you have to be willing to chrysalize

When we are feeling lost in our human lives, which have been so violently and colonially severed from the heartbeat of the Earth, we can turn to nature. All was made in All’s image. Suffering is inherent to life on this planet, as is beauty. When I am at my lowest, Spirit gifts me with images of stoic mountains, sprawling trees, flowing rivers. When I don’t know where else to go, I go for a walk.

Most recently, the metaphor I have clung to for my life is that of a caterpillar’s life cycle. I believe that a metaphor is a symbiosis - a statement I am still unearthing, and will dig into in another essay one day. A symbiotic relationship sustains life through collaboration. It is a reminder that nothing on this earth can survive in isolation - that we’re often better off together.

After spending much of its time in symbiosis with the plants in its environment, the caterpillar is filled with the nutrients it will need to undergo complete transformation. It goes beyond change - dancing with death to be reborn into something new and something freer. The first step - hide.

I spent the first quarter of the year in hiding, or so it seemed. As if the depths of a yoga teacher training became a chrysalis around my precious time. My energy has limits, and they are sacred ones. As I learned and grew and connected in a warmglowing community space, I wove tightly the cocoon of my resources, coming to understand that the only space that can be truly and ultimately safe is that which we hold for ourselves. Though I knew I was moving towards my truth, in a generative sense, I felt as if my world was crumbling around me.

Threads of silk layered thick and blocked out the light. My own form disintegrated, skin falling from bone to harden into a protective shell. I felt as everything I once knew to be my body, my path, my life, melted into a puddle. Nothing was certain here. In the darkness swaddling, I could no longer see back to the purpose of this endeavor - I have to wonder if the caterpillar feels like this is all they’ve ever known, too. It feels like dying because it is death. Death, though, is not so linear as we might think.

Once the caterpillar has molted it's skin and digested it's own body to become a pupa, cells now floating in primordial goo, something magic occurs, and what we've named the process strikes me as magic too. Certain groups of cells are retained together in what we call "imaginal discs". These will go on to become the limbs, antennae, wings of the next life form yet to be realized.

I'm reminded that nothing new in our lives can manifest without imagination. Often, the very act of destruction is necessary to imagine something new into being. In this vein, one could say that dissolution is an integral part of the process of creativity. If matter cannot be removed from or added to this plane of existence, then this must be true. To grow, to change, to create or to become something new, you have to be willing to chrysalize.

And I suppose the willingness is where I got stuck for a while. Fear gripped me in its clammy hands and I felt immobile. While my purpose had become clear to me, my path yet had not. I was unwilling to fall apart in the name of new form. I was afraid to even imagine. It seemed as if my cells weren't able to mobilize past disintegration as my own inner voice held me, keeping my energy locked in a stalemate. Out of this moment of paralyzing fear arose an even stickier feeling - shame.

How could this have happened? I found the answers, I did the work, and now on the precipice of a whole new life, I'm stuck? I guess the truth of the matter was my lack of faith in the matter of my slimy caterpillar cells. See, I, unlike the caterpillar, live in a capitalistic society. The pressure to know what you're doing, to do it right, to do it now, has permeated the very essence of my human cells. This led me to believe I needed to seek out the answers rather than live into them, allowing answers to find me. Deeper than this, the pressure to do "the right thing" - rather, the safe thing - that came from my upbringing drew me even further into my unrighteous sense of shame around this metamorphosis.

From here, willingness started to resemble letting go. Forgiving those who taught me ideology that never could have fit, and forgiving myself for believing it. Understanding that I am just as much a part of this earth as the caterpillar and the pupa and the plants and the sunshine. My unique process of metamorphosis is as natural as any Earthly process I witness when I reflect on my oneness with Source. For this reason, I have no choice but to allow. Despite fear, shame, and cultural conditioning, I choose to allow myself to not only be me, but imagine me.

Now, I wake up each day and I write. I speak with myself and I choose to listen without judgement. I breathe deep, inviting oxygen and life force into each cell. I move my body within, around, and through the cellular soup. These practices give me the space I need to imagine. I choose to imagine what my life could be if my cells realigned to create a stunning set of wings. The fear has not subsided - instead, I've imagined a reality in which I have all I need to face the fear and come out alive.

Through this process, I've come to know deeply that magic is real and we can choose to experience it. Even in the depths of darkness and uncertainty, maybe especially so, is the space to imagine. The damp, dark, and warm confines of the womb - where new life is generated, grown from scratch. Not unlike a dead forest, where the sun bores down to the floor and you can't yet envision the new trees that will grow tall from the seeds of their late mothers - I can't yet see where I'm going, but the path is lined with wildflowers and signs. The chrysalis has broken open and I feel the cool air against my damp and new wings. I simply can't imagine how one could witness these miracles of nature and not believe in magic. This belief is what sustains me when the future is uncertain - which it always is. Death will always beget new life, and matter can do nothing but transform and continue to exist.