In early 2024 I attended a vision board get together organized by a friend who lives almost an hour away and it left me buzzing for months off the good vibes and welcoming atmosphere I experienced there for months. I have best friends, but all except one are out of town or state and I had been searching for a way to meet more women on the same wavelength locally. I’ve been thinking out loud about this for months, even touching on the topic in therapy.
I was sharing my thoughts on this with my mom one evening and she just asked me point blank: “Why don’t you start a group like that then?“
I was stunned. Holy shit. You’re right mom, why don’t I start a group like that? What is stopping me? Who said I couldn’t make one of my own!? I walked away from that determined to make this happen somehow, even though I’ve literally never organized anything like this. I have to be the change I want to see in the world, right? I left that conversation inspired and mulling over ideas of how to start or where to start on this.
Originally, I had intended to retire this website after an unmedicated ADHD-fueled halfass attempt at a website rebrand in 2021 to lamariposacalifornia.com. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do at the time and nothing seemed to live up to my great-grandma’s reputation, having named the site after her old restaurants. Ultimately, I decided to give it one last go after I accidentally let the domain auto-renew for another year, and 180 dollars later and here we are! I’ve been mulling over what to do with this space for some time now – something that can live up to the legendary woman that is my late great-grandma Candelaria. A woman who was left as a single mother to raise three young kids, owned and operated two successful restaurants, hardly spoke English, and succeeded against the odds at a time where an independent Mexican-owned business in Sacramento was almost unheard of.
The name came to me like an epiphany later that night – La Mariposa League. I’d name the women’s group after my great grandma’s legacy. The website branding is already done anyway, why let it go to waste? And the idea was born.
If you’re not familiar with the Spanish language, La Mariposa means The Butterfly, in Spanish. Symbolically, the butterfly represents massive transformation and rebirth. And if you know ANYTHING about me, I have undergone that throughout my life in different ways, but most recently I’ve been through an intense period of transformation of spirit, mind, and (finally) body. It’s safe to say I am not the person I was just a year ago, let alone several years ago. I only recently felt safe to come out of my cocoon recently, and this has been at the top of my mind for months now.
The thing no one tells you about this type of journey though, is that not only does your world-view change, but so do your social needs. Anyone who’s gone through something similar can attest to this – that while you still love and care for the people in your life, you begin to long for deeper, more meaningful connections with others who have gone through a similar transformation. It’s not that you’re trying to find an echo chamber, it’s that you’re trying to find other people to propel the rest of the world forward with. You recognize the power in numbers, the interconnectivity, interdependencies, and intersectional ways we move in this world, or should. Honestly, I could go on and on about this but I’ll save it for another time.
I always knew I was called to share something with the world and I was never sure of what. Even my tarot card pulls stated something to the effect of my purpose being to share my healing/story, and this seemed like a great way to achieve that without the effort being self-centered like my old blogging days.
I’ve launched La Mariposa League on the 16th anniversary of my grandma Matilde’s death for a reason. I no longer wanted to mark her passing every year in a somber way, I wanted to rewrite the narrative and honor her life and spirit with something that I know she’d be proud of, and inspired by her lineage. So, I dedicate this new space in honor of her mother, my great-grandma Candelaria. She was a legendary woman and I do this in honor of her, the women who came before, and the women who came after.
To Candelaria and Mati, you are missed.