11/10/2025
Yeah, I don't know what to say, hey.
Do you say anything? Don't you?
Literally in tears as I close up the shop with not a single soul having passed through the doors today... yet again.
There are a lot of those days.
A lot of those days when people tell me that they are coming, so I give up my time for them, and they simply do not appear.
I sit here with the clock ticking on those days, keenly aware that it is time away from my family that I will never get back, and there has been no benefit to it.
It is dire, I do not know how else to put it - it is the 11th hour, and the clock of DRE has almost ceased ticking. There is rent due, power, gas, and running expenses up to my eyeballs. I have spent the entire time since the '22 flood wiped DRE out clawing my way back to existence, but with continually rising costs and very little income, I have entirely wiped out my life savings to remain in business, and I am still buried.
I freely share my knowledge with all who ask for it. I regularly spend hours going back and forth with people to help them with the information that they need, often late into the night, and I do not charge a cent for my time as it is just what I do.
Often, those people will then message me again a day or so later for hours more help, and again and again...
And then a little way down the track, I will get a message about their witchy haul from Amazon....
and a list of questions about how do they use it.
Of course, people have the right to spend their money wherever they please. That is not up for debate.
But I do ask this... when DRE as the avenue of knowledge ceases to exist... is Amazon going to spend hours answering questions, helping people align with their path, or willingly sacrifice themself to see the next generation move forward.
When people do come to the store, many of them walk out with something that I gift to them for whatever reason that I have felt that they needed it.
Especially children, I can't help but gift a child a crystal or something, particularly when they have had a rough time. Their smile is something else, the light that sparks in their eyes because they have been seen, because they have been heard.
That brings me great joy.
I do not do what I do for glory, to be rich, or for accolades.
I have not once paid myself since I stated DRE in 2017.
I simply want to continue to exist as I am, for all that I am, for all that DRE is to me and to DRE's community.
I work quietly and patiently. My life is dedicated to my deities, my calling, my craft, and my service to others as a pathfinder and more.
And I can no longer do it all if the 11th hour ticks over and I am forced to make the final call.
Dusty xx
