Letter to my Readers: Welcome

 

Dear Readers,

 I’m the Desert Druid. Welcome.

This blog is a living archive of letters, lessons, and memories—written for my daughter, and for anyone who’s ever longed for a life rooted in rhythm, reverence, and wildness.

I was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, into the tangled warmth of an Italian-Polish family—where love was loud, tempers flared, and the kitchen was always full. At eighteen, I left in a storm of emotion and joined the military. Not because I had a plan, but because I needed a way out—and a way forward.

Since then, my life has been forged in fire and softened by soil. I married a military man, divorced him, and—life being what it is—married another. This time, the right one. The love of my life. Fifteen years, six deployments, and one daughter later, we’ve built something enduring. Something tested. Something true.

We began in suburbia, boxed in by manicured lawns and HOA rules. But something stirred. My husband built me a single wooden garden box, and I planted it. Food grew. Then came chickens. Then came forty meat birds, raised in quiet defiance. And then came my bees—my precious bees—hidden between a shed and a cinder block fence, humming their secret life just out of sight.

That’s when I knew: we deserved better than secrecy. We deserved a place where the things we loved could live in the open.

So we dreamed. And we built. Five acres behind Tucson Mountain Park West. A home not just for us, but for the life we were meant to live.

Here, I tend bees and soil, grief and joy, memory and ritual. I write to remember. I write to pass on. These letters are for my daughter, but they are also for you—if you’ve ever felt the ache of disconnection, the pull toward something sacred, or the quiet knowing that your life could be more aligned with the land.

You’ll find stories here about loss and renewal, about building a home with intention, about the hum of bees and the silence of winter. You’ll find teachings wrapped in memory, and moments of ceremony tucked between irrigation lines and garden beds.

This is not just a blog. It’s a field guide for becoming. A love letter to the land. A map back to rhythm.

Welcome to my bench. Welcome to the hum. Welcome to the desert druid’s way.

With Reverence, 

The Desert Druid