If caterpillars were people, would there be any butterflies?
I mean, would we really seal ourselves up in our own skin just on the promise of a metamorphosis into some completely different and wondrous winged being? I don't know.
Because while moth larvae spin cocoons, butterfly larvae do not. Their chrysalis is just their own skin, which hardens to protect them in a hermetically-sealed chamber while they melt down. Literally.
Once hanging upside-down in the chrysalis, the caterpillar's digestive juices turn against it, dissolving the caterpillar and turning it into nothing but a gooey liquid. Complete breakdown. No caterpillar, no butterfly. You cut open the chrysalis at this point and just a bunch of green soup runs out.
Assuming you do no such thing, however, something interesting happens about then. Certain cells, called imago cells, which served absolutely no purpose in the caterpillar's life up to now, suddenly kick in and take over. They organize the soup, telling the other cells inside the chrysalis how to re-form themselves into a butterfly.
You see that, right? They serve no purpose until the meltdown is complete and then they kick in, organizing the mess into something new and whole and, yes, wondrous.
Difficult transitions in life cause us to hit the brakes and stop moving forward, losing our sense of direction and momentum. Stranger than that, however, since they seem to disconnect us from where we thought we were going, they also disrupt our sense of identity and make us wonder who we really are. We go through such times feeling alone and isolated, unmoored from our past sense of self and completely unsure of what we are becoming. It's as though we've lost our form and can't quite get it back. And have no idea what we're supposed to look like next.
Assuming that we trust the process and don't interrupt it by trying to take control of it at this point, our natural psychological healing tendencies take over. Our own unconscious imago cells, which served no purpose in our lives until now, suddenly kick in and organize us into--okay, you guessed it: something new and whole and decidedly wondrous.
In many shamanic societies it is taken for granted that shamans are not born--they are created by some intense health or emotional crisis. What emerges from such crises is a metamorphosed person. Not who they were or even who they were going to be but someone more attuned to the world, more adaptable to change, and more powerful in their ability to benefit others. Healers are created out of crisis.
You, of course, may already know this, but I wasn't paying attention in class that day, so I can't believe I got this far along in life without knowing that the Greek word psyche meant butterfly. Amazing, isn't it? The word we translate as mind or soul was for the ancients also the word for butterfly.
Oh, and I know you were wondering--just how does that poor soft little caterpillar get out of that hard hermetically-sealed chrysalis that's been protecting it all this time? With its eye. No kidding. One of the things that the imago cells tell the new butterfly to do is grow a temporary scale on its eye so it can rub it against the inside of the chrysalis, wearing a weak spot in it until it can push its way out.
It's just like the ancient Taoist sage said: Everything we know about spirit we learned by analog from nature.
Not only do our meltdowns cause us to metamorphose into something we could not have imagined beforehand--they also teach us to use our eyes in a completely new and unexpected way. It's not just ourselves that have changed--our vision of the world around us has changed just as profoundly.
We suddenly develop a lifelong case of pronoia. You know--the irrational belief that unseen forces are conspiring to do us well.
So Happy Thanksgiving. And pass the blessing of meltdowns past. Because as hard as they are to go through, they spurred us to create the loving and wise nature we share with others today.
Would we really seal ourselves up inside our own skin just on the promise of a metamorphosis into some completely different and wondrous winged being?
Yep. Happens all the time.
Your comment to Ed and Deb Shapiro about the "...one third of a second delay between experiencing something and having an emotional reaction to it—which implies that our habitual attitude decides ahead-of-time how we will react emotionally..." is very timely. I had such an experience 5 days ago.
I was verbally attacked by a server in a cafe when I did not respond to his provocation. His provocation increased incrementally with my lack of anger. Two of me were solidly present - me and my observer. With stunning clarity, I knew exactly what the young man was going to do before he did it, and when he leaped forward to hit me he faltered under my gaze and stopped. The only person who could scare me is me.
When I left the café five minutes later, the young man very politely opened the door for me looking completely baffled.
Those one-third of a second intervals during those five minutes felt like a lifetime of absolute blazing clarity. My attacker was moving through water and I was moving at the speed of light.
I hope my comment is clear because I have tried to be brief and clear at the same time which is hard because I'm a story-teller.
Thanks again for your post. I'm definitely going to use it as a reference when I write about transformation.
your comment is especially clear and i wish there wasn't the need for us to be quite so brief, since i would love to hear the story in even more detail. i of course salute your presence of mind during that event and applaud your unwillingness to allow yourself to be dragged along with another's confused emotions! i know this is the result of much work and training on your part—isn't it wonderful when we achieve peak performance without sacrificing compassion and benevolence?
wishing you continued success on your path!
wm
i do think it is what type of crisis... how stable was the person to begin with? do we all have the same recoupretive powers in our mind?
what level of crisis are you taling about?
i look forward to hear more on this.
well done.
happiness,
p
from my perspective, we are all born with the same buddha nature, which means that we all possess the same recuperative powers. if we try to quantify the relative mind's limitations, then we run the risk of holding it back from opening up competely to its own healing potential (as symbolized in the article by the imago cells). i think it best to focus on the immediate availability of the absolute mind, not just as a potential but a presence of loving-kindness and wisdom. staying open to our inner source of healing, regardless of relative mind or relative circumstances, allows us to transcend our barriers and turn the experience into benefit for others. this is not to ignore circumstances but to rise above them in order to return to them with greater personal power.
thank you for the opportunity to expand on the ideas,
wm
your brilliance shines
Deb and I have taught workshops all over the world and have come up with
don't just let go
don't even pick it up
it requires mindfulness but whenever possible it can be very helpful
BE THE CHANGE
Ed
thank you, it's wonderful to be in such lovely company!
the two of you are an inspiration to all who aspire to bring their spiritual and activist practices into harmony and balance!! thank you for all your good works.....
i love your catch-phrase: "don't just let go—don't even pick it up".
i remember that we about a third of a second delay between experiencing something and having an emotional reaction to it—which implies that our habitual attitude decides ahead-of-time how we will react emotionally. if i'm always leaning toward being angry or hurt or distrustful, then i'm all ready to react to every moment with such emotions. if, on the other hand, i'm always leaning toward optimism, compassion, benevolence, and light-heartedness, then i'm all ready to react to every moment with such emotions.
a third of a second may not sound like much, but at the speed of thought, it is a lifetime. if i can keep my focus on maintaining a stable mind set "of my own choosing", then i do not react in some unconscious way determined by past experiences but, rather, in a spontaneous, creative, and surprising way that reflects my clear mind and open heart.
i don't have to worry about deciding to let it go, indeed!
with just a little mind training, i've learned how not to pick it up in the first place!
how grand that life means us well!
all my best,
wm
You are the best at coming up with such cool references as psyche = butterfly! I had no idea...
I also appreciate the reference to dissolving (letting go) as a response to crisis. Especially when there is nothing else to do. It makes the most sense, but seems difficult for most folks.
At the same time it makes me wonder if this isn't one of the secrets to deep creativity, i.e.letting things dissolve before putting them back together in completely new and freeing way. Hmmm...
Thanks for the great reminder.
Bruce
Thanks for your kind words. I agree, the "psyche = butterfly" formula opens up very interesting lines of questioning. The first one that comes to my mind is, "If the soul is a butterfly, then what is the caterpillar and what is the chrysalis?"
To see a period of dissolution coming ahead of time and not resist it can actually speed up the time it takes to restore the sense of wholeness. Acceptance of change, as you imply....
Interesting connection to creativity: it's often been noted that there is no creation without some corresponding destruction—i view this as the "destruction of alternatives" in the creative process, which many folks experience as real anxiety. we could think of this as a kind of "not wanting to make a mistake" in choosing between one creative decision and another but it seems deeper than that, as if one line of living imagination is cut off so that another might go on. In this regard, I think that what needs to dissolve is all the preconceptions that we hold (as to what is being created) and let go of its "identity" as we'd imagined it ahead of time. this opens up the room for the "imago cells" to kick in and begin reintegrating all the elements we bring to the project in new and surprising ways.
thanks again!
all my best,
wm