Episode 37: Life's a Garden, Dig it / Cultivating Soul Food, Community, Hope, and Fun! With Stacie Vanags of Teaquila Farm

Grey Matters Now

A couple of years ago I started following a social media account Salted Spirit because I was so drawn to the beautiful images of this cool waterwoman podcasting and serving tea at the beach from my ultimate dream recording studio - a vintage Westfalia named Salted Carmela.

This beautiful salted spirit is Stacie Vanags and she was creating something way deeper and more comprehensive than just beautiful images. Her mission was to make her way around Southern California, hosting Salted Spirit podcasts, workshops and cultivating COMMUNITY for waterwomen. Her workshops focus on techniques and strategies for work/life balance, pursing passions, mindfulness and resilience.

Turns out Stacie has a background in mental health and the abbreviated version of her full time job is to help large companies develop innovative plans that prioritize the mental health of their employees.

So …everything this generous salted spirit is offering through social media, workshops, newsletters and websites is completely from her heart - pure organic passion projects. Amazing and selfless huh?!!! Well It gets even better and more fun and she is sharing even more as she takes the world along with her and her husband in an unvarnished evolution to design a happier, healthier and more sustainable life. Stacie invites the world to join them in this pursuit via the creation of Teaquila Farm.

Teaquila Farm documents their journey building an urban farm in Ventura, California as they lean into sustainable urban farming practices, gardening, composting, planting for biodiversity, raising backyard chickens, and more! More indeed… In doing this she is really really expanding her community. A community of folks that are creating foundations together rolling their sleeves up getting their hands in the dirt, getting grounded, creating healthy nourishing gardens, creating growth root to rise growth and hope for the future.

I love my garden so much - it grounds me and nurtures me and feeds me.

Through Teaquila Farm it has been super fun to connect with others that have so many seeds of wisdom and tools to share.

When we connect, even if it’s virtually, we create community gardens and right now we need grounding and a lot of community!

I love this snippet from Teaquila Farms latest newsletter: "You take a bunch of selfies with a strawberry and immediately forget about all the time, money and energy you invested to get a single strawberry, and it's aaaaaall worth it.

Life is sweet, you've officially started urban farm life.

These small victories in the garden keep us encouraged, but nature also keeps us humble.

Nature reminds us we cannot control the outcome or speed things up to meet our human timeline. There is a basket of lessons just waiting to be dished up to us over time if our hearts are open to listening. Audrey Hepburn said to plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow."

Thanks Stacie and Teaquila Farm for the hope, light and heaps of fun! Planting New Thoughts, Weeding Out the Old - GoodTherapy

www.teaquilafarm.com

IG @teaquilafarm @salted_spirit @mindandsoil www.mindandsoil.com

To learn more about gardening's mental health benefits check out Mind & Soil's guide to Mindful Gardening.

Music: Mahana by Abe Lagrimas, Jr.