Confession: I have a new symbol
I didn't chose it. It chose me.
I’ve gravitated towards symbols as far back as I can remember. I love the simplicity and power they carry. The peace sign that adorned everything I owed in 4th grade. The music note that I swore I’d get tattooed if I ever summoned up the courage to get a tattoo. Each symbol I took on not only said something about me to the world, it allowed the world to speak to me. When rainbows became my calling card in the 2010s, I suddenly saw them everywhere, and so did everyone who loved me. A day didn’t go by that a rainbow didn’t find its way to me and affirm who I was at that time: the rainbow bride, the proprietor of Write In Color, the girl with the rainbow birthday cake before everyone had rainbow birthday cakes.
My Write In Color logo, 2011.
My homemade 30th birthday cake, 2012.
Me surrounded by my beautiful bridesmaids, 2010.
But it wasn’t until I took on a symbol in 2015 — the inverted triangle — that I fully understood just how powerful having a personal emblem could be. For those who are familiar with my background, you know that the inverted triangle is the core emblem of my self love movement, Fred and Far. From the moment I conceived the brand, the triangle was an essential element of everything I did. From the logo, to the exclusive gem shape I used for the Self Love Pinky Ring (a trillion), the inverted triangle was everywhere. And for good reason. An inverted triangle is the ancient symbol of the divine feminine (look down and you’ll understand why). The divine feminine was exactly what I was channeling when I created a moment that invited women to choose themselves. But beyond being the symbol of my brand, the inverted triangle — especially in red — became the symbol of my identity: passionate, strong, a relentless creator fueled by purpose, ambition, and a seemingly endless life force. The triangle was both my sword and my shield. If rainbows embodied my time of idealistic exploration, the inverted triangle was my call to arms: I was here to disrupt the status quo. And I did.
The Fred and Far logo.
The last Fred and Far website photoshoot, 2021.
The first Fred and Far website photoshoot, 2015.
Although Fred and Far stood for self empowerment and healing, personally it represents one of the most difficult periods in my life. I’ve literally never pushed so hard in all facets of my life: as an entrepreneur, wife, mother, daughter, friend. Running the business by myself meant being the creative, the business manager, the customer support, the social media guru. The Self Love Pinky Ring, the one I created and wore religiously to remind myself to love myself and care for myself, barely made it on my finger most days as I was busy dealing with the ever mounting pressures of being an entrepreneur and mom of three. This loss of integrity — not practicing what I was preaching — was resolved by only one thing: writing. And it was in writing that my next symbol revealed itself: the butterfly.
Me in my prized, vintage butterfly pendant, 2019.
For me, butterflies have always found their way to me in critical moments. I remember vividly the very first time I saw one and thought it was there to send me a message. It was early in the morning and I was driving to my job as a litigation attorney in early 2009. I was waiting at an intersection to make a turn, and there was a butterfly right there in the middle of the street, dodging the speeding cars while I sat there and watched it, mesmerized. “That’s me,” I thought to myself. Being a lawyer felt like I was trying not to get hit by a car every day. I was in the wrong place, just like the butterfly. I left law soon after, and never looked back. While I’ve had many careers since my short stint as a litigation attorney, I’ve never felt like I was about to get hit by a car again.
The Shift, 93.
Butterflies mean many things, but one meaning we can all agree on is that they symbolize rebirth. From the primordial goo of the cocoon the caterpillar emerges as a butterfly. Is there anything more mesmerizing than that? In 2021 when my publisher offered me a book deal, it felt like an opportunity for me to do just that: break through my cocoon and embody my highest self as an author. It was then that I conceptualized and pitched The Shift, which was the first book of my traditionally published author era. The cover features monarch butterflies, as do many of the poems within it. The Shift most embodies my rebirth: from entrepreneur to author. From the safety of what’s known, into the freedom of the unknown.
It’s interesting that signing my book deal also coincides with the beginning of my thyroid healing journey. In late 2020 I switched endocrinologists and in 2021 I had the treatment that largely healed my thyroid, a treatment my prior doctor never offered to me, and even ignored when I brought it up to him. What is the symbol of the thyroid? Also a butterfly. You could say adopting a new symbol and changing my priorities saved my life. Because it’s true — it did.
Me promoting the upcoming launch of The Shift in my butterfly crown, May 2022.
I never know when the new symbol will find me. Which is why I didn’t see the signs at first when I was in Ojai, CA this past weekend. I had only 24 hours away from my family in this magical little town and that’s all it took to change my life. I was there to celebrate a dear friend’s birthday, and it was one of those unique situations where I didn’t know anyone there very intimately, and so every conversation was a portal. Each woman there had an open heart, and my heart was wide open too. Ojai will do that to you. I wasn’t planning to spend the night, but ended up getting myself a beautifully appointed hotel room. The next day a few of us gathered for breakfast and I surprised myself by buying a piece of art off the wall from the restaurant. I’m usually so indecisive about art, and yet I didn’t second guess my choice. Outside the restaurant I found a wet magazine in a bush and couldn’t help but pick it up and keep it. My friends laughed at me. I laughed at me too. From there we went to Bart’s Books, the largest outdoor bookstore in the world, which is built into a house. I walked through the store alone, without any agenda, and found myself pulled towards a row of books because of the art that was pasted on the end of it. I ran my fingers along the shelf and pulled out a book: Seven Rays Made Visual. And this is the moment it all suddenly clicked.
The hotel had a light sculpture on an exterior wall: a circle emanating light.
The hotel room had an art piece: an abstract piece featuring a circle.
The art piece from the restaurant: two circles.
The art on the shelf of the bookstore: two circles.
The magazine in the bush: a circle.
The cover of the book: circles, circles, circles.
My new symbol had revealed itself: a circle.
Even the sweatshirt I was wearing that day had a circle on it.
Just thinking about it gives me full body chills and makes me realize how timely this shift is. If the butterfly represented my rebirth, my ascension into a new chapter, the circle represents my wholeness now that I’m here. I can truly say that I now embody, with full integrity, the essential message of Fred and Far: I am a chosen woman, because I’ve chosen myself. I am at peace with myself. I am aware of myself. I express myself. I take care of myself. No longer chasing, becoming, or proving myself… I am in my truth era. I am in my era of receiving. This is me, in my totality.
Seven Rays Made Visual is part of the Theosophy movement, something I knew nothing about before this weekend in Ojai, but something that called to all the women with me independently and collectively. While I picked up this book from one section of the bookstore, another friend picked up a book on the history of Theosophy from a completely different (and private) section of the bookstore. When I looked up Theosophy to write this very paragraph tonight (something I still know very little about) this is the slogan that comes up: “there is no religion higher than truth.” Just last night I told my girlfriend that truth is my highest priority right now: truth with myself, truth with others. I mean, look at what I wrote in the last paragraph before learning of the Theosophy slogan. “I am in my truth era.” Is this a coincidence? I don’t think so.
Does this mean I’m suddenly adopting or promoting a new religion? Definitely not. But did I stumble upon all this so that the universe can give me a message? Absolutely! I have no doubt about that. Am I ready for this new symbol? I am. Let’s see where it takes us. I deeply believe we are always evolving, and the universe wants to support us in our evolution. The symbols we claim as our own become affirmations. Keep your eyes open and embrace the signs when they appear. Self love is what opened my eyes. I hope it does the same for you.
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Listen to this playlist
No confession is complete without a playlist. There are some GOODIES on this one.
Read this book
Another affirmation that happened in the bookstore was that in the kids section I stumbled upon The Missing Piece Meets the Big O, one of my favorite books ever. It’s by Shel Silverstein, is of course also about a circle, and more than makes up for the tragedy that is The Giving Tree.
Try this meditation
The founder of the Theosophy movement, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891) offers this circle meditation:
The first thing that you see is certainly a circle. Now this circle you can either limit or take it just according to the capacities of your conceptions and of your intuition, and you can make it limitless, all depends upon your powers of conceiving things. You can expand it ad infinitum, make of it a limitless circle—not only in words. . . . They make us conceive of a circle first of all, and this circle which is all, and embraces all and has no plane. Let us imagine something that is—well, as large as we can imagine it—and you might expand and extend ad infinitum. If we contract it to our conceptions, it is because we want to make it conceivable to the finite intellect.[3]
Enjoy some art
I left this out above, but another sign in the bookstore was that another friend picked up two books about artist Hilma af Klint. Did you guess it? She was also inspired by Theosophy. And the book covers had circles. Of course. As the Guggenheim describes, “Through vivid compositions of shapes and symbols, she presented philosophical and spiritual concepts in physical form on canvas—a visual manifestation of her thinking for us to see and reflect upon.” Keep in mind, this was the late 1800s. As my friend Brady said, “While everyone else was painting landscapes she was doing THIS.”
Hilma af Klint was an extraordinary person and artist. You can read about her work and her spiritual journey, here.
Is your mind blown like mine is? Let me know!