New Website. New Everything.

Gather round for the grand reveal! I’m so excited.

Big reveal day today! My new website is live. I’m very excited about it. 

It’s not a rebrand because what I’m doing and how I’m doing it have changed. It’s not a new dressing on an established dish. It’s an entirely different meal. While I’ve been growing the ingredients for decades and cooking this up for a few years, this new form is a fresh peach, ripe and ready for the feast.  

As I wrote that last sentence, my son came in from the garden with two beautiful blueberries. These are the first blueberries harvested from plants we planted three summers ago because that’s how long they take to establish, and I think that’s the sweetest metaphor for what I’m sharing today as this spicy new moon waxes. 

Where I’m headed has come from the very intentional composting of old identities, ways of being and ways of working. This direction is forged from the revelations of digging into the question WHAT’S MINE TO DO? with unhinged earnestness and a surprising amount of creative energy. But that question is unanswerable in reflection only. I find out what’s mine to do by just going ahead and doing it. It’s time to go all in and invite you on the ride.  

This website reveal and these words telling you about it aren’t just digital assets and announcements, they’re the fruit of seeds planted for my art, becoming and contribution, reseeding as we go. They’re what I do now. 

One of the things I’m LOVING about mid-life is how much capacity I have and how much less I give a shit about fitting into norms or expectations. All that relentless inner work and professional rigour is paying off, not in that I’ve arrived at some new level of polished accomplishment, but that I now have the lived experience and confidence to know that polished accomplishments aren’t that interesting to me. Being as me as possible and offering my gifts with as much ridiculousness, irreverence and fire as I feel like is where it’s at, thank you very much. 

Quality and contribution, yes. Maturity, wisdom, and kindness, always. Connecting people and resources and building resilient communities, omfg what else is there? Immature jokes, shock humour, misdirects, unbecoming expressions that flip the bird at all the ways I was told I was supposed to be a little less much and a lot more palatable. That’s the cherry. Being a bit of a clown, especially if it invites the people around me to be a little freer, a little more them, however their expression wants to come out. That’s one way to lead. I’m here for it. You’re welcome. 

My pals, misbehaving is quite a bit of fun. 

So, please, dig in, poke all around the site, and find the little funnies I buried for you. ALSO…can you believe how many pictures of me there are on this site? Like, calm down, girl, stop being so self-obsessed. Haha. Naw, fuck off, little voice, watch me go. 

So much more to say. So much more to come. 

For now, thanks for being here. I appreciate you.

With Love,
Chela

PS: I will tell you more about my experience of working with Cristy Duce on the creation of this site another time because that’s a whole epic story that deserves its own post. But lemme just take a moment to acknowledge Cristy. Woman…you’re fire, my gratitude is bottomless and topless. Like in a tit shaking celebratory kind of way. I shall send you rambling voicenotes about what a genius you are forevermore. 

PPS: Amelia and Melissa at Wildwood, thanks for keeping my wayward shit together and for reflecting that while I may continue to try to do too much, *I* am not too much. My god. And Sarah-Jayne, thanks for being my creative ride or die for years; you make me better. 

PPPS: It takes a village to raise our genius. None of us are meant to do this alone.