My Journey to Slow

A virtual wave 👋🏼 from the farm - come say hello!

Welcome to Slow Folk - a community for gentle hearts and rebellious creatives, thirsty for a slower life in a world obsessed with speed.

These are my notes and reflections from over a decade of life in the Slow Lane. If you’re ready to push back against busy to build a life of purpose and presence-over-perfection - please join me.

Welcome to the Unbusy Revolution.

Morning everyone,

I realized, sitting here with my coffee this morning, that there are now over 400 of you out there in the ether now and I haven’t even really properly introduced myself.

More importantly than my saying hi, I’d love to get to know YOU. Consider this my virtual welcome to the neighbourhood offer of banana bread and tea.

Please introduce yourself in the comments and if you’re a writer - leave us a link!

Here goes.

Heya! I’m Stacey.

I’m a mother of two - 12 and 10, a writer, a business-owner and mentor, a sometimes-painter and a renegade farmer.

Aside from those labels, what I am, mostly, is an imperfect human being seeking to drink in as much life while I’m here. To be present. To live a wholehearted, brave, great-big-juicy life.

I grew up on the deliciously wild west coast of Canada, on Vancouver Island. My childhood was full of foggy mornings and tide pools and spotting whales from the shore. The ocean and the rainforest will always feel like home.

I hold a BFA in Visual Art and English where I studied Printmaking and Contemporary Canadian Lit. I’ve been a Certified Master Organic Gardener since 2008.

I play the piano, guitar and accordion. My passions include live music, heirloom tomatoes (I grow over 25 varieties every year) and lifting heavy things. I pick up a new skill every year - this year has been learning to properly swim - at 41!

I now live and work on a historic five-acre farm in the Fraser Valley, about an hour outside of Vancouver, BC where I own a small shop, coach slow entrepreneurs and creatives, and cultivate good food, community and joyful rebellion.

My journey to Slow began with a good, old-fashioned ugly-cry. In public.

It was a beautiful early spring afternoon in downtown Vancouver, Canada, just after the 2010 Winter Olympics left town.

my old life was rooted smack dab in the centre of this scene

I found myself on that clear blue day, on my lunch break, standing in the middle of Robson Street - absolutely sobbing my guts out.

I was 28 and I was a ‘success’.

I’d graduated with my Bachelors Degree at just 21 with no student debt. I had an important, purposeful career in Human Rights. I had an envied office with a sweeping view of the city and the mountains beyond.

I was about to get married to the love of my life. We’d just bought our first house a little over a year before. (If you know Vancouver real estate - you know this is nothing short of a miracle at any age, never mind 26.)

In short - I had done everything ‘right’, everything I was ‘supposed’ to do.

And I was miserable.