How we make a miracle

By simply turning up.

Hello there! And welcome to Dandelion Seeds, an illustrated newsletter in search of the magic in everyday moments.

Friends, thank you so much for your kind words on last week’s story, “It All Adds Up,” in honor of Dandelion Seeds’ second anniversary.

Over the weekend, I shared a follow-up to the story with paid subscribers — and I think it just might be one of my favorite things I’ve created yet.

It’s a hand-lettered photo essay, and it was inspired by an essay called “Routine” in David Whyte’s newest book, Consolations II. The first time I read it, I was in awe of how David had captured everything I had been trying to say in my own story; about how it felt to layer a coffee table with all the illustrations I’ve painted for Dandelion Seeds over the past two years, while also caring for two tiny humans.

I was so moved by his words, that I decided to hand-letter them over a series of my own photos — of new paintings-in-progress for Dandelion Seeds; of my days with Elena and Eva; and even a few sweet moments when my worlds came together, as Elena has started to discover her own creative rhythms.

I love how the photo essay turned out, so I wanted to share an excerpt from it with you all today — and if you’d like to read the full piece, you can find it here.

As David writes so beautifully, routine helps our work grow into “something we could not fully imagine,” and there isn’t a better way to describe what Dandelion Seeds has come to mean for me.

Thank you as always for being here, and for being part of this journey.

With love,
Candace

“Routine that carries the timeless and the exploratory, can become the central foundation of keeping a relationship alive, of writing a book, raising a family, building a house. We make a miracle out of simply turning up, at the same time to do the same good work, watching that work mature, slowly, with our daily visitations, into something we could not fully imagine, before we gave ourselves over to that daily, dedicated, repeated, miraculous act of appearance and disappearance at the waiting desk or at our well-loved familiar workbench.”

— David Whyte, Consolations II