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The Return of the Queen

At the beginning of July, I decided to (temporarily) return back home to Utah.
I went through some deep, emotional inner work this past June that required dealing with weeds in my garden that I didn't know were still there.
And between that and the past 365 days I’ve been in need of a more “gentle” energy.
So when my mom invited me over to help her with an art project for her home, I jumped at the prospect for a much needed road trip, packed up my dog, and immediately hit the road.
I planned on meeting up with old friends, catch up on work, maybe go on a date or two if I felt like it, and just…relax.

It felt so good to come back home—a place so comforting and familiar—and be surrounded by love.
And there’s just something so reassuring about having the Wasatch Mountains always to my east enveloping me in a big hug of protection, reassurance, and direction. With them, I will always find my way.


I had a blast visiting with a very close, old friend of mine (we’ve known each other since junior high)!

And we paid a couple of visits to The Past.

While also spending time with The Future:

And she kindly read my cards for me that ended up reaffirming the inner work and lessons I had started back in 2022 and completed this past June.

Eden and I discovered a new hiking trail and we took my mom on her very first hike!

And I was so thankful I wasn’t in Fresno at the time.

And I finally got the time to work on updating my website (it's almost done)!

screen shot showing the front page layout of my newly updated website. There are 6 different animal totems in different colours to navigate across the site. There is a large banner at the top that says, "LIONINTHETREES art and ceramics by Shirley Jackson" with two of my Barn Swallow totems flanking the text.

This trip had me seriously considering moving back to Utah—not because of the insane Fresno heat but I just feel so much better internally whenever I'm here. I love Fresno and California, but maybe returning back to Utah is something for me to consider in the far future.

This year has been wonderful, but also stressful for me as I work on being comfortable with uncertainty and the unknown. I’m usually so optimistic, but for some reason I started 2024 off with full-blown anxiety because I felt like there was no more magic left for me—everything was going to go downhill from this point on in my life and my career.
But over the past 7 months, I’ve been gladly proven wrong—there is still magic out there for me, and there's plenty more coming my way.

My spirit feels so nurtured and rejuvenated now after all of the work I've been doing in my garden.
It feels good to have my beautiful fire back.