The Beginning in Plain Sight

If you’ve been here a while, you may have noticed the quieter hum of my voice. Not gone, just… less broadcast, more heartbeat. I’ve been in a season that looks, from the outside, like stillness. But inside, it’s been the opposite, a turning, a deep re–arranging, a long look at the micro and the macro, the feminine and the masculine, and how they’ve been moving through me and around me this whole time.

Every version of me I’ve been has walked into this season. The builder, the breaker, the survivor, the dreamer. The woman who fought to prove herself and the one who hid to stay safe. The one who was shattered and the one who rose. All of them have been built, shed, broken, and lifted, until only what is true could remain.

We are still moving toward the property I know in my bones is meant to hold this vision, the one I can see when I close my eyes, the one that feels like it’s been waiting for us. Until I see that land fully developed and not in the stewardship of Thrivewell Estate, I will never give up. But somewhere along the way, I got so caught up in where Thrivewell needed to be that I lost sight of why it needed to exist at all. And the why… has always been here.

In the meantime, I’ve been building inward as much as outward. I’ve gone into my ancestry, studied patterns, sat with shadows, explored astrology, wandered through Tesla’s theories and the ambitions of the founding fathers. I’ve followed the threads into history and myth, the stories of Mary Magdalene, the archangels, prophecies whispered across centuries, and even a book I never thought I’d open with any real interest: the Bible. Not from a place of religion, but from curiosity, to understand the symbols, the archetypes, the human longing woven through it all.

I’ve traced the folklore of my Celtic heritage, the fairies and the fae, the Selkies and their stories, the way these tales were spoken in the shadows by my family, never needing credit, just passing them on as if they were part of the air we breathed. I’ve turned to my Greek side as well, revisiting the gods and goddesses I loved as a child, seeing in them not just myth but mirrors of human strength, flaw, and beauty.

All of it has been unlocking something deep within me, and that unlocking is rippling outward.

And then came the signs, not as magic tricks, but as patterns, alignments, synchronicities I couldn’t ignore. I’ve been pulled toward Glastonbury, the St. Michael ley line, and one of my long, time inspirations, Rebecca Campbell. I’m in her live workshop right now, with one day left, and during the Q&A she said something that struck me: Look for something that has been in front of you this whole time.

I thought of one of my favorite pieces of feminine gothic art, created by my brother’s partner. I’ve looked at it countless times. It’s a battle of the masculine and the feminine, tangled and powerful. But that day, for the first time, I noticed the faded words across the forgotten pages within the piece. In the very center: Nautilus.

I didn’t even know what a nautilus was. I was busy, so I tucked the thought away until I could look it up. When I finally did, I learned that a nautilus builds its chambers from the inside out, the inward spiral forming the structure that allows the outward expansion. The micro creates the macro. The hidden work makes the visible possible.

Later that night, I came home and looked up at the sky. And there it was.

I was mid–conversation with my boyfriend when I saw it, and without thinking, I hung up. Suspended above me was a perfect spiral, vast and luminous, with a round white center that seemed to pulse against the night. It stopped me cold. Before you ask, yes, I have the video.

I hit record just in time, catching those first moments before it began to drift. But then I lowered my phone, I wanted to see it with my own eyes, to take it in without a screen between us. It spiraled gently, then began to sink, slipping lower and lower until it passed behind the rooftops. I ran to the street, hoping for one more glimpse, but it was gone.

The whole thing lasted less than a minute, but it felt like the air itself had shifted.

Later that night, my mind tried to take back control. I searched and searched for explanations, maybe it was a satellite? No, too big. A Starlink launch? No, those trail like comets. A drone? Not a chance. The harder I chased a label for it, the further I seemed to move from the point. Whatever it was, the fact remains: I saw it.

And today, as if to close the loop, Rebecca’s book arrived in the mail. I had decided to order it almost instantly during her live workshop, without overthinking, without adding it to a wish list for “later.” I just knew I needed to read it.

The very next day, today, it was here. I slipped off the dust jacket and opened the hard cover. That’s when I saw it: the artwork inside was awash in soft pastel tones, delicate and almost glowing, with a perfect row of nautilus shells in a straight line. Above them, the words: This is the beginning.

For a second, the book nearly slipped from my hands. I just stared at it, letting my eyes travel over each curve of the shells, the spiral after spiral, the way they seemed to hold movement even in stillness.

The entire 24 hours showed me more than I can put into words. Later, I went back to the artwork again, thinking I had finally “seen” it. But then I noticed something else I had missed: the words didn’t just say Nautilus. They said: Nautilus Reveal. And in that moment, I understood, the reveal wasn’t about the shell itself, but about the way the unseen becomes visible only when you’re ready to notice, just like every hidden chamber I’ve been building inside myself.

And if all that wasn’t enough, the universe kept layering it on. After three full days of pushing my body and mind at horseshows, long hours, heavy work, constant motion, I went straight into the early morning of the Falmouth Road Race. Somehow, against all odds, I ran my personal best: 1:34. Two minutes faster than I’ve ever run before.

Along the way, I looked up at the sky and saw them: Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury shining together in the dawn. On the ride home, two red-tailed hawks circled overhead. Do I think these signs are just beginning to appear? I don’t know, and I don’t think that matters. I think what matters is that Dr I am finally learning to truly see them.

Through all of this, the way I move within my relationships has shifted too. With my partner, my parents, my brothers, my family, my friends, I feel a steadier closeness, one that comes from showing up as I truly am, not who I think I should be. I’m not carrying the same weight of unspoken expectations or quiet self-editing. It’s as if, in my own life, I’ve turned fully toward a horizon that matters to me, and now I see the people I love alongside me, not because we’re walking in perfect step, but because I’m finally walking as myself.

Years ago, I began writing a book that stopped abruptly, as if the story itself knew I wasn’t ready to finish. I tucked it away, telling myself I’d return when the timing was right. Three years passed without me opening it once.

Recently, I decided to reread it, almost on a dare to myself, and within the first few pages, I could feel it. This story had been living in me far longer than I’d realized, quietly breathing in the background while I lived the missing chapters. The characters, the themes, the questions I was wrestling with back then… they were seeds of what I’ve now walked through in my own life.

Now I know how it ends, and how it begins again. And that book? It’s not the whole story. It’s just the first page of something much bigger.

I began Letters from the Founder as a simple blog, a place to show what it would take to build something like Thrivewell from the ground up. I thought it would be about the physical work: the milestones, the emotions tangled in each roadblock, and yes, the occasional peeling back of my own layers. But somewhere along the way, it became something else entirely.

It became a vessel. A way of telling my story as it unfolds, not just the visible, measurable parts like planning board meetings or walking through a site with a builder, but the pieces that can’t be photographed or pinned to a timeline. The quiet truths. The tremors beneath the surface. The moments that defy explanation.

Each letter has become both a marker and a mirror, a way to practice what I most want, and dare, to teach: how to live authentically. And now I can see it clearly… these letters weren’t just a chronicle of building Thrivewell. They were, and are, the very first branch of it.

In the earliest days of my recovery, when everything still felt fragile and uncertain, I wrote a poem called Angel on My Shoulder. In it, I spoke of the quiet guardians I could almost feel, always near, always waiting, even when I wasn’t ready to listen. Back then, I heard them like a faint echo through a closed door.

Now, years later, the door is open.
The voices are clear.
The listening is at full volume.

The threads have been pulling together for longer than I realized, the signs, the spirals, the words that have found me in books and skies and artwork, the moments that make me stop and breathe as if the air itself has shifted. They’ve been here all along, waiting for me to notice.

And now that I do, I see it clearly: this is the beginning, and it’s been hiding in plain sight. The gift isn’t the signs themselves. The gift is the ability to see them.

For me now, while I wait for the civil suit to finish (whichever way it goes), I’m turning back to my book. Letters from the Founder will keep running alongside it, weaving together the outward journey of Thrivewell with the inward journey of story.

Here’s the fun part: remember when I said I finally know the story now? Well, I do, and once it came through, I was able to get it down so quickly that the first book is already written. Now it’s simply time to fine tune, edit, and publish.

And even then, it won’t be finished, because this book, Past Life Love, is only the first of three. It will be a trilogy: the first, a story of awakening; the second, of becoming; and the third, of return. Together, they hold the same truth these letters do: that what we build on the outside must first be built within, and that the greatest love story is the one we write with our own soul.

With gratitude, curiosity, and twenty seconds of hope,

Kelley