2025

At the start of this year things looked a whole lot different for me.

Coming off of several life changing transitions I was very unsure about the direction in which I was headed, for really the first time in my life, at the beginning of the year.

Being the virgo planner that I’d always been didn’t elude to myself not having my eye on the prize at all times, even when some might say I flew by the seat of pants, I did, but it was always calculated flying. I was spontaneous about the things that would send me in a direction, a direction toward my goals.

At the beginning of this year though, I couldn’t see where I may end up. Much of my life’s decisions had been removed from my own hands and I had to let Spirit, Faith, and The Gods take over because my destiny was out of my control.

A frightening place to be for a very independent woman. I battled enormous amounts of stress throughout the end of 2024 and into 2025. My. Oura ring tracked it all and I began implanting every practice and discipline I could possibly muster to get at least some semblance of my sanity back.

I started writing this Substack around that time. Writing has always been cathartic for me, a way to get thoughts on paper and maybe help someone else at the same time. I began three mile loop walks around my neighborhood, often with neighbors or podcasts, and Pita in tow. I started a ‘‘Wins of 2025’’ journal for tracking my own successes because I inherently knew that I needed to congratulate myself, often. I studied up on this years’ Chinese astrology, something I’d felt called towards as of late, and realized that this year’s Serpent sign signaled a year of travel for the Hare.

I’d felt all but completely handcuffed to my farm for the tail end of 2024 after becoming the only person living on the land and being left with a young dog to care for. I knew though that it order to get myself out of the financial hole I was in, I would need to start traveling for work. I knew that prioritizing my career would become of the utmost importance for me now that I was the sole financier of the property. I knew that I had to figure out how to streamline my off-grid life for people to come and stay with Pita whilst I went off to earn the money to pay for the farm, so that I didn’t have to pay for longer term boarding. I knew I needed to prioritize learning how to keep the jungle at bay myself and upkeep my machines in order to do so, to lessen the strain of lawn maintenance costs.

This morning, I checked in on the progress of my intentions, at just over halfway through 2025, and I feel not only delighted but truly astounded, because where I sit today, looks SO MUCH better than where I sat in September of last year…

I think last year’s birthday was the bleakest birthday I’ve ever had, truly, and unfortunately. My 37th birthday was really HARD. I’d just been left by my partner of four years on the cusp of not only my own birthday but what would’ve been the due date of our first child’s birthday, and the first birthday of the dog we’d adopted together earlier that year. I was devastated of course over the relationships’ ending but also completely unsure of how everything would pan out financially, to put it lightly. I was essentially bankrupt, land-poor, with no loan options, on a four acre parcel that still needed hundreds of thousands of dollars of work that I didn’t have. I’d basically lost the equivalent of a million dollars overnight as my romantic relationship disintegrated on a whim and the promise to be paid back vanished before my eyes. I could no longer afford the land that I’d put my heart, soul, and every cash dollar I’d made into for the previous three years. $1.2 million dollars in cash in three years I’d dumped into my farm, I was extremely vulnerable and exposed in my investment.

Putting one foot slowly in front of the other was all I had the bandwidth for, for the reminder of last year. Minuscule movements to be able to inhabit the land so as to avoid hefty local rent prices and the pivot of a lifetime began. Getting myself basic necessities, like a toilet, asking for help, figuring out what I was capable of doing myself was a whole job in and of itself. What moves I had the manpower and resources to pursue, what I could take on, and turning hard toward my business to be able to get back on my feet financially.

It’s been a journey to say the least but as I reflected this morning on this years’ progress, flipping through the months of my 2025 photo album, I can say that this little rabbit is living her astrological prognosis in spades. I’ve been able to travel nearly every month of the new year.

My Encinitas hotel partnership, as stressful as it ended being with my mom’s health scare on the backend of that trip, connected me with a new business and old partner I never could’ve foreseen, and a real life dream and goal. Boulder/Denver would become a place I frequent and the perfect mountain paradise to compliment my Maui life. Sedona brought me new friends and allies, and Aspen stole my heart as I visited my soul sister and completed the hike of a lifetime. Having friends come and inhabit my farm meant giving a healthy dose of distance between myself and the land, and getting to connect with old friends as they flew in and out, plus dodge expensive boarding costs for Pete whilst giving someone a home felt energetically much more symbiotic.

More than anything else it’s been the sensation that the universe has had my back all along though that is a feeling unlike any other. A comfort in an unstable world, a hand when I really needed one, but also the pat on the back that lets me know that I’ve been a good human. That my karma is not off because I’m in the right, I’ve done good, and standing up for myself is not only right but necessary. It honestly is the best part for me because as someone who takes most things as a ‘‘sign’’ I want to know and feel my own karmic debt in this life. I want to be able to pay it forward where forward is due. I want to understand my own checks and balances and be sure that I am paid up fair and square in this lifetime.

Life is all about energy, and for me, the realizations and nuggets of wisdom I’m receiving on the daily are the encouragement I need to keep going. They are and always have been there whispering that I am only where I am because of everything that has happened to me in my life, both the ‘‘good’’ and the ‘‘bad’’, and I am exactly where I’m meant to be, so pick up those boot straps baby, the universe always has had your back.🙌🏼

With Love Always,

Hannah