Planting Hope: A Birthday That Blooms Beyond Candles and Cake

“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” – Audrey Hepburn

Birthdays have always been a pause point for me. They’re not simply about counting candles but about reflecting on what those candles represent—the valleys endured, the peaks climbed, and the kind of legacy I still want to nurture.

Last year, I used my birthday to highlight the Suicide Awareness and the Prevention Lifeline. At the time, it felt important to shine light on the struggles we often don’t see and the courage it takes simply to keep going.

This year, my heart is asking for something different—something tangible, rooted, and alive. Something that embodies both survival and renewal.

This year, my birthday wish is a garden.

🌱 Why a Garden?

If you’ve ever walked through a pollinator garden in full bloom, you know it’s more than pretty flowers. It’s life in motion.

Bees hum as they dart between blossoms. Butterflies hover with delicate persistence. Sunlight filters through petals and grasses, creating a mosaic of color and sound. And beneath it all, the soil holds memory—of storms, of drought, of renewal.

Here in the foothills of Colorado’s Wet Mountains, I see daily reminders of this cycle. After a season of drought, wildflowers still push through the hard earth. After fire, new shoots emerge in blackened soil. Nature always finds a way forward.

For me, this isn’t just about plants. As a survivor of intimate partner violence, I know what it feels like to carry both visible and invisible scars. I know how desperately the body craves spaces that feel safe, restorative, and alive.

A pollinator garden is a living metaphor for resilience: diverse, interconnected, and flourishing again after disruption. It is, quite literally, healing rooted in the ground.

🦋 The Crucible Center’s Mission

Out of my own journey, I founded the Crucible Center for Arts and Wellbeing, a nonprofit devoted to creating spaces of transformation for survivors and communities. Our mission weaves together art, nature, and holistic healing—because resilience isn’t only personal. It ripples outward.

This year, the Crucible Center is taking a new step: creating the Pollinator Healing Garden in Fremont County, Colorado.

This garden will be more than a patch of wildflowers. It will be:

• A sanctuary where survivors of intimate partner violence can breathe deeply, reflect, and begin again.

• A living classroom where children and families learn how pollinators sustain our food, our ecosystems, and our future.

• A community hub where art and nature converge to remind us that healing and biodiversity both flourish through connection.

We’ve received a small grant to begin—our seed money. This allows us to break ground and prepare the first beds this fall. But like every garden, this one needs water, light, and care from many to truly bloom.

🧬 The Science of Renewal

What ancient cultures practiced intuitively, modern science is finally confirming— nature heals.

As a functional genomics coach, I spend a lot of time exploring how biology and environment intersect. The data on nature’s healing power is striking:

• Phytoncides, the plant compounds released into the air by trees and flowers, lower cortisol and blood pressure.

• Listening to natural soundscapes—wind, birds, bees—reduces activity in the amygdala, the brain’s fear center, easing reactivity.

• Exposure to biodiversity strengthens the microbiome and immune system, improving resilience at the cellular level.

• Time outdoors boosts BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor), a gene critical for learning, memory, and emotional healing.

• Genes like COMT and FKBP5, which regulate how we clear stress hormones, respond favorably when supported by restorative environments.

In other words, a pollinator garden isn’t just symbolic. It is biologically restorative.

Every flower planted, every bee that returns, every child who pauses to notice the hum of wings contributes to an environment that actively shifts both body and brain toward healing.

🌻 Community Impact

The Crucible Center’s work has always been about more than the individual. Healing ripples outward—through families, communities, and even ecosystems.

The Pollinator Healing Garden embodies that truth:

• Survivors find strength not in isolation, but in knowing they are part of something larger.

• Local families and school groups discover that biodiversity isn’t an abstract idea, but a living network that sustains their daily lives.

• Pollinators—bees, butterflies, bats, hummingbirds—gain safe habitats, which in turn support the food we eat and the balance of our ecosystem.

When you support this garden, you’re not just funding flowers in the soil. You’re investing in resilience that multiplies—across lives, generations, and landscapes.

🎂 My Birthday Wish

So, what does all this have to do with my birthday?

This September 23, I don’t want candles or cards. I want to plant hope.

Here’s how you can help:

• A $25 gift plants pollinator-friendly flowers.

• A $50 gift provides art supplies for survivor workshops in the garden.

• A $100 gift helps us build pathways to make the garden accessible for all.

• And truly—a gift in any amount helps bring this vision to life.

There’s another way to support, too. If you’ve been considering buying my book, The GLP-1 Exit Plan, know that 25% of all proceeds go directly to the Crucible Center. Your purchase not only equips you (or someone you love) with tools for lasting health, it also plants the seeds of resilience in our community.

👉 Donation Link, HERE
👉 Purchased The GLP-1 Exit Plan book HERE, or at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or at your favorite book retailer.

A Final Reflection

A garden doesn’t bloom overnight. It grows through seasons of drought and storm, through soil that remembers struggle—and still, life emerges.

So it is with us.

We may carry the weight of stress, uncertainty, or past setbacks. But with intention, connection, and care, we can create spaces—both within ourselves and around us—where renewal takes root.

The Pollinator Healing Garden is one expression of that vision. But so is every choice you and I make to live with greater resilience, compassion, and purpose.

As my birthday approaches, I’m reminded that transformation is rarely about one big leap. It’s about planting seeds—small, consistent actions—that bloom into lasting change.

This year, my birthday isn’t about me.
It’s about creating a place where survivors, pollinators, and entire communities can thrive together.

Will you help me plant hope?

With gratitude,
Holli