As we begin another year around the sun, one thing is certain for folks in the Gather & Grow community: we want to cultivate a less stressed and more nourished life in 2025. Ultimately, we want to live well - to live simple lives connected to the land, our food and medicine, as well as our community. We want to cultivate a life full of beautiful moments that feel slow and present through the seasons. The “wellness” industry in the United States does not want you to actually be well in 2025. Rather, those big businesses’s rely heavily on you staying unwell, stressed and disconnected from the sources that truly help you thrive. We all know this, and yet it’s still hard to resist the magic bullets we are sold every year in January. Our feeds and emails are clogged with product advertisements, gym memberships, bio-hacks, and magic injectables that promise a year of skinny, happy, agelessness, and healthy.

We cannot bio-hack our way into wellness, longevity, connection, or presence. There is no magic bullet to replace nourishment from the source, nor the knowledge, skillset and discipline required to cultivate a lifestyle that is truly well.

We are over complicating our health and lifestyles here in the United States and it’s burning a hole in our pockets to no effect while also depleting us. The solution to cultivating heirloom wellness is so simple it’s almost too good to be true. Living well is not about buying a magic pill, but rather about cultivating simple heirloom skills and a lifestyle full of habits that nourish us in more ways than one.

If we look outside the United States’ scope of wellbeing, to the healthiest, least-stressed and longest-living communities in the world we have our 2025 roadmap to living well. So, as we head into 2025, why not simplify life and save some money by taking a page from the Blue Zones playbook? Join me this year in adopting some of the core habits practiced by these long-lived communities so together we can cultivate a nourishing lifestyle that roots us into wellbeing, community, and the earth.

Every piece of land holds innumerable stories. When we breathe deep and quiet our minds the language traverses into our bodies like gently moving mist. It’s delivered in a language only our bodies can speak. It is my desire for the knowing of such stories that leads me back into these misty mountains time and time again to the land that has cradled me since I was a babe.

Embarking on a journey of seasonal living has been one of the most nourishing and transformational experiences of my life. Although, it required experiencing an intense burnout and breakdown in order for me to realize how important living closer to nature was for my health and happiness.

Learn from a zero-waste flower studio how to dry flowers to create sustainable flower arrangements for the holidays or any season.

The mountains, lusciously green with patchy arrangements of snow, beckoned me. I craved wildflower lined trails and a quiet atmosphere where I could hike, eat, and relax in a small mountain village. Sundance Mountain Resort was the perfect setting for my solo slow day-venture.