I am typing these words on the precipice of a second Easter spent mostly in lockdown. As I do so I am contemplating my favorite symbol of this holiday season.
No, it is not a cross.
It is not a tomb with a stone rolled away from its entrance.
It is not white trumpet-like lilies, and it is most certainly not sugary peeps or chocolate eggs.
As I am typing these words an embodiment of this symbol just literally and synchronistically fluttered by my office window.
My long favorite symbol of this holiday season is a butterfly.
When I say that my favorite symbol of this holiday season is a butterfly, I actually do not mean so much the finished flying form. I am referring to the butterfly as a process of becoming. From caterpillar to chrysalis to emergence to flight. And integral to this process is an unavoidable melting.
Did I mention that I believe my melting is finally complete?
I was born on an Easter Sunday at White Cross hospital with a Grand Cross in my astrological chart. Though it has been decades since I identified with the Christian religion the symbolism has remained a map for my sacred journey upon this planet. My personal adventure has been one of repeated crucifixions and resurrections. I have hung upon many crosses of my own making. I have died repeated deaths. I have risen from the graves of my own faulty self-images over and over again. In so many ways everyday has been for me an Easter day. And in these latter years of this incarnation the patterns and the transcendence of those patterns have never been clearer.
And now I find that my cross these days has butterflies all around it.
I deeply appreciate that for all we think we collectively and individually know science does not fully comprehend the process by which a caterpillar is transformed into a butterfly. The worm-like creature spins a chrysalis from within and around itself, a cocoon that appears to be its tomb. Once encased it melts into a goo-like substance that contains what are called imaginal cells. These cells are independent of what the caterpillar physically was. Yet what those cells are is what the butterfly is becoming. This developing creature forms out of the melting, eventually growing wings that beat against the walls of the cocoon until they are strong enough to begin to crack the encasement away. This needed strength that breaks away the tomb is also what is necessary to allow the being to then take flight.
I so relate.
As an extreme introvert I have always deeply valued my time in solitude. I need cocoon time. It is not a preference. It is necessary for my sanity and my serenity. Too much stimulation exhausts me quickly. Crawling around in the external realm quickly leads me to an impulse to spin a chrysalis around me, and to tuck into some always precious quiet time. I got over the fear of melting and going to goo a long time ago. I know that allowing the inexplainable process that happens for me in beingness time always leads to nourishment and renewed strength. I always recognize when my wings are ready to fly once more. I feel it. It is unmistakable.
So, as I face the second Easter in semi-isolation, I feel a renewed and renewing appreciation of what I have gleaned from an extended time in my personal chrysalis. I admit that even for this extreme introvert this pandemic distancing has pushed my edges. I have been blessed from the beginning of this global crisis to see it as symbolically as I have literally. I have known all along that we the earthly family have been prompted and beseeched to go into our private cocoons and to let a melting happen in terms of the unsustainable ways we had been living. We have been cosmically called to go to goo. Some have heeded this call. Many have not.
I for have one have heeded the call.
So, as I honor the Grand Cross pattern of my incarnation, I do so as I let the butterfly process continue to happen within me. One name for this butterfly process is resurrection.
And I do believe my melting is complete.
I feel the imaginal cells of my True nature stirring inside of me. I am gently yet steadily beating my emerging wings against the confines of my earthly nature. I feel my strength gathering, and I know that soon a transformation will be completing. I will be ready to fly forth at higher levels of consciousness. I will still be able to land when I choose. It will not be the end of my ongoing Soul emergence. Yet I will be a new kind of creature not from changing myself but from letting myself be changed.
By letting myself go to goo.
As tomorrows dawn awakens me to Easter Day, I am grateful for the patterns and pathways that have led me from White Cross hospital to Evangelical Christianity to New Thought spirituality to the chrysalis of my own inner being. A great melting has taken place. A welcomed if painstaking metamorphosis has in many ways rendered me unrecognizable.
Resurrection is occurring.
I honor those who will look tomorrow upon an empty tomb and who will choose to worship a risen Lord. I truly do embrace all paths to the Awakening we are each called to.
As for me I will be gazing upon butterflies and knowing that their splendid and mysterious trajectory is my own destiny.
And it all began the day I decided to let myself melt.
