about soilmadesimple goods
slow down with mehere you’ll find a space rooted in slower living, circular practices and the belief that what surrounds us matters.
i’m heather, nice to meet you. i founded soilmadesimple goods with hope that we can give new life to old things, build intention with how we fill and use our home and revive a slower way of living that brings us closer to the earth and ourselves.
now you may be thinking, this is a shop right?
yes. but, it’s also a little more than that.
it’s a place to discover things with history, choose what comes into your home with intention, and connect with the people and stories around them. eventually, the hope is for it to be a physical space for gathering, learning, sharing and finding new ways to live a little more slowly (together).
how I got herefor a long time, my work and curiosity have lived at the intersection of sustainability, wellbeing and the way we move through the world.
my first career was in sustainability, and dang did I get to invest in some great projects aimed at alleviating the density our human footprint can tend to have.
i've spent time exploring how our choices affect the planet, and how our environments, habits, and everyday experiences affect us in return.
for personal health reasons, I decided to learn more about integrative health. that eventually led me into work centered around nervous system health—educating others in stress management, regulation and the ways our surroundings can shape how we feel.
the more I learned in each spectrum, the harder it became to see these things as separate.
because how we consume and how we feel are deeply connected.
what we bring into our homes. how much we consume. how a space feels when we walk into it. whether the things around us are useful, beautiful, meaningful, or simply more noise. if our household echos the sentiments of nature, or keeps us further apart.
and that brought me to a question i keep coming back to:
can we engage in everyday life—shopping, gathering, living—without overwhelming our nervous systems or the planet?
how can we?
there are lots of ways to slow down the hustle bustle of life - the constant movement from one thing to the next, until before we know it, we’re feeling overwhelmed and misaligned.
I don’t think the only way is by opting out of consumption entirely. we can become more thoughtful about what we choose, what we keep, what we pass along, and what we make space for in our lives. (we don’t have to deprive ourselves of beauty in the objective manner to feel closer to the earth).
that applies to both our outer and inner worlds: the things we bring into our homes, the spaces we create around us, and the things we carry within us - our beliefs, our attention and our capacity to be present.
the things we surround ourselves with can be more than things. they can be useful, beautiful, storied, and made to last. they can remind us of where we've been, connect us to someone who made them, or simply make an everyday ritual a little more enjoyable.
that's part of why I love running soilmadesimple goods. choosing something that already exists gives it another chapter, keeps it in circulation, and asks us to look a little differently at what we already have.
and when something new is made, i want to know that it was made with intention, too—to be useful, well-made, and worth keeping around for generations to come.
I keep having this discussion about less being more. if I can just purge all I own, life will be more simple. and what i’ve come to find is that it isn’t so binary.
for me, it isn’t about hyper minimalism.
it is less about having less. and more about choosing with intention and awareness.
more than a shop
i believe the things we bring into our homes are only part of the story.
i'm interested in what happens around them, too— people gathering, sharing stories, learning from one another, and finding ways to invest in the places we call home. especially the biggest home, our planet.
soilmadesimple goods is growing toward that kind of space: somewhere to shop, yes, but also somewhere to connect, learn, gather and slow down together.
more to come.
warmly,
heather
for now, you'll find us at markets, pop-ups, and online showcasing beautiful things - and building community one connection at a time.
someday, i hope goods co. has a home of its own: a physical space for objects, gathering, learning, and a slower way of being together.
we're just getting started.