Good Monday Bloomers! | March 23, 2026 Our Monday Letter: “One Chop at Time, a Grandfathers’ Lesson”

As we step into this first full week of Spring,
I find myself carrying forward the energy we spoke of on Friday…
Spring Forward, Gently, with Fire.

And yet, what has been coming through for me over the past couple of days…
is something quieter.
More grounded.
Almost… ancestral in its presence.

In my early morning journaling, I felt a deep connection to my grandfathers—their way of being, of working, of moving through life.
And as my parents now move through the season of life my grandparents once knew, and my daughters begin to understand what it means to live without theirs… I find these lessons rising in a deeper, more meaningful way than ever before.

And I found myself remembering…

I remember as a child watching both of my grandfather’s tend to their very large gardens in their backyards. It was a time when folks’ backyard gardens weren’t just hobbies, they were pieces of land nurtured with heart and soul, growing food for their families, sustaining an organic lifestyle that wasn’t stylized by popular culture, but born out of necessity and an authentic way of life.

It was real.

They didn’t learn how to be better gardeners on YouTube, or by watching TV. And yet, I may add… the “teachers” of the time were genuinely and authentically sharing learned wisdom—and those teachers were our ancestors.

Sitting at my grandparents’ dinner tables wasn’t just “dinner” …
it was vegetables from the garden, berries from the vines, homemade pasta from the kitchen.

It wasn’t effort. It was natural.

And oh, did we ever take it for granted—
not consciously… but in the unknowing of how “one chop at a time” would one day shift into the parallels of “shovel quicker, faster, easier.”

One chop at a time was how my grandfathers worked… in all things.

They were both 20th century—first and second generation, hard-working Americans—who understood that life was not to be rushed, but somehow to be done right.

I remember one day, at my very first home, my grandfather came over to help me remove an old large bush in my front yard. He was somewhere in his mid-70s at the time… and he showed up with his ax.

Not a chainsaw—lol—but his ax.

And with that, he slowly and deliberately began removing that large bush—ironically, the very one I thought needed to come down right now—one steady movement at a time. I wanted it gone fast… he showed me how to do it right.

One deliberate Chop at a Time.

He wasn’t rushing to “get it done.”
He was working with intention—
to get it done right.

Without hurting himself.
Without forcing the process.
Respecting the rhythm of time… and matter.

And as I sat with this memory… the message returned, so simply:

One chop at a time.

It landed not as instruction…
but as remembrance. Of a way of living we’ve, perhaps, moved too far away from.

A way that trusts the process.
That honors the work in front of us.
That doesn’t demand the full picture before taking the next step.

Because the truth is…

You don’t build the whole vision at once.
You build the next right step.

There is so much energy right now around movement…
around growth, expansion, stepping into what’s next.

And yes… that energy is real.

But what if this season isn’t asking us to rush toward it?

What if it’s asking us to tend to it?

To return to the basics. To what is in front of us. To the quiet, often unseen work that creates something lasting.

I’ve noticed how easy it is to slip into the old patterns,
the need to do more, faster…
to figure it all out…
to hold the entire vision at once.

And yet, each time I come back to this message…

There is a softening. A steadiness. A quiet knowing that I don’t have to carry it all today.

Maybe you’ve felt that too.

The pull between expansion and overwhelm.
Between possibility and pressure.

If so, let this be your reminder this week: You are not meant to do it all at once. You are meant to be with what is yours to do… right now.

Like tending a garden…

We don’t rush the bloom.
We don’t dig up the seed to check if it’s growing.

We water.
We tend.
We trust what is happening beneath the surface.

So today, instead of asking…“How do I get everything done?” Gently ask: “What is my next right step?”…and then meet it with presence.

One chop at a time. One step at a time. One breath at a time.

With love, and in the quiet strength of steady becoming…

Christine 🌸

Part of the Journey to Bloom weekly series: Monday Letters, Wednesday Wellness Reflections, and Friday’s gentle unfolding into the light.