Medicine in the Making

It’s becoming increasingly common to outsource the act of living!

Clothes made by someone else.
Food grown by someone else.
Firewood chopped by someone else.
Even adventures are now often enjoyed by someone else as we watch vicariously through a screen!

Bit by bit, we’ve started to skip over the most basic, grounding rituals of being human - the chop wood, carry water moments - as we scramble to keep our heads above the tide of our busy, beautiful lives.

It isn’t all bad. I love shopping. I love finding beautifully made things — things I’d never have the time or skill to create myself. We weren’t all made to be farmers or seamstresses. But as I explore these themes, especially in relation to having children, I’ve noticed that passive consumption is starting to outpace our natural ability to keep up, freely adapt and feel at peace. Scratch a little more beneath the surface and I believe it corrupts far more than is immediately apparent.

Now the expectation is for perfection, always. And that expectation silently stresses the body.  What we make may appear inferior, cosmetically or otherwise, to what we can buy... or maybe there's a worry we're not expert enough to have a go. Either way, our natural flow is cauterised and the willpower required to learn, practice and repeat physical and practical tasks is often extinguished before we’ve even begun.

When we only see finished products, with no real idea of how they came into being – how do we join in, create, improve and improvise designs, recipes and ideas with the raw materials we actually have at hand?

The resurgence of crafts, mending, darning, bread-making and seed saving is inspiring - but these are rarely seen and encouraged as essential life skills!

When we make something, we know the time, attention and love we poured into it. We remember the small failures and little adjustments we made along the way. Then the slightly overbaked loaf or the wonky hem is still treasured. But a missed stitch on a machine-made dress? Rejected and returned.

Standardised perfection is quietly killing our emotional connection to the precious things in our lives.

Even our taste buds have fallen asleep. We’re less willing to bite into fruit that’s underripe or taste the bitterness of a wild leaf. And how many of us are really willing to eat a wrinkled English apple come spring after it’s been stored through winter, versus the fresh, shiny ones flown in from the other side of the world?

Convenience and the pursuit of perfection are damming the abundance of what’s available, and whilst we all seem to be working harder than ever, what’s generally on offer is all a bit too sweet, soft and sticky.

As Na’vi has grown, we’ve added a handful of blends, but mostly, you’ll find the raw, elemental ingredients on our shelves. They’re there for you to mix, stir, steep, cook and experiment with. Even play with. Make your own chocolate. Mix your very own superfood blend. Make it as imperfectly perfect and unmistakably yours as possible.

All our needs shift, soften and sharpen each day. If we don’t know how to make something, how can we tweak and remedy what we have to serve us as our needs change? The magnificence of creation cannot always be reduced down to a neat little recipe that fits nicely into a monthly subscription box.

So.... challenge your taste buds, celebrate wonky fruits and herbs so bitter you’ll want to knock them back as quickly as possible – you’ll feel great afterwards! Even the shock of trying something so unusual arouses the senses and wakes us a little more.

With Love,
Jemma