I was recently connected with a leader at an herbal wellness company that I admire. I thought I’d share a snippet from our correspondence because it highlights the foundation of why I started 🐛 (and hope to grow 🦋) my Substack community.
I identify as a healer-type. A few layers out from there, I’m deeply passionate about plant medicine. A few layers from there, my daily work is community + marketing.
I turned 40 this year: I know who I am and what I'm capable of and still have a lot of adventuring and transforming to do to learn more about both. Like a caterpillar inside the cocoon.
I'm the mom of two amazing girls living a sort-of-close-knit-community life with my dear husband - in the garden, in the city, in North Carolina. My wonderful sister and her family also live here. Grateful 🙏.
I was born and raised in the NC foothills. My ancestors relocated from England and Ireland to the Blue Ridge mountains long ago. And so I've been visiting that magical place since I was a baby. I’ve realized I’m better off living in close proximity and connection to them (despite a try at living in Peru and Brooklyn after college in my 20s).
That’s what you do as you get older, right? Realize what you’re better off doing and living by. Accepting what makes you tick and tock, what slows you down and doesn’t align. What’s in the flow and to set boundaries for the negativity.
Two things.
One, the butterfly spread is the allocation of medicine cards in first, the east position, then the south, then west, and finally north. Each position corresponds to a phase of the butterfly’s cycle:
1 / east - egg position represents the seed and early hatching of an idea or project, what does this feel like in this time and place?
2 / south - larva position represents the formation of idea into something that could be tangible, what does it take for this idea to be real?
3 / west - the cocoon position represents the ultimate transformations that must take place for this idea/project to come to life, what is the higher value?
4 / north - butterfly position is the place of manifestation, what sorts of rewards are to be gained?
Two, this summer, driving home from a local herbal conference, along a deep and calling creekbed, tears streamed down my face. I couldn’t quite pinpoint why, unlike me. Was I sad? No. Was I mad? No. What was I? Why tears, and endless easy ones.
I guess sometimes the release is all we need to know.
The first time I went to this particular herbal conference was in 2019 - a year before my second daughter was born, when my eldest daughter was 3, which is now the age of my second daughter.
The cycle of things is beautiful, isn’t it?
When we can look up and reflect. See that flow comes and goes. It pushes us towards magic and knowing, wisdom and truth. Towards transformation.
Like the caterpillar 🐛 and the butterfly 🦋.
What transformation are you growing in today?