A Letter on Devotion, Weariness, and the Quiet Mercy of Letting Go

My dearest Mermaid Darlings,

and you, my cherished Stillwater Petticoat Society,

I wish to speak today of something tender, and I ask your patience, for this is not a matter that yields to haste.

I have noticed, as perhaps you have too, the many beautiful images that drift across our screens: bread rising, children barefoot in fields, milk poured warm from the pail, homes ordered by prayer and promise. Often, these scenes are accompanied by declarations of devotion — words of service, faith, and holy intention.

There is nothing inherently unlovely in this.

And yet.

There are truths one may only speak after she has lived long enough inside them.

I was raised in religion. First Pentecostal, then Mormon, for many decades of my life. I knew the hymns by heart. I knew the rules by memory. I knew how to perform goodness, obedience, cheerfulness, and sacrifice until my body could no longer distinguish devotion from erasure.

And I say this with care, not accusation; the cost was very high. 

I do not speak of belief itself, but of the weight placed upon women in its name. Of the quiet expectation to endure endlessly. Of the sanctification of exhaustion. Of the way suffering is so often mistaken for virtue.

There were seasons when I smiled and served while something vital inside me slowly disappeared. There were years when the promise of goodness required me to deny my own knowing. There was a time — and I say this plainly, because it matters — when I was suicidal, not because I lacked faith, but because I had been taught to abandon myself in order to keep it.

I know now that many women live this way sincerely. Lovingly. With their whole hearts. I also know that sincerity does not prevent harm.

It is difficult to name this without sounding unkind, and so I will be precise:

I have often found that those who spoke most loudly of love and godliness were, paradoxically, the most severe with other women — and with themselves. Judgment was cloaked as concern. Control dressed itself as care. Cruelty slipped through in the name of righteousness.

This is not a universal truth. It is not a condemnation.

It is an observation born of long intimacy.

And here is where I wish to be especially gentle — with them, and with myself.

I understand now that this, too, is a belief system at work. A structure that promises safety through order. Meaning through sacrifice. Belonging through sameness. When one has given her life to such a system, questioning it can feel like death itself.

So I no longer meet it with anger.

I meet it with distance.

And with compassion.

I am still unlearning the reflex that says holiness must hurt. I am still releasing the belief that goodness requires disappearance. These ideas linger like old songs — softer now, but not entirely gone. A pinch, as one might say. And that is all right.

Healing does not require haste.

What I know, with quiet certainty, is this:
love that requires you to leave yourself is not love.
devotion that demands your silence is not sacred.
and a God who asks for your erasure is not one I recognise anymore.

I now believe in a gentler order. One that allows rest. One that honours discernment. One that permits a woman to belong to herself first.

If you recognise yourself anywhere in these words — if you feel a tightening, or a softening, or a long exhale — know that you are not alone, and you are not wrong for noticing.

There is a way of living that does not require performance.
There is a faith that does not demand exhaustion.
There is a holiness in being alive.
I write this not to persuade, but to make room.

A Benediction for the Tenderhearted

May you be released from the belief that love must wound in order to be real.

May you lay down every burden that was never yours to carry.

May you learn, slowly and without reproach, that rest is not rebellion, and that gentleness is not a failure of faith.

May you trust the quiet knowing in your own body.

May you recognise the voice of goodness when it speaks without fear.

May your life become a sanctuary rather than a proving ground.

And if you are still unlearning — if a pinch of old fear yet lingers — may you treat yourself with the same mercy you so freely offer others.

Go softly.
You are allowed to belong to yourself.

With tenderness and a heart still learning mercy,

Lady Raquel 

On Loving What We Cannot Save

My dear mermaid darlings,

There is a little feral cat who has lived on my land since she was born. She has always been small, constantly unwell in one way or another, invariably just a little behind the others. I had her spayed when I could, I make warm places for her when the cold arrives, I leave food and water each day, and still—she seems to improve only to slip back again.

Lately, she has begun sleeping in one of the beds I made when the temperatures dropped. I noticed her there one morning and felt both relief and sorrow at once. Relief that she had chosen warmth. Sorrow that I could not do more.

I cannot touch her. I cannot carry her inside. I cannot explain to her that I am trying.

And that is the part that aches.

There are moments when care meets a boundary, and no amount of love can push past it. I think many of us know this feeling, though we don’t often speak of it. We are taught, quietly and persistently, that love should fix, heal, rescue, and resolve. When it does not, we assume we have failed.

But I am beginning to understand something different.

Some beings—animal or human—can only receive help up to a certain threshold. Beyond that, they retreat, not out of stubbornness, but out of capacity. Their nervous systems, their bodies, their histories will not allow more. To push past that limit is not kindness. It is control dressed as care.

I have learned that tending does not always lead to recovery. Sometimes it leads only to less suffering. And that, too, matters.

This little cat may never thrive, she may ever be fragile, and she may always remain on the edge of things. Still, her life is gentler than it would have been without warmth, food, shelter, and a quiet regard. That is something real, not nothing.

There is a humility required here, one I am still learning. It is the humility of walking beside rather than carrying, of offering without insisting, of loving without possession. It asks us to loosen our grip on outcomes and attend instead to presence.

I find myself thinking that mercy is not always dramatic. Often it looks like a bed placed out of the wind. A bowl filled again. A watchful eye. A heart that does not turn away simply because it cannot finish the journey for another.

We live in a world that praises saving. We speak far less of accompanying. And yet accompaniment may be the truer kindness.

If I am learning anything through her, it is this: I am allowed to love without being able to save. I am allowed to tend without being in charge of how the story ends. I am allowed to offer care that stops where consent and capacity begin.

That feels important. It feels honest. And, in its own quiet way, it feels complete.

So tonight, I leave the bed where it is. I fill the bowls again. I notice her resting, breathing, warm enough for now. And I let that be sufficient.

Sometimes, love does not carry us all the way across.

Sometimes, it simply walks with us as far as we are able to go.

Most affably yours till my next enchanting swim, LR

When Place Speaks First

My dearest Mermaid Darlings, and cherished members of The Stillwater Petticoat Society,

There are seasons when a woman feels no urge to hurry, explain, or prove.

She knows when a thing must wait for its proper hour.

I have found myself often asked — gently, curiously — why I place such importance upon where I gather, and why I am content to wait for the proper setting before I open my doors.

I shall answer you as one answers a trusted friend.

I have never believed that meaningful work arrives alone. It brings its surroundings with it — its light, its tempo, its manners. A gathering does not begin with the first guest; it commences the moment one steps into a place that knows how to receive them.

A place, you see, speaks first.

Long before anyone spoke of leadership, branding, or mission, women understood this instinctively. They chose rooms that softened the voice, gardens that had learned patience and houses that knew how to hold a conversation without interrupting it.

Such places required no instruction. They taught by presence alone.

I have always held — perhaps unfashionably — that beauty is not indulgence. It is a responsibility made visible. A well-kept environment does not impress; it reassures. It says quietly, you may rest here, you may think clearly here, you may be held without performance.

When the work concerns preservation, memory, continuity, and care — when it asks people to slow, to notice, to remember that they belong to something longer than themselves — then the environment must already be doing that work on our behalf.

I do not possess a talent for persuasion, nor do I desire one. I prefer invitations, and invitations require the correct vessel.

This is why I wait.

Not from hesitation, but from respect — for the work, for the people it will one day receive, and for the places of long memory with which I remain in thoughtful conversation. Historic houses, landscapes, and estates — Chinsegut Hill amongst them — were never meant to serve as backdrops. They were built to teach quietly, to set a standard without speaking.

When gatherings are held in such settings, something gentle but unmistakable occurs. Voices lower of their own accord. Attention sharpens. Grace asserts itself without instruction.

That is environment-led stewardship, long practised and rarely named.

I am not postponing. I am preparing. I am tending the ground so that when the doors do open, the place itself will greet you before I ever do.

And when that day comes — when we gather in a setting that has earned its years — I hope you will feel what I have always felt in such places:

That you have arrived somewhere that understands how to hold you.

Until then, I remain exactly where I ought to be —

listening, tending, and keeping the kettle warm.

With enduring affection,

Lady Raquel 

On the Difference Between a Life Lived and a Life Inhabited

My dearest Mermaid Darlings of the Stillwater Petticoat Society,

There comes a moment, often after a woman has walked a considerable distance through her own days and seasons, when she finds herself softly out of step with the surrounding world, not through rebellion nor weariness, nor pride, but through the quiet discernment born only of having lived, loved, lost, questioned, and chosen again, until she can sense—almost by instinct—the difference between what is merely displayed for admiration and what is faithfully inhabited with devotion and care, and it is to you, my gentle companions who have walked far and thoughtfully, that I offer these words as one might offer a cup of warm tea on a cool afternoon, without instruction, without judgement, simply in shared understanding.

For in recent years there has arisen a great fondness for what is named the simple life (slow living), often rendered in pleasing scenes of cottages and bread and neatly pressed linens, and while beauty is never to be dismissed—indeed it is one of life’s great consolations—there remains a quiet distinction, seldom spoken aloud, between a life arranged for appearance and a life shaped by continuity, for the former may be set down at dusk when the weight of it grows tiresome, while the latter settles into the bones, alters the rhythm of one’s breath, and becomes inseparable from the way one moves through the world, so that a woman living in this manner does not speak of it loudly because she is too gently occupied doing it, mending rather than displaying, keeping rather than styling, ordering her days rather than curating them, and in this steady inhabiting lies a depth that requires neither audience nor applause.

I have noticed, too, a peculiar unease in the modern sphere with seriousness, particularly when it resides in women, for devotion is so often mistaken for rigidity and steadiness for severity. Yet, seriousness is nothing more than love that has stayed, deepened, and learned to endure. Those who have borne children, buried grief, crossed inner thresholds, reshaped belief, and remained present to life’s long questions cannot treat existence lightly, not because they lack joy, but because they understand its weight. So when they encounter ways of living spoken of as novelty or ornament, something within them quietly recoils—not in envy nor disdain, but in discernment, for they recognise what time has already taught them.

Many who gather around old ways do so through religion, and for some, this provides comfort and shelter. Yet, there are others—often quieter, often less visible—who have walked through religion and emerged into a spirituality tempered by lived experience, women who do not instruct readily, who tolerate paradox, who do not flee from questions, and who have learned that truth cannot be hurried nor borrowed, for their authority has been earned slowly through attention, humility, and remaining present to life rather than performing certainty upon it.

In this age, where numbers are frequently mistaken for wisdom and visibility for maturity, it is worth remembering that a following does not confer elderhood, confidence does not replace endurance, and instruction offered without time rarely lasts, for time itself is the great sifter, and while those who play at a life may shine swiftly, those who inhabit a life endure quietly and without fuss, often unnoticed until their steadiness becomes unmistakable.

And so, if you find yourself unsettled, or gently irritated, by the lightness with which sacred rhythms are sometimes handled, know that you are neither unkind nor mistaken, but simply standing within a longer season, one that requires no explanation and seeks no competition, for you are not here to be instructed by every passing voice nor to justify the depth of your choosing, but to live—truly, sincerely, and with reverence—and a life lived in this manner will always, in its own time, be recognised by those whose eyes have learned how to see.

Until then, remain steady, keep your hands to your work, let your days speak for you, and trust that this, as it always has been, is how the most authentic lives make themselves known.

With abiding affection and the most profound respect for those who have walked far,
Lady Raquel 

A Quiet Life Is Not an Unambitious One

My dearest Mermaid Darlings,

and all gathered here within the Stillwater Petticoat Society,

There persists, in our modern clatter, a most curious misunderstanding: that a woman who lives quietly must surely live small.

That, unless she declares her progress aloud, broadcasts her labour, or hastens visibly toward her aims, she must be drifting—content with less, or resigned to a narrowing of her dreams.

I have found this notion to be entirely false.

A quiet life, when chosen with intention, is not the absence of ambition. It is ambition that has learned its own proper pace.

It is a life ordered not by urgency, but by discernment.

I did not stumble into quietness by chance, nor did I retreat into it through defeat. I arrived there deliberately, having learned—through trial, through sorrow, through experience—that a life need not shout in order to be significant.

As I grew more settled within myself, I noticed that my days required less display. The more securely I stood in my own knowing, the less I felt compelled to explain myself to the world at large.

In place of noise, I found discipline. Not the severe sort that scolds and drives, but the faithful sort that returns, day after day, to what matters.

Quiet work carries its own rhythm.

It keeps its appointments without fanfare.

It tends rather than performs.

In a quiet life, ambition does not disappear — it goes underground.

It shows itself in the returning to small practices, faithfully kept.

In the careful ordering of one’s home and hours.

In the patience to let ideas ripen privately before presenting them publicly.

In the choosing of consistency over spectacle, it is not a lesser ambition.

It is a stronger ambition — one that builds foundations instead of impressions.

Many fear quiet because it offers no immediate applause. Silence leaves room for reflection, and reflection requires honesty. Yet I have learned that when one no longer seeks constant confirmation, one discovers something far more sustaining: inner authority.

That authority steadies the hands, it calms the nerves and allows a woman to finish what she begins.

From such steadiness comes endurance — and endurance, my darlings, always outlasts excitement.

There is also a reverence within quiet living that deserves mention. To tend one’s life with care — one’s garden, one’s body, one’s work — is an act of stewardship. It resists haste. It honours what has been entrusted.

This, too, is ambition, not of immediacy, but of legacy.

A quiet life does not refuse growth.

It refuses chaos.

It does not disdain success.

It simply declines spectacle.

And it does not shun visibility —

it waits until visibility serves the work, rather than the ego.

I order my days with increasing simplicity now. Not because my dreams have shrunk, but because my discernment has sharpened. I no longer confuse motion with meaning, nor noise with progress.

Some of the most consequential work we shall ever do unfolds without witnesses.

And when the time comes for that work to be seen, it will not need to shout.

It will speak — clearly, calmly, and in its own hour.

A quiet life is not an unambitious one.

It is the life of a woman who knows precisely what she is building —

and feels no urgency to prove it before it is ready.

A Benediction for the Stillwater Soul and 
A Word for My Mermaid Darlings

May you never mistake quiet for absence,

nor steadiness for stagnation.

May your days be ordered with care, your labour met with patience, and your dreams allowed the dignity of ripening in their own season. May you trust the work done without witnesses,

the progress made without announcement,

and the life you are building, piece by faithful piece.

And may you remember, always, that what is tended with love endures.

If you find yourself drawn to a quieter way of living, do not fear that you are falling behind. You are not losing ground — you are laying it.

The world is loud with urgency, yet lasting things are rarely hurried. Attend to your days with care, return faithfully to what matters, and allow your life to speak in its own voice.

You are not late, nor overlooked.

You are becoming — and that, my dears, is more than enough.

If you wish to continue these quiet moments, you'll find me sharing them daily on Instagram. 

Most affectionately yours,

until my next enchanting swim, LR