My daughter came home on Friday with a ‘potion’, a jam jar filled with flowers, glitter and water, decorated with ribbon and gold paint. She had made one for her sister too and was just bursting with pleasure at her creation and proud of her success at navigating a rare afternoon without her twin. The jars sit proudly on the dining room table, but I suspect they will soon disappear into the fantasy land of fairies, princesses and dinosaurs that is the back garden. She was a bit vague about its exact nature, but a potion is a powerful thing and the yellow of the dandelion flowers seems to glow out of the jar: that little bit of spring sunshine, a day-time star for the palm of a hand.
It made me think about the ‘potions’ I make: body butters, balms and soaps. What is their intention? Do they have the transformative powers of a magic potion? Making them makes me happy; when I’m working on my products I feel empowered, I feel satisfied and I feel joy. That must be a kind of magic. I wonder how much of this goes into them? I make them because I believe that using a cream or soap with few, natural ingredients can give you better skin. But can it change your life? When you control what goes on to your body you can change it, and hopefully that makes people feel empowered, satisfied, and joyful.
When we celebrate Easter, we celebrate the greatest stories of change: resurrection and rebirth. The bible is full of stories about transformation and capacity for change, and spring brings us the opportunity to see this all around us as the days lengthen and life begins again in gardens and glens. The capacity for change is inside us, too. It is our greatest blessing and scariest challenge: to be able to choose to be different. To make different choices, to see things in new ways, to take a road less travelled, to mix things up, to create, to grow.
When you buy from a small business, or a local set up, or a craft market, or an artisan producer, you are buying into the idea of change. You could be changing buying habits, changing brand loyalty, changing society, changing somebody’s life, changing your own. That’s something to celebrate!
What changes do you think you could make this Spring? Will you leave it for one day, or will today be day one?
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