The Shade We Grow

On Slow Living, Legacy & Becoming the Oak

I’m not religious. But I am deeply spiritual.

And lately, I’ve been asking myself what it really means to live a slower, simpler life — not the aesthetic kind, all linen and pottery and lemon trees — but the soul-deep, root-down kind that lets you breathe. That asks you to be here. That teaches you to listen. To drop everything and just be.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a thousand ideas circling in my mind. I’ve always been creative, always dreaming, always building something — sometimes just in my head, other times with my hands or my words or my work. But even when I knew I didn’t have to act on every idea, I still felt pulled. Like I had to keep up with the pace of my own mind. Like if I didn’t do it all, I’d be failing something or someone — maybe just the overachiever inside me.

Motherhood, for someone like me — someone all-or-nothing, someone who loves immediacy — has been the most tender and confronting mirror. Because there’s no applause. No checklist. No outcome you can measure right away. And yet, it’s the deepest and most demanding work of all. I’ve resisted that slowness in the past, I won’t lie. But something changed.

Actually — everything changed.

My fourth baby arrived recently. His birth was a lesson I didn’t know I was about to learn.

It began beautifully: a natural, peaceful labour at home, with my daughters, husband, and even our dog nearby. The birth pool, the candles, the presence — all of it felt sacred. My waters broke, and within two hours, my body told me it was time to push.

But then, something shifted.

The pain in my cervix became unbearable — the kind that shakes your bones. My midwives checked me and realised my cervix had closed rapidly. Everything spiralled. I was rushed to hospital for an emergency caesarean. My uterus was rupturing. I was trembling and shaking, and my baby was pulled from my body — unresponsive, silent.

I never heard him cry.

There were hands — too many to count — working on him while I lay there, in disbelief that this was happening. My husband left with him for special care. I stayed, being stitched up, waiting. And hours later, I finally held my son.

Oscar Valentine.

A sweet, strong, dumpling of a boy. A warrior wrapped in softness. And I am only just beginning to process what happened that day. That I didn’t see him or hold him for hours after birth. That he was on 100% oxygen, his tiny lungs not quite ready for the world. That he is here — thriving — and that I am here, changed.

For the first time in a long time, I see how much I’ve been rushing. Even when I thought I was slowing down, I was still doing. Still producing, still planning, still trying to live up to the inner rhythm I’ve been running to for most of my life.

But this birth cracked something wide open. It gave me a kind of permission to let go — of timelines, of pressure, of the idea that everything has to be done now.

I’ve closed The Ritual store for now. It’s not forever, but for as long as it needs to be. When I reopen, it will be different. Softer. Slower. I want to do things with intention, with reverence, with the deep knowing that life is not a race.

I want to create pockets of tenderness within my home. To soak up every second of this baby, because this time — this particular time — will never happen again.

Now, I let the romantic in me have her way.

I bake a tray cake in the morning and let it be breakfast, because why not? I arrange flowers just for me. I notice the glint of the sun in a puddle or the weight of a sleeping child on my chest, and I let it stop me in my tracks. These things — the small and beautiful ones — they’re not distractions from life. They are life.

Even when my marriage feels stretched — as all long loves do from time to time — I meet it with softness. I don’t expect it to be even, equal, measured out like portions. I choose my role based on what’s needed, not what’s fair. We are not the same as we were ten years ago, and yet we still want the same things. We both feel lonely sometimes, even in a full house.

But I’ve learned that even loneliness can be fertile ground. It can drive us to reach for one another more deeply, to grow new roots together. And the shade we grow — it’s not just for us. It’s for those who are still to come.

Because someone, in every generation, must choose to do things differently. Must say enough to the rushing, the patterns, the endless grind. Someone must plant with no expectation of seeing the fruit — only the faith that one day, it will bloom.

That is what I’m choosing.

To be the one who plants.

To be the one who slows down.

To create not just a business, but a life that heals.

To tend not just to the surface, but to the soil beneath it.

I want simplicity. Not trendy minimalism, not curated stillness — but true simplicity. Legacy. Beauty that lasts. I want to be like the oak, putting down deep roots, creating shade for the generations to come. The love and patience I offer today will ripple through tomorrow in ways I may never see. That is enough.

I want to be frugal. To be mindful. To tend to the tummies and hearts of those who keep mine beating.

And now I find myself asking, gently and with love:

What is needed to live slowly, forever?

What leaps are required?

What parts of me still need to soften?

What further changes want to come through?

I don’t have the answers yet. But I’m listening.