She Tends What She Loves

What I had wasn't a spa day. What I had was Bill.

Jul 28, 2026

Aphrodite asked you to turn toward yourself with kindness.

Demeter asks something quieter.

She asks you to tend.

Demeter is the Greek goddess of the harvest, of wheat and earth and the slow, patient work of growing things. She is a mother goddess, but not in the way we sometimes romanticize motherhood. She doesn’t love perfectly or effortlessly. She loves consistently. She shows up season after season, tending what she loves even when the ground is cold, and the harvest feels far away.

That’s the kind of nurturing the Seed phase is really about.

Not the spa day or the grand gesture of self-care. The daily, unglamorous, faithful showing up for yourself, and for the people who tend to you in return.

During the years I was navigating my divorce, I couldn’t afford spas or pampering. That wasn’t the version of self-nurture available to me.

What I had was Reiki, practiced every morning before I got out of bed, a daily ritual of tending to my own energy before the day could drain it. What I had was writing, not just as an emotional outlet, but as a consistent, grounding practice that gave shape to weeks that might otherwise have felt formless and lost.

And what I had was Bill.

Every Monday night, I would pick up my friend Bill. He was in his late seventies and early eighties by then, his macular degeneration having taken his ability to drive. Together we would go to the Nomad Writers Group—held at a historical library then—the writing community I founded over twenty years ago and still lead today.

The drive there and back was its own gift. Bill and I would talk the way people rarely talk anymore. Deeply, philosophically, without agenda. Sometimes about writing. Sometimes about life. About politics. Sometimes about God, though I am not particularly religious. I consider myself spiritual, and Bill met me exactly there, without judgment, without needing me to be anything other than what I was.

He had been divorced himself, in his case, twice. He understood the territory without needing it explained. He never offered unsolicited advice or easy comfort. He just showed up every Monday, patient and present, with that smile of his that made you feel like you were the most interesting person in the room.

That’s Demeter’s energy. Not the grand gesture. The faithful, weekly, unhurried presence.

Bill eventually returned to his second wife, a French woman who had come down with lung cancer. He got married for the third time—his second to her. As a veteran, he had better insurance, and so even though they had been back together for years, he made it official again. She wasn’t easy, by most accounts. She bossed him around and kept him close. But Bill was patient in the way that only certain people are. The kind of patience that comes from having lived enough to stop fighting what you cannot change.

He tended to her. That was Demeter in him.

I found out last year that Bill had passed the year before. I hadn’t known. That particular kind of grief, finding out too late, missing even the chance to say goodbye, sits differently than other losses. You reach for someone out of habit and then remember.

His non-judgmental smile is deeply missed. 🌿

Here’s what Demeter wants you to understand this week:

Nurturing isn’t always soft or beautiful. Sometimes it’s driving an old man with failing eyesight to a writing group every Monday night because you know it matters to him and it matters to you. Sometimes it’s practicing Reiki on yourself at 6 AM not because you feel inspired but because you made a promise to yourself and you’re keeping it. Sometimes it’s writing when you don’t feel like writing, showing up when you don’t feel like showing up, tending what you love even when the harvest feels impossibly far away.

Demeter doesn’t ask you to tend perfectly. She asks you to tend consistently.

This week’s invitation:

Think of one thing, one person, one practice, one small ritual, that has faithfully tended to you during your hardest seasons. It might still be in your life, or it might be something you’ve lost. Either way, honor it.

And then ask yourself: what am I faithfully tending to right now?

That answer is your seed. Plant it with care. Demeter is watching. 🌿

The Seed phase is Phase 4 of The Goddess Method—a 12-week healing journey guiding women from heartbreak to empowerment using goddess archetypes. If this resonated and you want to go deeper, join the waitlist. Your transformation is waiting.

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