Change

It has become nearly common knowledge that when a caterpillar hides itself in a chrysalis to metamorph into a butterfly, it decomposes completely. From this soup of apparently random cells come progenitor cells, called imaginal cells, which find one another in such a way that a new cohesive pattern is formed. A butterfly. In the cosmos is contained the plan – the blue print – for this new form to take shape.

In like fashion, every decomposing leaf, trunk and body can be seen to be returning to the chrysalis womb of the great Mother, Earth, to be reshaped into the cellular pattern of that which is waiting to be formed from those particular cells. All matter is imaginal. Transforming yet again and again into new forms of the Cosmos’ imagining.

What is seldom mentioned in the butterfly story is that the original caterpillar cells put up a fight. There is some initial struggle when the newly christened imaginal cells reach out to find one another in that soup. Some are killed in this battle. Eventually, they do coalesce, and that which is to be does emerge, but beneath the hardened shell of that chrysalis the newly created butterfly had to ward off the efforts of the dying caterpillar to maintain itself before it could successfully find its own new form.

I imagine personal and societal change must surely follow this same pattern. If you are experiencing discord and turmoil in your life; if you know change needs to happen but you feel yourself clinging to some outmoded past, give your imaginal cells a boost.

Imagine yourself as that butterfly you are longing to be. Imagine the world as that place where you want to be. And see how you fit into that new pattern.

Then – live it. It is what you are here to do.