FALL FALL FALL

The weather in California might act otherwise (but then again it’s California, land of 63 degree winters, so we’ll nod at the sun and keep going), and the Autumn Equinox is still about 2 weeks away, but Fall is here, or more technically, Fall is near – but that nearness is very very very close. There’s a crispness in the air, there’s occasion to use the word ‘brisk’ when describing the weather, and things are all aswirl and changing. It’s Autumn!

Fall means harvest time. Sometimes this means literal harvest time, like having to deal with the bumper crop of pumpkins your backyard garden has generated (ideas: pie, pie, pumpkin risotto, more pie, pumpkin bread, jack-o-lanterns in October, cheerful porch tableaux until then…and, pie!), or taking a drive to the country and picking apples (for those of you in the Midwest and the Northeast, please please get on a hay ride, drink some fresh hot cider, and get an extra bag or two of crisp apples and think of your friends on the West Coast who will certainly get to enjoy Autumnal things and even possibly apple-pick…but it’s not the same, though we’re not complaining). Sometimes this means relationship-type harvests, where you take stock of who you’ve seen and who you wish you had (and make plans to remedy and augment the latter), where you bask in your recent time with friends and family over the summer, revel in the golden glow of your lake and beach memories, then get to planning inside activities with them in the coming cooler months. Sometimes this means emotional harvesting – where you realize how much certain people mean to you, and how much you’ve grown both with and because of them. Sometimes this means helping others, particularly our children, harvest their summer experiences and turn them into transformative fuel for the upcoming school year -- we’re helping our kids go back to school, or start kindergarten (they grow up quickly!) or for some of us, sending our now-technically-legal-adults off to college. Fall is a time of wrapping up, both literally and figuratively. We wrap ourselves in soft scarves, lightweight coats, and sturdy boots so that we might embrace adventures outside and feel crisp and collected. We tuck notes in our children’s pockets, or sometimes our darlings, or sometimes ourselves (and sometimes, all of the former). We might wrap up our summertime, hang our last round of outdoor laundry (as if to catch the last bit of a certain kind of summer sunshine on a certain set of sheets), set off for one or several more weekend getaways (maybe to Big Sur, maybe to a cabin in Yosemite, maybe to our parents’ place at the lake, or a tiny house in the Pocanos…), but just before or after we do any or all of that, we’ll pause for an unintended but deeply felt second and be grateful.

After all, Fall is a time for thanksgiving (as in the giving of thanks and appreciation to those who make our lives better all the time, as well as Thanksgiving proper). Though we’re more than excited to think about gathering with loved ones in November, we at Waxing Poetic are going to advocate for giving additional thanks to our beloved ones this fall, beyond the holiday and just because. And, as we make jewelry and giftware that largely revolves around the spirit of appreciation and gratitude, we have some suggestions (just a few).

Whatever you do this Autumn, do it with your whole heart and an open spirit – and welcome the changes, however they occur. You are brighter and braver and more knowing and hopeful and capable of love and wonderment than you ever let yourself acknowledge, but we do. We believe in you. xoxoxo

Solar Eclipse

THE GATHERED UNIVERSE

There’s an Oscar Wilde quote that probably everyone reading this has (or will) come across in their lives at one point – sometimes stencil-painted onto a sidewalk, sometimes part of a mural, sometimes in a fragment of overheard song, sometimes when you’re trying to find a quote regarding stars and google presents you with 300 options but this one will always cap the list, sometimes something inked on the arm of the youthful barrista making your latte just so (and you might feel even a bit invasive having noticed and read the text, even if it’s out in plain view, because it’s visible but also worn by someone else), sometimes referenced in a movie, a novel, a poem, or even in its original form and context, a play. It’s a quote about stars, and longing, and depending on whose read wins, it’s a line about the yearning for connection beyond oneself.

Have you guessed it?

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking up at the stars."

At Waxing Poetic, we are well aware of our pet uses of the word “universe,” often referring to an interconnected system of love, awareness, friendship, adventure, seekers, and dreamers on varying and often overlapping courses, charts, journeys, and tracks – and we’re also aware that this definition, like the universe itself, is not fixed. Our universe expands, our friend universe shifts with regularity, our family universe a little less so, but our heart universe, the core of our being as a brand and company built with and from love…is always expanding, always changing, always welcoming other gathered pieces to come together and grow.

Autumn is upon us soon. If you drive out into the Arizona desert (or Mojave, or Joshua Tree, or somewhere in Nevada, or hop on the 10 freeway and head east for awhile) and look up, or drive up a mountain, or head into California’s beautiful interior – anywhere you can go where you can ensure a little less artificial light pollution --even without a telescope, you will see something new and unfamiliar and it will become a friend in the sky. And if you don’t stargaze this way, we advise you to look at each other with a little more inquiry, a little more openness, a little more willingness to see the starry bits in side one another and… your winter, your soul, your friendship circle, and your heart universe will be bigger and more gathered and more grateful for it.

We are not all in the gutter, but this does not mean that we are not able to look up, or out, or into the eyes and hearts of the people we love or are going to love or know more – and see some stars.

Gaze onward, upward, and everward, darlings. Stars are everywhere, and we are all part of a gathering, gathered universe.

Welcoming the Wild: A Sister Story

In celebration of Sister's Day this August 6th, here are my thoughts.

To be able to work with my sister Lizanne has been one of the most meaningful journeys of my life, and (as you can imagine) so different than my other work relationships.  She is, after all, out of everyone whom I am fortunate enough to collaborate with, the one who intimately knows me. We are sisters and co-workers. But the b-story (a.k.a., perhaps the better story) is the remembrance of how we played as kids and of our magical moments - and our foibles - as sisters and friends through the years.

As sisters who collaborate, we play well in the sandbox with others.  Evolving through this amazing work that we love to do, we find ourselves constantly interjecting the notion that even though we are not who we once were, we still have that child inside of us.  We remember who we were, but we don’t bind each other to our past.  What an extraordinary gift (as the alternate would be so stifling)!  We are binary stars, made of the same material, brought up in the same house, but each on our own path… able to see each other grow and change, and playing that most important role as sister to each other.My sister knows that I almost impulsively wander to create… and that to do my job well, I need to return again and again to this place that might seem up there, out there, or over there. It may be a place I need to go by myself, but she knows that it is right where I need to be, and she creates space for this.  And in building this Poetic experience together with Lizanne, her binary position in my life continues to prop me up and keep me on course, in a magnetic connection, almost instinctively, as only a sister can do.

There is a poem by Mary Oliver, called “Green, Green is My Sister’s House” that I just love and thought appropriate to share with Lizanne, and you all on this day when we honor our sisters.  The metaphor of the tree being my sister is so potent for me… receiving that beckoning call, that “clap,” and that welcome to the place where my creativity, my curiosity is nurtured.  Heading out on that limb. Where I return to my wild self, my truth, my purpose.

So thank you Sis; thank you for naturally challenging me, leading me, and understanding that side of me that needs to go up the tree, up in the air, so I can return to myself.  I love you very much, and wish all of us who have sisters much love today (and to remind us, that if don’t have one, to look to the trees).

With Spirit and Love,  Patti

“Green, Green is My Sister’s House” by Mary Oliver

Don’t you dare climb that tree
or even try, they said, or you will be
sent way to the hospital of the
very foolish, if not the other one.
And I suppose, considering my age,
it was fair advice.

But the tree is a sister to me, she
lives alone in a green cottage
high in the air and I know what
would happen, she’d clap her green hands,
she’d shake her green hair, she’d
welcome me.  Truly.

I try to be good but sometimes
a person just has to break out and
act like the wild and springy thing
one used to be.  It’s impossible not
to remember wild and not want to go back.  So

if someday you can’t find me you might
look into that tree or—of course
it’s possible—under it.

– Mary Oliver, “Green, Green is My Sister’s House,” from A Thousand Mornings (Penguin Press, 2012) 

SUMMERTIME, Waxing Poetic style

We’re very fortunate, being based in California, to live in a land of [almost] Eternal Summer, but despite our nearly year-round golden weather and adventure-beckoning landscape, the advent of actual Summer itself still feels as magical to our transplanted hearts as it did growing up in a place with a proper seasonal quartet – maybe even more so, because we understand Summer both with and beyond our childhood associations. Summer is more than magical, it’s a kind of magic itself, and we’re positively crackling with excitement for its arrival.

Summer smells differently than the rest of the year. It tastes differently. It looks different. Our shadows are different colors – yes, actual colors, if you look down at your own some almost evening, you might notice how it’s, almost bluish purple in the waning light on a sunset sidewalk, or how in June-August, the light can transform a parking lot or our own backyards into a place of glittering anticipation. Summer physically feels different – it’s warmer, frequently wetter (especially if we’re at the beach or the lake or the river or even sitting poolside), and wonderfully easy – as if, if we were so inclined, we could climb into a hammock with a good book and a light blanket and lounge through the days until fall (an idea which has its own delicious appeal but doesn’t allow so much for sharing the experience, so we’ll keep it but not above others). Depending on where you live, or where you visit (indeed: where are you journeying this summer, friends? Heading to a different coast, or aiming towards the heartland for a landlocked-but-rivers-and-lakes-aplenty vacation filled with fireflies and fireworks?), Summer promises an abundance of landscape options, both external and internal. Summer is a time to revel in abundance, to enjoy longer days and stone fruits and school holidays (even if it doesn’t directly apply to you at present, you can feel the glee in the air and cheer for those whose lives get official 3 month breaks…and have nostalgia for that era yourself) and barbecues and really long hikes and paddle-boarding in lagoons and laughing with old friends and trips abroad if you’re fortunate or trips within if you’re choosing the (very worthy) introspective/soul searching route – just don’t forget your journal or your sketchbook. Summer is a time for adventure.At Waxing Poetic, we believe wholeheartedly in Celebrating the Journey, whether it’s metaphoric, historic, internal, or as summer often allows, external and beyond. With Summer on the horizon, we’re looking forward to what that means for our continuing journeys (yours, ours, and everyone we love’s in between) and newly minted ones. We’re hoping for long-into-the-night dinner parties with dear friends and even longer Skype sessions with overseas or across-the-nation family, we’re hoping for good books and new favorite poems and the Instagram feed that will (quite literally) change our life for the better, we’re hoping for wonder and discovery and love so intense it almost gives you chills if it weren’t lighting you up like so many bright paper lanterns strung across your heart’s horizon…we’re hoping for these things and more, and we’re inviting them by seeking them out. This Summer, join us in our quest – there is no one adventure, there is no one journey, but there are a great deal of glorious stories and vignettes and experiences and firsts to be had and if we all are especially mindful, we can keep these things bright and blooming. Let’s all go outside. Let’s promise to at least one time this summer take advantage of our backyard, or favorite beach, or tiny balcony, and have a nighttime picnic replete with candles. Let’s learn a song. Let’s teach someone or each other something. Let’s make an inordinately big deal out of our children’s swimming lesson successes (hey: let’s be honest, some of us might do to take some refresher courses, if only for form). Let’s have dance parties. Let’s remember shared secret and milestones and give each other (friends yes! Sisters yes! Spouses sure! Children yes!) unconventional anniversary gifts (i.e. a bangle and a mermaid charm to commemorate some long ago weekend at Catalina with your childhood friend, when you both went cliff diving (if jumping off a 10 foot rock counts, which we suppose it does, when you’re 14) and lots of hugs and causes for laughter and let’s just be a little more reckless with our generosity of spirit and a little kinder and a little brighter and a little bloom-ier because…it’s a season, after all, and things will evolve along with you. So, make it wonderful.

Introducing POET, a love story

For years now, we’ve been asked to do a men’s collection, and for years we’ve hesitated – not because we didn’t want to make one, but because we wanted to make it right, we wanted to make it true. We also knew that it was going to need a good name, and this was a bit daunting.

It came down to questions of character.

In the realm of Waxing Poetic, being called a poet is the highest form of praise. Why? Because we love poets. We love noticers. We love the idea that there is both a profession and hidden-in-plain-sight sensibility sharing roughly the same name to describe people who live in the very same world as us, speak our same language, and yet, by virtue of the way they employ that language, change both it and us when they share their observations.

Poets are explorers, not always in terms of travel or terrestrial adventures, but by way of showing and telling. Poets don’t need a lot of flowery excess to convey meaning because they’ve been paying attention to the right details all along.

When we asked each other what qualities we most admire in men, we kept finding that they were the same qualities we most admired in poets – namely, the practice of paying attention, noticing details, and sharing their experience of the world using the familiar (language, symbols, characters, meaning) in slightly unfamiliar (to us) ways. All of our favorite men are poets. Why? Because they are. Because the best men, the best heroes, the best characters, the best husbands, boyfriends, grandfathers, fathers, friends, brothers, uncles, nephews, grandsons, etc are all composed of combinations and contradictions, but they all share something in common: they notice and they pay attention. By this logic, they are poets.

How does one become a poet? Use familiar tools in an unfamiliar way. Search beyond the surface. Sense the something more. Find the tells. Show and share them. It’s an old formula, often forgotten and even less articulated, but it always works. It works, we think, because it was already true to begin with. How do we make our men Poets? We don’t. Not literally. We don’t force pens or typewriters or laptops in front of them, font cued up, hand them a theme. No, not poet like that. Poet like Noticer, Poet like Hero.

Who is the most interesting character in the room? The one who is noticing. Poets are hiding in plain sight. The man with the sketchbook in the war movie? The poet in the trenches. The poet in the lab. The poet in the classroom. The poet in the boardroom. The poet out surfing. The poet teaching your children to play baseball. The poet who is just this very moment about to finish reading a crime novel, followed by a good Belgian in a bell-shaped glass and about five more minutes in that marinade (for the steaks, babe). That poet. The one who notices.We elected to give our favorite men our favorite term, and in doing so, designed a collection meant to augment their individual sensibilities with noteworthy, nuanced details: pieces designed to accent innate style versus overtly scripting it, pieces that when employed by the wearer don’t transform him into something new but instead draw concentrated attention to his existing poetic self. To that end, we are humbled and delighted to introduce our POET to the world.

Charity Sponsorship: Direct Relief

Waxing Poetic is donating a portion of all online sale proceeds for the entire summer to Direct Relief.

Benefiting Direct Relief, a highly recognized humanitarian aid organization, active in all 50 states and 70 countries, with a mission to improve the health and lives of people affected by poverty or emergencies.

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Direct Relief Makes Medical Inventories Available to Assist Texas in Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey

Direct Relief Dispatches Emergency Supplies in Flood Ravaged Communities in Midwest & South 

 Read More At Direct Relief’s Blog.

Happy Mother's Day

She Loved Everything

Every year between Valentines Day, my anniversary in March and Mother's Day in May I practically panic at the thought of finding THREE interesting new gifts within three months to celebrate my wife. It's even harder to keep it interesting when it comes to jewelry since she has never seemed drawn to anything besides Tiffany. When I discovered Waxing Poetic, I had a feeling she would like the personalized aspect of many of the choices but I completely underestimated her reaction. She loved everything, from the use of initials to symbols of our daughter to the unique touches of the bracelet and packaging. She has beamed for days since and is so proud to show it off as her own lucky charms. I have no doubt now she'll be excited to add more as the life events continue! - Ben N.At Waxing Poetic we receive so much amazing and touching feedback from our customers.  It would be impossible to share all of it and we are truly honored and humbled by you, our customers.  This month, with Mother's day right around the corner, we wanted to feature Ben N. who has given Waxing Poetic as a gift to his lovely wife on special occasions.  We sat down with him to learn more about his experience with Waxing Poetic and to share his story.

Q: How did you first hear or learn about WP?  What were you looking for when you found us?

A: I learned about WP through my dear friend Patti – and as I followed her personal story I realized she offered a great way for her jewelry to tell their own personal stories.

Q:Was there something at first stopping you from ordering WP?  If so, what?

A: I probably looked at WP for a year before buying it – I wasn’t sure how my wife would receive jewelry from a brand she hadn’t necessarily heard of (but meanwhile I was getting tired of feeling trapped by more commercial choices).

Q: Who were you thinking of when you were shopping?

A: I immediately thought of my wife – I know what matters most to her is something personal and something unique.



Q: What drew you to the piece(s) that you selected at first?  Why did you pick them?

A: My wife has always liked charms – so it was fun to choose the ones that included the most important parts of our relationship, whether intertwined initials, hearts, and initials and symbols related to our daughter and family.

Q: What does the piece signify for you?  Is it a reminder, a memory, a characteristic, feeling, etc.  Tell us about this in detail?

A: I first bought WP jewelry for my wife on our seventh anniversary when I realized more commercial options just didn’t’ feel special and that we had a lot of experiences in our time together to celebrate.  By initially choosing symbols of our marriage over time it was a great way to then add others along the way – especially as our daughter is growing.Q: What was the reaction you got when you gave WP or when people see you wearing WP?

A: I know my wife was surprised – although she wasn’t familiar with it as first, as she learned the story and recognized all the elements that were personal to her she seemed to forget about previous jewelry brands that she may have respected as brands but not necessarily valued as truly special.

Q: What do you think about the quality and design details of the piece(s) specifically?

A: The quality is top notch and I know my wife feels the detail going into each piece is incredibly thoughtful.

Q: What is the most important part of WP that you like the most?

A: It allows the wearer to tell their own story through a variety of unique, touching elements.Q: How did you feel about Jewelry before you found/own WP?   How is WP different from other Jewelry you [buy]?

A: To be honest I felt a little hamstrung by little blue boxes (which in the end didn’t feel personal or unique) and gem stones (where I didn’t always feel good about quality).  WP is definitely a more unique, personal touch when looking to buy gifts for my wife and the quality has been terrific.

Q: Would you recommend WP, who to, why?  What would you tell them?  How would you describe WP to them?

A: I recommend WP to anyone who is looking for jewelry that allows for more individuality and personal connection instead of just buying a brand.  Giving my wife her first WP bracelet and then continuing to add to it with new elements that represent what is important to us has turned out to be a much more meaningful experience than giving her less personal (and even more expensive!) items in the past.