September is a time for new beginnings

This is a personally-generated blog, no AI has been utilized here because yes, I still like to write my own thoughts now and again.

Simply, I am personally committed to transformation and evolution both at the pace of nature and according to my own design. At the root of everything I do, I center the principles and laws of nature. In this season, especially, I am witnessing the miracle and poem of the monarch butterflies and embodying their energy and wisdom in my life, work, and within the collective.

During the transition away from my full-time employment and into running my business full-time (and then some), I have had to alchemize the energies of change. There can be chaos, darkness, adverse sensations along with energizing moments that inspire, radicalize, mobilize, and create. I welcome it all in this process of metamorphosis.

In treatments recently, I have been referencing the energy and medicine of the monarch. Which in witnessing them from a beloved who would send me photos in Canada of the monarchs still in their pupa stage (chrysalis), I understand more profoundly what they offer.

Firstly, they primarily feast on milkweed to fatten up and receive all they need to undergo the process to transform. To me, the season of sabbatical was indulgent in the gift of time I gave myself to resource what I would need for the journey ahead.

Now, as an herbalist, I do know milkweed can be toxic for us humans. But the volatility of plants often provides protection for the plants themselves and in this case, the insects eating them. It made me think of how that which we may consider "toxic", in the case of transformation, these feelings of anger, sadness, overwhelm, etc. are all motioning towards the change that is necessary to evolve and mobilize into what comes after in the process.

Throughout the growth phase as a caterpillar, it sheds its skin multiple times over until becoming a chrysalis, by where they hang for bit while their whole body turn into goop as the rest of their structure dissolve, thus preparing to take on the next structure. To say the least, dissolving my old structure within how LGHT Wellness took shape and in my own personal evolution turned me into soft, supple, gooey bits that shook the core of my identity. Whilst knowing it was a part of the process, I had to honor that I could not both dissolve my structure and take flight into the next iteration of my business at the same time

I cried tears of relief when I witnessed this and understood. In the late stages in the chrysalis, the structure of the butterfly begin to form, even before they've emerged. I thought of how I could see my next iteration of my business taking shape over the last few months-year before I was ever ready to see it materialize.

And finally, what I find most poignant in the monarch medicine of metamorphosis:

right before the butterfly emerges from the chrysalis, they become transparent and wings are exposed. They pump fluid to their wings so they have to expand and harden, remaining still before they can fly.

it quite a parallel to a personal evolution of taking pause and rest before being able to take on what's next in the cycle and process. After all, the matured butterflies go off to mate, migrate, and repeat the cycle. From this, I have taken to the process and honoring each part as it seques into the next, rushing none of them.

I honor my business taking shape with a regenerative model in which I prioritize moving at a pace my nervous system can handle, in tune with the cycles and seasons, in honoring and reverence for the earth and without the urgency capitalism demands.

And gratitude to the wisdom of the lands and the creatures for revealing this wisdom.

Late summer in Bucks County at my beloved friend Adriana's flower farm after a day of harvesting fresh blooms of amaranth, calendula, zinnias, and more friends.