The world rearranged itself for me the moment I put my hands into a dye pot. I haven't seen it the same way since.

It was early 2020. I was 29 years old, home with twin one-year-olds and a five-year-old, cooking plant based meals, nursing babies, growing food in a small city yard, and caring for more houseplants than I could count. From the outside, it probably looked like a full life. And it was. But I was also someone who felt both young and old at the same time, energetic enough to keep moving, but carrying the quiet weight of an old soul who couldn't figure out how to build the life she could see clearly in her head.

I was disappearing. Not dramatically. Just slowly, the way a voice gets quieter when nobody responds to it.

The things that made me feel like myself, moving my body, making something with my hands all the way through to completion, sitting in enough quiet to actually hear my own thoughts..those things had been crowded out. And the honest truth is that I wasn't fighting very hard to get them back. It was easier to play small than to chase the things that were calling to me in whispers. Until those whispers turned into screams. 

I was grateful. I was also disappearing. Two things can exist at the same time. And I felt too ashamed to say so out loud, because when I did, the message I got back, in a hundred small ways, was: how dare you.

And then one day I was watching a home redesign show, and a woman dyed curtains with turmeric, and something cracked open. I thought, holy shit, you can ALSO use plants to create color on cloth?

I started with kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, onion skins, avocado pits, black beans. What began as curiosity snowballed into a practice that I would incorporate into my everyday life. Making something with my hands, watching color emerge from things most people throw away, it gave me back the sense of purpose I already knew I was missing. I just didn't know it had been waiting for me in a dye pot.

Because that's what natural dyeing really is. It's an avenue to explore yourself through the natural resources that exist all around you. There is an undeniable alchemy that exists within the ability to go for a walk, forage wild plants, and come home buzzing with excitement to see what color they give. Those of us who practice are wizards of this world, transforming things most people overlook into something living and full of color. It lets you play like a child while bringing the care and attention of an adult who wants to do something that matters.

And it already spoke my language. Working with the earth, seeking holistic alternatives, the garden, the kitchen, the deep understanding that we are co-creators with the natural world, not just extracting from it for our own benefit, but in relationship with it. Natural dyeing didn't introduce me to a new world. It handed me a deeper key to the one I was already living in. A dye pot doesn't care if you come back in twenty minutes or two hours. Time isn't the enemy here. Time is the main ingredient. Moving slowly is how I found my way back to myself.

Natural dyeing also provided me with a tool to understand how to heal.

My father was a contractor. Large, loud in tone, big cracked hands that showed the work he did in the world. But with my sister and me, he was different. Patient. Present. There was never a day I saw or spoke to him when he didn't make sure to tell me he loved me. When I had children of my own, that love expanded to include them tenfold. He would drop almost anything to show up, to fix something, to sit in the bleachers at his grandson’s baseball practice…to simply be there. His pride wasn't just felt. It was proven, over and over, through showing up.

I dyed him a Carhartt shirt with cutch. It was the first concentrated dye pigment that I started experimenting with. He wore it to practically every family gathering and told people I might have used potatoes. He never washed it because he was afraid he'd ruin it.

He is no longer here. The shirt is XXL, large like him. The color has faded a little with time. The dirt is still on the collar. Holding it feels like a hug I will never get from him again.

That shirt was a pivotal moment in my understanding of how intimate our clothing really is. It isn't just fabric. It's a time capsule. It holds the days a person lived inside it. What we make with our hands, and what we choose to put on our bodies, carries more than we realize, and natural dyeing is what taught me to take that seriously.

When my father died, a voice in my head got louder. It was the same voice he had always been the external version of, the one that said: follow what makes you happy. You can't be replaced. Nothing that happens is something you can't recover from.

What I'm building with Falling Off Trees doesn't fit inside a generic business model. It's not a framework. It's not ten steps to a more intentional life. It is, honestly, an act of rebellion through natural color, through slow making, through taking up space in rooms where I'm still learning to believe I belong.

This is a journal of offerings. I'll share what has worked for me, what hasn't, what I'm still figuring out, through the pillars of natural dyeing, sustainable fashion, and the quiet work of learning to trust yourself. I'm not here to tell you what to do. I'm not making any promises. I'm just opening a door and leaving it open.

Because here's what I want you to know, if you are the mother in the disappearing, if you are anyone who has been playing small while something calls to you in whispers:

Everything you are seeking is also seeking you. Your desires are little clues, signals that you are being called toward something that is already yours. You don't have to rebrand your entire life or incorporate someone else's framework. You can simply make enough space to ask yourself what you want, and then give yourself permission to follow the trail.

Thank you for this journey. Let’s create something beautiful together.

xx, Korie