Caterpillars & Butterflies

Tonight I took a moment to listen to a podcast by Marianne Williamson, one of my favorite spiritual teachers, called "Death to Life." In it she shared that we - the human race - are undergoing big transformation.  She likened this journey to that of the caterpillar. She said, "The caterpillar eats too much and it begins to literally decay and in the decay is what the biologists call the imaginal selves that form a cluster of imaginal soup. Out of that emerges an entirely new order of being. The butterfly is not just a caterpillar that has grown wings; not at all. The caterpillar dies and the butterfly is born. There's an actual discontinuity there; there's an actual phase shift, and that is what is occurring to us. One aspect of who we were is dying and out of the imaginal selves emerges someone new. We are moving from good to great; we are moving from caterpillar to butterfly; we are moving from who we used to be to who we can be. Look forward right into the eyes of the you that is waiting to be born." Wow....

So I took a moment to close my eyes and envision my imaginal self. Who would she be? What would she be like? What would she do? And I felt that imaginal self in my body, the self that I can be. I looked her right in the eyes and said, "Yes! That's the me I can be!" She was a few things that I already am, and a few things that I am not. And why not? What keeps me from being that person today?

I recall another, much older quote from Marianne Williamson: "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do."

Ah- so that's it! We are afraid of our own light, our own brilliance. And all too often, when someone else shines, when someone else achieves what our soul longs to, we don't use it as an invitation to do the same; nope. We use it to compare, blame, judge or condemn them or ourselves or others for it. We are reminded of our own fears and blockages in bringing our imaginal selves forward. And so we find ways to separate ourselves and our experiences from theirs to reduce the pressure we feel inside.

But the pressure never dies, because our soul remembers. Our soul feels its Divinity, and that Divinity calls us forth, calls us forward. Each one of us carries within our being Divine gifts. Jane Goodall once said, "We have the choice to use the gift of our lives to make the world a better place." We have the opportunity to share our gifts with the world while we are here, to make it a place we can all be proud to live. Will we stay frightened little caterpillars or will we look our imaginal selves in the eyes and say Yes! to our butterflies? The time has arrived; the doorway of transformation is open...

Will we, will you, will I look through that doorway, or walk through it? That is the question of the day (number 276 to be exact).

©2010 Cecilia L. Zúñiga. A Year To Live. All Rights Reserved. Reprints, copies or reproductions of any kind must be accompanied by copyright credit line.