a billion. Maybe that emergency feeling is what is leading me back to my art, though. So instead of hiding in a cave and walling up before The Deep Down Things shows up on shelves, I know I have to 1) listen to my soul, 2) be vulnerable, and 3) ask for help.  I just made a list of three skills that I don’t have. Or let’s say, here are three skills wherein I have a lot of room for growth.

Here's my ask: Would you join Seth and me on our Launch Team? To say the word team feels crazy and awesome. We will be together in a group, and I would love to hear from you as you read The Deep Down Things there, too.  You’ll need to have pre-ordered the book to join.

The application says:

There are a limited number of spots available, so apply at your earliest convenience.

All Launch Team members will receive access to:
🎁 Our Facebook group + videos with Amber and Seth
🎁 Amazing giveaways just for Launch Team members
🎁 Early access to the ebook of The Deep Down Thing

I don’t know how else to thank anyone who’s made it to the end of a newsletter, except to keep writing, to wake in the mornings and leave my phone on the kitchen table; to open the pages and be sloppy; to sing as often as I can; to eat the good food; and, lavish in the beauty that my artistic soul so craves. I don’t know how else to thank you than to remind you that your little self needs an invitation from you, too.

We have some deep-down work to do. Thank you for showing up to it.

Amber

PS. When we move this weekend, I’ll try to share pictures of our place on Insta. I made almost every single decision about that house by myself because Seth doesn’t care a lick about stuff like that. Look out for me to feel proud about it.