My Feldencrais practitioner told me that the human nervous system is organized around two bipolar processes at birth: Pushing and being pulled; and latching onto the nipple and letting go. He said the most difficult action is letting go.
Letting go of Harms Lavender business has been a saddening process. We have received wonderful e-mails from you, our loyal customers, you whom we have met through e-mails, at open houses, through packing your orders. Some of you are our neighbors.
We do want to explain some of the timing of our decision. The biodynamic certifier in United States, Demeter USA, lost its organic certifying arm, Stellar Certification Services, this fall. This meant that we would need two certifiers if we continued both Biodynamic and organic certification, and it meant a major expense of reprinting labels.
We are growing older, and the ranch is a lot of work. As we downsize, we are deciding what we will do in the future and what we won’t. This certification fiasco was the final straw!
So this may be a pause— a sorbet course, of sorts, a clearing our palate. We will keep your e-mails and inform of any future plans. We may expand the kinds of aromatics and medicinal plants we grow and focus on distillation. Distillation is an alchemical process that changes everyone involved— moves us all down to our essences, which is why it’s so healing. The process is addictive!
So although we are letting go of the business part, at least for now, we are still growing aromatics and we are still distilling. We continue biodynamic practices, which include organic and go beyond. We will wait and see what happens next. To quote Phil Schiller (Apple senior vice president), “There’s a little bit of pain in every transition, but we can’t let that stop us from making it. If we did, we’d never make any progress at all.”