On Butterflies & Saturn Returns
Life is one wild ride.
I’ve been offline for quite some time, and I am reemerging online to say hello in the midst of my ongoing metamorphosis—one that (I hope) is ushering me toward a new chapter.
Life updates in case you’re curious:
At the beginning of 2024, I decided to let go of a company that had been a big part of my life since 2017. I started it (with two other people) from my sweet little Berkeley apartment off MLK and Dwight, and wow—have I changed since then. It was a leap of faith when I co-created my first production company, and it was another leap of faith when I decided to sell my shares and move on. Both times, I’m so grateful for the people who supported my growth—who cheered me on when I was scared as hell. Thank you.
2017 was an important year for me. In 2017, I did something else that would also change my life, I started meditating.
As a kid, I was obsessed with books about past lives. Then as a teen, I renounced all rituals remotely tied to Indian traditions. I didn’t like crowded places of worship and often said, “I don’t need to go somewhere to find God.” Thankfully, my parents encouraged my questioning. They never forced their Sikh beliefs on me, though my dad would occasionally offer a well-argued case for the feminist roots within Sikhism.
All of that to say, for years, I was pretty disconnected from all spiritual paths. I was doing things with my life but I didn’t fundamentally have a vision for what I was after; what I wanted. When I began meditating at 23, it was thanks to someone I was dating. At the time, I was relying on substances—mostly weed—to cope (or numb). The meditation school I attended asked students to be off substances to participate, and to my own surprise, it was the easiest decision I’ve ever made. To be transparent, I’d still have a social drink now and then—until my 28th birthday in Sardinia, when I decided to let that go too.
The meditation, the inner work, helped give me a solid direction for my life. Not in the sense necessarily of my specific career ambitions or life goals, but a broader vision, or a deeper knowing of my Self. Contrary to my expectations that this would be some kind of loud, slap-in-the-face thing, this sense of knowing has often come to me in ways that are extremely quiet and subtle. The blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind.
In 2022, after my 28th birthday I went to Australia for an extended retreat with the school, where I meditated and volunteered. Think along the lines of ‘karma-yoga’ type stuff. It was during this phase that I entered my Saturn Return. For those unfamiliar, it’s a period often associated with transformation. For me, Saturn pointed to all the places I wasn’t being true to myself—where I was hiding, compromising, or backing away from my potential and purpose.
It was in this phase where I unraveled so many pieces of my life, including my first company.
In October, I returned to Australia once again and celebrated 30 years of existence in a beautiful valley filled with kangaroos, wallabies, and something indescribable. Can I say ‘something magical’ without sounding woo-woo?
I closed out my Saturn Return at the meditation center. My three and a half months there allowed me time to introspect and learn about myself. One of the things I realized was how much I enjoy being challenged. It awakens something profound in me that otherwise doesn’t get to come out and play.
Something that has always fascinated me: To become a butterfly, the caterpillar doesn’t just grow wings. It dissolves into a biological soup, rebuilt entirely by imaginal cells that had been dormant all along.
Transformation begins with letting yourself fully fall apart. Sometimes, good things fall apart so better things can come together.
As I write this at 12:40 AM on this new moon, I’m not sure where I am on the spectrum—falling apart or coming together. What I do know is that I’ve been terrified to be seen as I am. I’ve feared the judgment: from friends I’ve lost, a hurting world, strangers I’ll never meet, and the inner critic I still entertain.
But this need to express—to create—it’s who I am. I dim when I deny myself the space to play, to write, to make. I wouldn’t have admitted this back then, but creativity is what gives my life meaning. I get to be, I get to know, the creation when I create.
Maybe that’s why I was so drawn to those books on past lives as a 12-year-old. They reminded me: life is so much bigger than we imagine.
Whether or not anything exists after death—whether I’m falling or flying—here I am. Breathing in some corner of the world, sharing the same air as you.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for existing.
xo Reaa Puri
April 30 2025