Hello
My name is Lara Irene Vesta. I grew up in the wilds of Wimer, Oregon, the child of two homesteading back-to-the-landers who learned by doing and taught me to love the outdoors, be curious and put family at the center.
My inspirations include the olden practices of my grandparents and their ancestors. In my work I explore place, roots, community and the quest for a spirit-led life.
My Story
I have been on quite a journey this past decade. It is a story I am still living, and so not always able to articulate. Right now I am on medical leave due to ongoing health issues. Prior to this, I was writing, teaching and making art for much of my adult life.
Something that has become clear to me in these undulations between illness and wellness, is a knowing that the practices that sustain me--sustain life, the life of the body, the life around me--are the ones least valued by our culture. Yet these things, the rhythms of the everyday, the return to connection in the living, breathing world, are the very things I believe provide the most satisfaction, the greatest joy. Combined with a sacred center, woven in community, there is a powerful potential existing beyond illness and wellness, technology, division, politics and strife. It is the seed story of a life our ancestors would recognize, and one that may be tended to fruition at any time. Its principles are steadfast, and many of its practices are free, requiring only the twin gifts of time and attention to sustain. Even on my sickest days I am brought into relationship with these traditional touchstones of living including food, land, water, sun, air, prayer, creativity, community and story.
This site is intended as a place to continue exploration, share writing when I can and hopefully transmit some of the gladness I have encountered as I return to the real. With roots in the soil, prayers framing the day, service in my heart and the love of my family, I have found life can be good even amid loss, grief and pain.
Creating community is one of my great loves, and community is what I miss most as the pandemic shaved away in-person experiences. I left social media in 2022, and am still seeking real, tactile ways to connect with my neighbors, to make friends and tend my family in the midst of chronic illness. Writing letters is the first of these reclaimings, and embracing the ancestral value of slowness is another. There will be more, I'm sure, to come.
In my most important work I am a mother, wife, daughter, granddaughter, sister, auntie and part of an incredible extended family web. My family is my center and heart.
When I am not healing, creating or connecting, I love tending gardens, reading and spending time in the wild.
By this and every effort may the balance be regained. With love.
--Lara Irene
