Choosing Your Own Adventure
The Madness & Mayhem of Maple Syrup Season
Last week, I shared the magical and idyllic side of making maple syrup.
But there’s another reality.
When my neighbours first invited us to make maple syrup with them, I felt really lucky.
I was excited to learn something new while spending time with awesome people.
And though I noticed the flicker of exhaustion in our neighbour Stephen's eyes when he spoke of maple season… I quietly blocked it out and decided it was going to be amazing.
But here we are... 3 weeks in:
My house is totaled, and I have NO TIME to clean it.
Everything reeks of smoke.
My floors are COVERED in mud (constantly).
I can barely keep on top of feeding my family.
And there's hardly any time to eat anyway!
There are more than a few things that didn’t quite go the way I pictured.
All year, I’d been told that during maple syrup season we would all spend a lot of time walking in the woods and drinking beer by the fire. 🌳🍺🔥
My kind of paradise!
What I thought it would be like…
Being from California, I was entirely new to the process.
(Boy, was I in for a surprise!)
The reality of maple syrup includes frozen toes, heavy buckets, blisters, burns, endless mud, rain-soaked days by the fire, a never-ending parade of houseguests, whiny children, endless work, and everything being sticky!
The fires in question are not the big lovely bonfires I had pictured. 🔥 They're covered stoves, funneling all their precious heat into giant cauldrons full of sap.
Sure... sitting around a cauldron sounds idyllic, but at barely above freezing, it's not exactly “sit outside with a beer and feel cozy” weather.
And my favorite part of having a fire—staring into the red alchemy of the flames—is impossible with the closed containers!
What it’s actually like.
But not to worry... there's no time to sit anyway! 😂
🪵 Wood needs to be split constantly.
💧 Sap is added one ladle-full at a time to keep the boil going.
🪣 And the soon-to-be-syrup is constantly being strained from one container to the next.
To make one gallon of maple syrup, you have to boil down 40 gallons of sap! No wonder this stuff is so expensive!!!
As you can imagine, it takes F-O-R-E-V-E-R.
At some point you wonder... is a delicious breakfast condiment really worth all this?
Now, if you read my email last week about the magic of maple syrup, you might notice a distinctly different tone in my description of the process.
The truth is...
Both versions of the story are true.
At the same time!
It might seem like a paradox, but this process is simultaneously an ancient, magical tradition AND it’s a grueling, muddy grind.
WHAT I’M PRESENT TO in any given moment is my Choice.
When we have the space in our bodies minds and hearts to make a conscious choice, we change our reality.
The problem is that we don’t always have the space to Choose.
Automatic patterns, ingrained behavoirs, and well-carved neural connections keep us stuck in perspectives that don’t serve our highest good.
If you’re ready to flip your script…
If you’re ready to rewrite your patterns…
If you’re ready to CHOOSE YOUR LIFE…
Join the Heretics Choosing a Magical Life
Heretic Happy Hour
Friday, March 22 @ 5:30 Pacific / 8:30 Eastern.
Make the space in your mind, heart, and body to Choose the life you want to live.
Gettin’ sticky with it,
Allysha Lavino
P.S. To get access to our Heretic Happy Hour—join the magical community. Your magic is worth it.
P.P.S. Heretic means "ABLE TO CHOOSE".