There’s always a spark that starts the fire. For many months I had been considering the idea of sharing my meads publicly by becoming a licensed commercial producer. I was slowly and carefully collecting tinder and arranging my wood pile; sorting through briar and bramble and building my hearth. But despite all the affirmations and encouragement from so many of my close friends and loved ones, I just didn’t feel ready to commit to lighting that fire. I held onto those matches for some time. I sat in front of that pile, all neat and stacked up, turning those matches over and over in my hands; talking and thinking, calculating and weighing but still unmoving, month after month.
A home-brewed traditional mead
This is the kind of moment when you are in your own way. You can’t see the path because you yourself are blocking it - the universe dislikes when we cover our eyes from what we are meant to look at, and so usually finds a way to force us to see. In my case, I saw what could be through someone else's eyes first. This formidable force of motivation, certainty and purpose came from someone who would demonstrate a steadfast loyalty to my cause and become a most beloved friend: Megan Kennedy.
Megan has been a local business owner for most of her adult life, and was not a beginner to the process of launching and operationalizing something new in the space of commerce. As a naturally brilliant, inventive and spectacularly creative person she not only could see the path I couldn’t but gleaned at length where it could lead. Megan saw my mead’s potential and also mine as a business owner - and once she saw it, she refused to let it go. Determined to facilitate my vision, not only did she set that box of matches on fire, she pulled up a chair and began helping me to tend it. Megan was my spark.
As the owner of the Natural Vibe Wellness Market and member of the downtown St. John’s business community, this was not the first time my friend saw the potential for someone to launch successfully. Nor was it the first time she chose to commit herself to finding a way to help. She has worked to incubate several local products by lending shelf space, marketing efforts and by simply supporting the creation of something wonderfully made.
Megan’s near unconditional support and enthusiasm pushed me to begin traversing a long road that would take over a year to complete. She found a production space for me to lease in her building on Water Street, shared trade contacts so I could complete renovations, advised me on supply chain processes, purchasing and vendor relations and helped me to navigate the winding road towards completing a finished product - including many (hopefully not arduous) tastings. Megan encouraged me to enter the All Canadian Wine Championships with my first commercial batch and at the eleventh hour, delivered shrink tops so I could finish bottling and make it to UPS in time. In the same month, she facilitated my soft launch with Merfolk Mead’s first tasting event. As a guide and peer, Megan brought balanced logic to our conversations without sacrificing her natural propensity for easy kindness. And so while her name and the Natural Vibe have only been mentioned from a distance, let me not be remiss in failing to acknowledge the true, real, whole-hearted investment of time and love and lived experience that has come from this best friend and successful member of our province’s business community.
In addition to the Natural Vibe, Megan runs several other local businesses with her family. She is a deeply competent nutritionist and has recently launched a most excellent and nationally acclaimed health podcast called Wellness Uncomplicated. Her commitment to these endeavours is only outshined by that to her three children. In a world where women are expected to do it all - Megan Kennedy is showing us how. She could have said nothing; she could have watched me sit there for another twelve months, but she didn’t - Megan saw Merfolk Mead before I did. Women supporting women is as old as mead itself and should not be underestimated as trite meme-ish fodder but the building blocks of a healthier, more successful society. Women are meant to work together, live together and grow together for betterment together. We are best venturing out into the chaos and uncertainty in life adorned with the armour of supportive friendships and meaningful alliances. It is not a surprise then, that our brightest versions of self are found in the eyes of our female friends and colleagues.
In every business idea that comes to fruition there is always a record of the plans, spreadsheets and logistics that moved the idea from conception to launch, but what of the stories of the actual people behind all of this? People, in fact, matter. Communities, matter. I am grateful to Newfoundland and Labrador for so much of what I have just begun to build; from the honey, teas and fruits I use to the historic building I brew in. But perhaps before all of this, I am most grateful to Newfoundland for lending me one of her daughters to relentlessly champion my cause and keep my hearth alight. Thank you M for all you have done and continue to do. Bravo my fellow intrepid Valkyrie, Bravo!
