I write to you on the cusp of spring as the equinox slowly whispers her way into our hearts, thawing out what has felt to be a slow and methodical start to 2023. I write to you today, my 37th birthday, with a budding sense of humility that is being unearthed inside of me — an awareness that life is not about progress over perfection or possibly even about progress at all. But rather, that life, or what I hope I am brave enough to make of it, is simply about process. Being in and with the process of aliveness that is constantly unfolding right in front of us.
A few months ago, I came across a quote by author and poet Maya Angelou that shook me to my core:
As I enter the next year of my life and continue to feel called forth to grow up, I feel a responsibility to be in harmony with the process of living. For me, that means humbling myself to the wisdom of each chapter whether it softens my heart, broadens my perspective, or drops me to my knees until I am made anew. Now, I want to tell you about the current chapter that I am in, but I also don’t want to bury the lead: Allie Stark Wellness has a new website!
There’s this part of me that wants to jump up and down in celebration that the seemingly endless act of rebranding my business is over, but that’s not actually what’s going on inside. Don’t get me wrong, I am proud as hell for how the design looks, the copy reads, and the site feels. It’s an accomplishment. I am able to take that in and in many ways, it feels representative of me and who I am. And yet, 18 months after beginning this project, I am already in a new process. Life has yet again swept me into the sacred space that exists between death and rebirth — that moment (or often a suspended reality) that tends to live for longer than desired.
In legendary music producer Rick Rubin’s new book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being, he writes:
I am no longer the woman who once started this site. I am growing out of certain ways of working and certain services that I have provided and growing up into what’s next — but it’s not here quite yet. So, what I vulnerably share with you, is me in a patient process with the enoughness of what is, right now.
Writer Louise Erdrich says,
As I reflect on my last year, my eyes well with gratitude for all the nectar in my life. My loving family. My Buddha-like fiancé (cat's out of the bag, I'm getting married in August!). My overwhelmingly brilliant friends. My powerful team and my wise clients. The changing of the seasons. The constant opportunities for reflection, curiosity, and growth. The sweetness that can be found in the laughter, the tears, and in everything in between.
I invite you to have a look around my work-in-process and if we haven't connected in awhile . . .
