The End of the Yellow Brick Road
OR...
When One Door Closes, Another One Opens
When you go Over the Rainbow, you find yourself on the Yellow Brick Road. It is high adventure. It is also perilous, dark in places, and beautiful beyond imagining in others, and always a Challenge. I find myself, and our little shop on the Edge of Eternity, reaching the end of that Road before long. I think I’m ready to go Beyond the Yellow Brick Road [Thank you, Elton John!].
This is my way of saying that I will be closing the Brick and Mortar [or Siding and Metal Roof] version of Over the Rainbow at the end of this year or thereabouts. I can’t believe that it is nearly October already, and while I look forward to Fall and the Holidays beyond, this entire year has challenged me, and left me wondering where it has gone. I hope you will continue to Shop, not just at Over the Rainbow, but to support our Small Businesses in Fort Davis, and in Alpine and Marfa as well. It has been a tough year for so many of us in this area [and in a larger sense as well]. A number of local businesses have already closed, and I believe that there will likely be a good number more before too very long if something does not change.
While it may not help me, our local citizens and neighbors can help Change this trend by spending your dollars with small, independent businesses rather than corporate concerns when you can. Supporting the Local Economy benefits us all. That’s my Soapbox stand for today. I will talk a little about my Shop’s and my own Past, Present and Future for Now. However, I am reopening my Etsy Shop and keeping my Website for the foreseeable future. So, if you follow me and read my blog, you will continue to find me on that Soapbox where Ecology [Earth Healing], Organic, Permaculture and Regenerative agricultural practices [also Earth Healing] and supporting the Local Economy [People and Community Healing] are concerned. I am not done. It is merely time to redirect my energies into different channels.
Life is an Evolution & Progression
Even though I have loved this small store, I have always found Life to be a progression, a succession of opportunities to both grow and to reinvent Self. I tend to think of it as having lived Lifetimes within the Bookends of this particular incarnation. Or, like the Moon, I am subject to Phases. In my early years, it was as a hippie, activist, adventurer and a bit of a gypsy. I started my family, along with a small farm homestead, with copies of Mother Earth and Organic Gardening Magazine stacked on my shelves. I leaned about herb and vegetable gardening, established an orchard, helped build fences and barns, made hay while the sun shined and had to slog through the snow to check on the sheep in the dead of winter when they chose to have their lambs.
In my next life I managed small retail shops for a while, then went on to both manage and work at my Dad’s Lawn and Landscape Business. I’ve worked for vending machine companies, done advertising and product assembly, designed websites, owned a Bead Shop, taught Jewelry-Making and Polymer Clay classes, raised kids, been a PTA mom and a million more things it seems. And through it all I have pursued a Spiritual Path that has proved to be the one binding, the part of Life that has cohesion and Keeps me moving forward always.
I feel, in a lot of ways that I am coming Full Circle with the close of this roller coaster of a year. I feel in my heart that this world is in chaos, and that perhaps a simpler approach to life is needed. While I don’t see myself eliminating screen-time completely [website, social, etc.] I do want to spend more time in the slowly emerging garden I am working on. I have always loved growing things, and cultivating your own garden, putting food on your table and others, is a wonderful sort of therapy all on its own. I want to get back to my herbal practices as well, and to preserve and use the things I grow.
I will need to find a way to produce some income as well, something that sadly is just not happening at the store. I have decided to look at this as an opportunity. I am going to turn the page and begin a new chapter.
For Now, Over the Rainbow is open Thursday through Monday from 10 am to 5 pm [10 to 4 on Sundays] and we are fully stocked with all manner of gifts, vintage and used clothing, crystals, cards. cacao, tea and herbs, artisan soaps, bath bombs, jewelry and so much more. Halloween is coming, and I’ve started putting Seasonal Merchandise out. I have lots of vintage and more coming every week almost, and I will have both New and Vintage Christmas Decorations again this year. Come visit and come shop. I look forward to it.
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