I offer this story now that the Monarch butterflies are starting their annual migration south.
It is a story that science would support in its broad details. Yet it is also a soul story- the story of our human metamorphosis from earth-bound beings to something we can’t even imagine. This story is based on the work of Norie Huddle in her book Butterfly. Perhaps you will resonate with this story and might even want to share this story with your friends.
A caterpillar is born with imaginal cells, which live side by side with the caterpillar’s DNA. These cells differ entirely from the caterpillars’ DNA, resonating at a different frequency. In these imaginal cells is a complete blueprint for what the caterpillar is destined to become but cannot yet imagine. The caterpillar experiences these cells as enemy invaders but cannot eradicate them.
Meanwhile, the caterpillar continues eating everything it can find until it becomes so bloated that it can barely move. Eventually, it attaches to a branch, hanging upside down, swaddling itself in a chrysalis, where the transformation begins. The battle between the two “paradigms” continues while the caterpillar cells grow exhausted.
Meanwhile, something astonishing happens. The single imaginal cells start to clump together. Where they were once lone entities, now they are resonating clumps of this new frequency, and the organizational structure of the new butterfly gradually becomes apparent. Eventually, the caterpillar cells are overwhelmed and surrender, becoming a liquid mush that will feed the developing butterfly.
To complete the birth process, the butterfly has to struggle to emerge from the chrysalis. If this process is interfered with, the butterfly never develops fully. My friends Jim and Sally, who hatch butterflies, tell me that after hatching, the butterfly first flies up as high as it can and higher than it will ever go again. I tell myself that the new being wants a full view of this new and unfamiliar world. Perhaps it needs to be amazed by the vastness of the new reality before it sets out on the daily business of being a butterfly.
So, on this beautiful fall day, I invite you to be grateful for the clumping that is going on in your lives. May we be thankful for all the people on this beautiful planet who, filled with love, creativity, and connection to Source, are now clumping together. May we offer special gratitude to the children coming into this world with a new blueprint for how we can live on this planet and for all of those who came before us, giving us the nourishment to create the new world.
Thank you, my readers, for clumping with me. May you clump merrily, fearlessly, and lovingly into this mind-boggling new world that is transforming before our very eyes. May you trust that the blueprint is already within us and unfolding perfectly, and may you trust in your unique and necessary role in that process.