The Likeness of Butterflies

Thought I'd share a passage that someone shared with me from a book titled The Legacy of Luna. Ehh hemmm, well here goes.

When I was six or seven years old, a butterfly landed on me and stayed with me for hours while I hiked in the mountains of Pennsylvania. Since then, butterflies have always come to me during times of need, sometimes in reality and other times in visions and dreams. At one point, when I was feeling extremely despondent, a vision came to me of a butterfly poking out of a cocoon. When it finally broke free it was a magical butterfly with prismatic colors. As the butterfly emerged, the cocoon's brown shell turned into a shimmering ribbon that unwound. The next day at work, while I was still despondent, this message came to me: Through life's trials and hardships we arise beautiful and free. The vision of the butterfly returned to me.

That was when I began to learn how to internalize the process of the butterfly, which is all about understanding and letting go of our attachments. A caterpillar has a really comfortable life and grows attached to that comfort. But it's not truly free, it's not truly beautiful. Eventually, because it senses that there's something more - not by someone telling it, but by the deep intuitive force - it lets go of the comfort that keeps it grounded and spins a cocoon around itself. The cocoon comes from within the caterpillar, just as our letting go has to come from within.

The caterpillar encases itself within itself and is forced into this dark, small area, where it can't be distracted by anything. No longer can the sun and rain enter its world. It is alone in the darkness, wrapped in what it has spun from inside, and shielded from any distractions.

So it is with us. True transformation occurs only when we can look at ourselves squarely and face our attachments and inner demons, free from the buzz of commercial distraction and false social realities. We have to retreat into our own cocoons and come face-to-face with who we are. We have to turn toward our own inner darkness. For only by abandoning its attachments and facing the darkness does the caterpillar's body begin to spread out and its light, beautiful wings begin to form.

Even then, the caterpillar must shed one last attachment - to the dark, cramped space it has gotten used to, a new form of comfort - and begin breaking through the barrier of self in which it has wrapped itself. It doesn't have a clue what lies beyond, but it responds to this higher calling anyway. This last struggle effects the final transformation. If a human helps the butterfly break through the cocoon, the butterfly will never fly. Only by finding the strength to break free of that last attachment can this delicate being, with a body so light and fragile that a breath could seemingly kill it, fly beautiful and free.

Similarly, only once we let go of all we know, including all our self-centered concerns, and break free of the cocoons we spin around ourselves to shut out the world can we become the truly beautiful beings we are meant to be.