In making brunch this morning, I realized how long it has been since I wrote for The Hot Mess Homestead. Admittedly since beginning a more “professional” blog for my new business it is harder to find the time to write the things that center around my family and my home life.

Not to mention that since having to leave our farm in the middle of COVID and now residing with my Aunt, it is hard to connect to the notions of homestead. Undoubtedly we are still living a green life, building a sense of community, in connection to nature, and learning new skills and building that which we need. It’s just….. different.

I even had notions of stopping this blog (gasp!), questioning if I had the time to homeschool my children, build a house, get a start up off the ground, maintain the connections to my social circle (socially distanced of course), be an attentive partner, loving mother, AND write this blog. Then I recognized that I write this blog for myself, and for other mothers on a similar path. I regularly get messages or emails about how my words have validated a mother in distress, or given hope, or nourished a soul. I write for this for myself and for you my loves.

And not to mention that of course I have vague romantic notions of being wildly successful someday for doing the thing I love, and this blog will serve as an account of the personal and equally necessary side of my business path. Just gonna say that I think Reese Witherspoon would be my pick to play me if my life story ever gets turned into a moving picture show.

But I digress.

This week I wish to share something that my family did in our new home. We recently purchased a 7 bedroom farm house from 1832. It was (and after 6 weeks of work still is) a bit of a pit. The children have to have some serious supervision to enter the construction zone that is our home. We can see the potential, see its worth, and we are well on the way to making it habitable.

In the process of doing the demo work to bring it back down to the studs, we found a few things in the walls. We found someone’s homework from 1969. A paper that recieved a grade of A-, and clearly with it some pride as it was been taped to a wall at some point. Then some pictures from the early 2000’s, class photos from someones family members. Before preparing to fix the foundation we decided to lay a “foundation stone” and to include these items with it.

A foundation stone is often a stone put into a building with a bunch of pomp and ceremony. It also stands for being the basic pretenses and principles upon which something stands.

So once all the demo was done, before we started the process of rebuilding our house, we gathered all five member of our family to cultivate a bit of ceremony. Each person was allowed to pick a small item to place in a bundle. One child picked a painted pine cone, another a rock they found, and the other a bell. I picked a stone that symbolizes protection from negative energy, and my husband picked one that cleanses air and bring the sense of peace, and my aunt as we were preparing to leave the house gave us a Phoenix Rising rock. Lastly I cut a strip of paper and wrote my intentions for cultivating our home. That it would be a place of love and laughter, that it would be a safe space for all, that we would be brought closer together through conflicts, and that we would the structure of the home and the land we were living on. Then I rolled up the paper into a scroll and tied it shut, we wrapped everything up, including the found items from the home, and placed it in a hole in the foundation that was about to be reinforced and sealed up.

We spoke a few words thanking all the people that had lived in the home before us, to the universe for having brought us to this place and time, and our intentions to bring health and beauty to this place.

Now it should be noted that while this all sounds majestic or weird, our basement is no taller than 5ft, myself and my husband are tall people, and we were standing on/ sinking into a mound of earth and rock that felt as though someone had just stopped clearing the dirt out of the basement when making the cistern, and had just been left for us to now deal with almost 200 years later. With all beauty comes struggle.

So my question to you is where can you lay a foundation stone in your life? Where is it that you can bring a bit of pomp and ceremony as you rebuild something in your life? As is clear from this story it doesn’t need to be anything to dramatic, rather just some well intentions paired with a physical representation. I would love to hear about your foundations stones, as my hope is that we can be inspired by each others work and it can radiate out into the world.