My Butterfly Year

A lot of life was lived in my thirty-fifth year around the sun.

I thought this was going to be my year of transformation.

I could feel something on the brink, on the edge, ready to take flight.

But this year became less about transformation and more about emergence.

After spending so much of my life thinking about how others viewed me, I made the intentional decision to shut out the world for a while.

I remember the lead-up to this.

In January 2025, I began what was supposed to be a four-week fast from social media.

But the weeks continued to pass, and I felt no urgency to return.

Without realizing it at the time, it became the beginning of my cocoon phase.

Shutting out the shouts from the world.

Dimming the need to compare myself to the path of others.

Turning down the volume of the outside so I could finally hear what was happening within.

It was in the quiet moments…

Alone, but never fully alone.

On the land, with the land.

In fellowship with God.

Fully present with my own thoughts, my own convictions.

Learning to forge my own path instead of measuring it against someone else’s.

Comparison had become a hindrance, and I knew I needed to hear my own voice again.

So I spent this year pursuing what made me come alive.

Finding my voice.

Or maybe not finding it at all.

It had always been there.

This year was about finding the confidence and clarity to express it.

Instead of trying to do things the way I always had, I stepped into something entirely new.

I began my very first herbalism apprenticeship.

It felt life-changing.

Being surrounded by a group of women who were deeply committed to the plants, to observation, and to their own becoming gave me permission to become more fully myself.

To mirror the garden.

To be in full expression of the season I was living.

I think Medicine of Place has spoken to me so deeply because that’s the season I’m in.

Learning that every season carries its own medicine.

And that this version of me, today, isn’t unfinished.

She is the medicine for this season.

I also began building Naturally Boundless.

Not like a business.

But like a home.

Each offering became its own room.

An invitation to gather and become, just as I was.

The dream finally became so clear.

The home I was building was one of nourishment.

A place to nurture the women who had spent so much of their lives caring for everyone else but themselves.

The Apothecary carries the medicine.

The Gatherings create space to experience it together.

The Births hold women through one of the most sacred transitions they’ll ever journey through.

These became the rooms of the home.

And in this year, one of the greatest gifts I received was the ability to observe.

To move through each season with curiosity.

To notice what the land was doing before asking what I should do.

Yahweh instilled so much wisdom into creation.

I simply wanted to become a student.

To slow down long enough to recognize that what my body was feeling, what my mind was carrying, and what my heart was holding often mirrored what creation was already revealing.

The garden taught me to trust timing.

Not to rush blooming.

Not to force fruit.

Not to mistake hidden growth for the absence of growth.

Observation became an invitation into the presence of the Spirit.

And there, I saw His glory.

I emerged.

In every way.

For so long, I felt like there were multiple versions of me.

The entertainer.

The wisdom keeper.

The mother.

The free spirit.

The believer.

I spent years trying to separate them.

This year, I stopped dividing myself and began embracing all of me.

Now my voice feels clear.

Not perfect.

But rooted.

There is a deep knowing that I’m showing up the way God has always intended me to.

My thirty-fifth year became my Butterfly Year.

It wasn’t the year I became someone new.

It was the year I stopped hiding the person God had been forming all along.

My vision became clearer.

My voice grew stronger.

My prayers became bolder.

And somewhere between a new moon in June and my thirty-sixth birthday, the garden gathered its own testimony in shades of pink and green.

She Speaks was born during this season.

The garden seemed to whisper, “You are becoming.”

I chose Monarda, Lemon Balm, and Tulsi because they were blooming around me.

They were the plants expressing themselves most fully in that moment.

Then came Rose, Estafiate, and Echinacea.

Softer.

Protective.

Grounding.

Together, they captured this season of my life.

Bright and beautiful.

Soft and strong.

Finding my voice.

Strengthening my prayers.

Clarifying my vision.

They became more than herbs.

They became witnesses.

Witnesses to a year of emergence.

She Speaks wasn’t simply a tincture I created.

It became a testimony.

A reminder that God had been cultivating something beneath the surface all along.

And when the time was right…

It emerged.

Scripture:

Psalm 139:13-14

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Until next time,

Jasz

A lot of life was lived in my thirty-fifth year around the sun.

I thought this was going to be my year of transformation.

I could feel something on the brink, on the edge, ready to take flight.

But this year became less about transformation and more about emergence.

After spending so much of my life thinking about how others viewed me, I made the intentional decision to shut out the world for a while.

I remember the lead-up to this.

In January 2025, I began what was supposed to be a four-week fast from social media.

But the weeks continued to pass, and I felt no urgency to return.

Without realizing it at the time, it became the beginning of my cocoon phase.

Shutting out the shouts from the world.

Dimming the need to compare myself to the path of others.

Turning down the volume of the outside so I could finally hear what was happening within.

It was in the quiet moments…

Alone, but never fully alone.

On the land, with the land.

In fellowship with God.

Fully present with my own thoughts, my own convictions.

Learning to forge my own path instead of measuring it against someone else’s.

Comparison had become a hindrance, and I knew I needed to hear my own voice again.

So I spent this year pursuing what made me come alive.

Finding my voice.

Or maybe not finding it at all.

It had always been there.

This year was about finding the confidence and clarity to express it.

Instead of trying to do things the way I always had, I stepped into something entirely new.

I began my very first herbalism apprenticeship.

It felt life-changing.

Being surrounded by a group of women who were deeply committed to the plants, to observation, and to their own becoming gave me permission to become more fully myself.

To mirror the garden.

To be in full expression of the season I was living.

I think Medicine of Place has spoken to me so deeply because that’s the season I’m in.

Learning that every season carries its own medicine.

And that this version of me, today, isn’t unfinished.

She is the medicine for this season.

I also began building Naturally Boundless.

Not like a business.

But like a home.

Each offering became its own room.

An invitation to gather and become, just as I was.

The dream finally became so clear.

The home I was building was one of nourishment.

A place to nurture the women who had spent so much of their lives caring for everyone else but themselves.

The Apothecary carries the medicine.

The Gatherings create space to experience it together.

The Births hold women through one of the most sacred transitions they’ll ever journey through.

These became the rooms of the home.

And in this year, one of the greatest gifts I received was the ability to observe.

To move through each season with curiosity.

To notice what the land was doing before asking what I should do.

Yahweh instilled so much wisdom into creation.

I simply wanted to become a student.

To slow down long enough to recognize that what my body was feeling, what my mind was carrying, and what my heart was holding often mirrored what creation was already revealing.

The garden taught me to trust timing.

Not to rush blooming.

Not to force fruit.

Not to mistake hidden growth for the absence of growth.

Observation became an invitation into the presence of the Spirit.

And there, I saw His glory.

I emerged.

In every way.

For so long, I felt like there were multiple versions of me.

The entertainer.

The wisdom keeper.

The mother.

The free spirit.

The believer.

I spent years trying to separate them.

This year, I stopped dividing myself and began embracing all of me.

Now my voice feels clear.

Not perfect.

But rooted.

There is a deep knowing that I’m showing up the way God has always intended me to.

My thirty-fifth year became my Butterfly Year.

It wasn’t the year I became someone new.

It was the year I stopped hiding the person God had been forming all along.

My vision became clearer.

My voice grew stronger.

My prayers became bolder.

And somewhere between a new moon in June and my thirty-sixth birthday, the garden gathered its own testimony in shades of pink and green.

She Speaks was born during this season.