About a week ago I hosted my fourth Seasonal Mama Dinner in Minneapolis.

There were some girl crushes there, some new friends, some old friends, some delicious food but when it comes down to it, there were 15 beautiful women who surrounded me with honesty, vulnerability and so much insane love.

The dinners are such a special experience and something that I feel are so needed. What happens in person at a table like that doesn’t just happen anywhere. Being given the honour to set the tone, create the energy and hold space is something I feel so thankful for. I am so proud of my brave self for following my heart to continuing to show up for women each season.

I felt such a calling after that dinner to turn inward. I don’t know whether or not it was the shift in weather from Fall to full on Winter here or the fact that I was just depleted. I had so much of myself calling me to “ride” on the waves of the dinner – social media, the blog, new connections. But I just couldn’t. I didn’t have the energy to ride on anything, I felt so much connection that Saturday night but by Sunday I was void of it within my own home. So wanting to just retreat and think and if I’m being honest, be mostly alone.

Carrie Visintainer, author of Wild Mama came to my house with her husband the night before the dinner. It was a dream come true – a manifested dream come true. I don’t want you to think that somehow I just lucked out with this experience. I called it in, really really hard. I reached out to Carrie to tell her how I felt about her writing after I finished Wild Mama 5 months postpartum with Agatha. I shared that her story helped me realize my own story. That of course it was different as we all are, but that her words genuinely gave me room to realize I was going to be okay. Over time we kept up our correspondence knowing that when the time was right we would some how meet in person.

I reached out at the end of the Summer on a whim. I woke up one morning and thought – why not? What is the worst thing that can happen? She won’t write back. She’ll say no thank you. She’ll have other commitments. I can handle all of those things. The message back went something like this “that sounds great, let me talk to Chris.” I was floored. Later when we set up a time to speak on the phone she suggested we meet up before the dinner to connect. I put out our weekly family date of Friday night pizza night including home made pizza, wine, salad and a candle lit table. It was everything I had hoped for and more. She is truly such a gem of a human – emitting her own very bright light and jiving with her husband with this almost invisible thread connecting the two of them in this totally natural back and forth give and take. I felt so honoured to feel it. She spoke about how in the season of life she’s in, she is able to take time once a week when she needs it to drive to their off grid yurt and write alone. That because of the age of her kids and the epic partnership she shares with Chris she can go to fill herself up and slow down in a safe space. It was so incredible to hear this because I think it allowed me to sink even deeper into the season I am in. To allow myself to be surrounded by the swirling (and exhausting) energy of my 6 month old and my 3 year old. It’s a lot. And a lot needs moments of slow and quiet for every party involved.

On Saturday after putting Birdie down for a nap and getting Agatha into rest time, Jeff and I crawled into bed for a team rest – something we haven’t done in way too long. I spoke about what this ‘quiet time’ looks like around here a couple of weeks ago on Instagram and have been meaning to write about it since. Anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours we guide Aggie into her room and do a simple set of breathing exercises. Named after animals, we have bear breath and snake breath and then the more traditional belly breath. We have a list of stretches that we do – touching our toes, reaching for the sky, pelvic tilts or simply swaying our arms. We turn on her CD player and she chooses which music or book CD she’d like to hear. I leave a little grouping of toys (cars, blocks, little animals etc) for her to play with when she’s done with the books. She can fully embrace the space as her own. It’s a world of make believe, sometimes of frustration, sometimes of slowness but ultimately it’s a place of regaining energy.

At some point in the last month I was finding myself using that time to ‘do’. To drink a coffee, to clean, to write emails, whatever it was, I would end up feeling more frazzled and not really able to dive into the rest of the day with the girls. I realized that if we were encouraging her to take time to slow down each day that we should start to do the same. It has been the best 20 -45 minutes of my day. A simple moment for me to regain my own strength and be able to embrace the afternoon. That doesn’t mean that it still isn’t a struggle most days, but what it does is give me is an extra boost in a way that coffee might make me jittery.

When Agatha and I were walking back from the farmers market yesterday morning she decided she wanted to walk like a penguin – full on feet splayed out waddle the entire way home. As you can imagine it was a slow pace, and a lot of fun. When we got to the crosswalk there were cars on either side of us waiting to continue on their merry way – Agatha took her sweet time waddling across the street placing one foot methodically beside the other genuinely conjuring up the image of a tiny penguin finding its feet. I found myself wanting to rush her across the street so the rest of the world could continue rushing.

I stopped myself.

Why force the end of this happy moment if she was okay with her pace. Hopefully it would put a smile on peoples faces but quite honestly it might turn them bright red with anger because of the slow nature of the walk. Either way, I felt such a need to be in that moment. To totally embrace the way in which she was moving on purpose, not rushing her but instead asking her questions like “where are you headed mr.penguin?”.

The need for slow is everywhere. It’s in the habits our kids start, it’s in the rush of a meal, in forcing everyone to make plans and do more. I think right now you can see it most obviously as the weather shifts outside. I feel it so deeply as a call for slowness. The natural world calling me like that wild winter wind saying take your time, turn inward, take space. It’s like this little natural earthly reminder that just like all the flowers and trees and animals need to go underground for a bit, so do we.

All insane photography in this post by Jennifer at Sage E Imagery