Once I was a butterfly, spreading my creative wings and taking flight, flitting about, soaring through “life as it comes,” and I thought my transformation complete.
Before gaining my wings, I had experienced a divorce, a move to a new state and then across the country, and a severe health challenge that nearly ended this terrestrial journey. Imagine my surprise, emerging from that dark chrysalis time, to find that I could fly! And I did.
I spread my newly-formed wings and flew into the light, sipped sweet nectar with friends, and delighted in fruitful days as well as days when I sat back and rested my strong, beautiful wings. I tasted the poignancy of love at its best and worst and best again, and the pull of hunger during lean times.
I knew the joy of doing work that I loved and the shame and sorrow of misdirected choices and missed opportunities, yet rejoiced in the rebirth of spring as each year passed, celebrating my birthday and life renewed. I believed that once I had my wings (I want to be a writer … I want to be a writer … and then one day, wings: I am a writer!) the really hard work was done. Once a butterfly, always a butterfly! How could this not be so?
What a surprise, then, awakening on this year’s birth anniversary threshold to find myself wingless … and hungry! I was a caterpillar once again! Voracious. Crawling on my belly, pulling myself along and devouring all in my path. Nourishment! Must eat! ~ my frenzied mind called out to me. Books … retreats … classes … workshops … I devoured them all as if I had never eaten before, never partaken of the wisdom I was ingesting. Never mind the effect of my tremendous appetite on those around me, those I love. In the caterpillar phase there is nothing to do but nourish oneself, to the exclusion of all else.
Life often requires such focused, single-pointed effort, for it is the only means for surviving and thriving the phase which follows that of the very hungry caterpillar . . . the time of quiet destruction and renewal: the chrysalis.
I have been here before, in the chrysalis, and the past results were stunning, but to be honest, at this point in my life, I hadn’t planned ever to return to this uncomfortable place again. It seems, though, that transformation is a dynamic process that requires a balance of cycles to sustain it.
I don’t recall all of the details of previous chrysalis sequences, but I do remember learning one very important lesson: the process of metamorphosis is most painful when I try to hold on, to remain attached to the me I have always known myself to be, attached to the way things were, the way I believe they should be. Holding on only creates pain, sorrow, angst and much more suffering than necessary.
Without attachment, however, the chrysalis phase becomes one of deep, quiet rest, complete dissolution, and a preparation for re-emergence. To the outside world it may appear as an inability to focus, lethargy, even despondency or lack of initiative. Inside, though, there is a lot happening, crucial changes occurring that will one day be readily apparent … but not now.
Because I have been here before, and because I have experienced the joy of emergence in the past, this passage into the chrysalis is easier in some ways, though my ego still likes to remind me that “laziness” does not look good ~ I do not look good.
And it is true. The chrysalis phase is not a pretty one, not admired like the beautiful butterfly, and can be even more troubling to our loved ones than the annoyingly hungry caterpillar. As caterpillars, when our appetite is at its peak, we are most open to sharing with those around us the wisdom ideas/thoughts/words we have been devouring … whether they want to hear them or not! We constantly regurgitate what we’ve read, what we’ve heard, what we’ve learned, and at least it appears that we are doing something, albeit somewhat obsessively.
Here in the chrysalis, though, there is no sharing, no movement, or so it seems. There is only quiet, stillness, integration, and the hard inner work of becoming the butterfly once again.
Bio ~ Linda Maree
Once upon a time … there was a child who loved stories. One day the child came upon a path bathed in moonlight and sparkling with bits of magic, pieces of myth, and trickles of metaphor and decided that this was “The Write Path” …
Today, published writer and wordplay enthusiast Linda Maree creates and facilitates programs for engaging the inner storyteller, enhancing and promoting creativity, and nurturing “The Feminine” within all of us through visual art and the written word.
Blog: https://honeycombmoon.wordpress.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HoneycombMoon
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