Yesterday, while spending the day with a sweet friend of mine at Knotts Berry Farm connecting with our inner child through laughter and screams, we also shared some great conversations. One of them led us to discuss the magick of the butterfly, and the miracle transformation the caterpillar goes through to emerge as such. It felt significant.
That conversation inspired this post, as the pure alchemy of that transmutation it undergoes is truly worthy of note, and perhaps you may not fully realize what a profound process the caterpillar goes through in order to renew itself into the enchanted winged one it becomes.
This goes in line with my post, November Thoughts ~ Becoming a Butterfly and may be of interest to all of you “cocooners” out there.
The caterpillar doesn’t merely go hide and sleep in the cocoon and then sprout wings, but nearly fully dissolves into a liquid inside the chrysalis and from memory-retaining imaginal disks, magickally metamorphosizes.
It is from these transform agent-cells that they reconstruct and rearrange themselves to grow anew, after they digest themselves into a primordial soup from the digestive enzyme they release within the cocooning phase.
I love the symbolism and implications of this and how much it resonates with my current experience. I’ve been through the cocooning stage many times, but this time I consciously feel the process explained here.
Here’s an article by Daven Hiskey that shares more about this:
Caterpillars “Melt” Almost Completely Before Growing Into Butterflies In The Chrysalis
Photo I captured of an enchanting butterfly in Key West
Wow, I received such a deeply touching and beautiful outpouring of messages from so many people yesterday that receive my monthly updates via newsletter on this month’s share, that I felt guided to post it here for those of you that follow along via blog solely and don’t receive my newsletter. It seems I touched a chord with a lot of souls that shared in the experience of what I was inspired to write about my own.
I’m really grateful for all of the beautiful expressions shared with me, the loving support, and the amazingly courageous hearts you are all embracing on your own journeys.
Below you’ll find the introductory thoughts to November’s newsletter. If you would like to receive these monthly, you can sign up here: Newsletter
We’re already almost a week into November.
The eternal moment is continuously catching up to us.
It has never been more evident to me how time simply does not exist in any way that might have at once felt comforting to try to measure.
Although I might speak about past, present, and future, it is merely to help demonstrate an understanding of things in a more collectively accepted way.
That said, it is not my way.
Nor are many things.
What is my way?
This is an important question I find myself always asking, and increasingly at present.
How about you?
I am often checking in with who I am right now, what I want, what is of value to me, what I can’t live without, what my heart is sharing and wants me to hear, where this all leads, and what I must do to remain true and reflect the things most soulfully vital and dear to my essence that I know.
It is often a solo journey that takes multi-dimensional twists, sometimes dark, many times scary, can be quite challenging and take time to explore with integrity, is mixed with pains and joys, and yet is the most enriching experience I know…that of knowing and loving myself fully.
As all things change, so must I, but the way in which I shift is simply in reflection to who I most am that I’ve learned in that moment to release and accept into being.
Every day someone new may seem to emerge from the self-imposed cocoon, but at the core it is always just me…perhaps someone you haven’t yet known because she reveals herself like a slowly unfolding blossom, with each new layer discovered.
And every moment I have the ability to decide to become a butterfly, again and again.
Sometimes that takes me on a journey through the void, like now, where faith, trust, courage, and strength are the only friends I may commune with in order to cultivate soul preservation and truest reflections of responsible service, collectively.
One of my favorite books, so happens to be one that my dear friend, Cliff, who recently transitioned, had gifted me. It is titled, “Hope for the Flowers.”
Anyone who really knows me, knows that I am, and always will be a child at heart. I find enchantment in all things, especially the uncomplicated and pure, and this book I feel so beautifully speaks to the fundamentals we face in discovering what is truly of value in life in the most simple of ways anyone can grasp, without need for fancy words, hidden meanings, and challenging concepts.
One of my favorite passages is this:
“How does one become a butterfly?” she asked pensively.
“You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.”
“You mean to die?” asked Yellow, remembering the three who fell out of the sky.
“Yes and No,” he answered. “What looks like you will die but what’s really you will still live. Life is changed, not taken away. Isn’t that different from those who die without ever becoming butterflies?”
“And if I decide to become a butterfly,” said Yellow hesitantly. “What do I do?”
“Watch me. I’m making a cocoon. It looks like I’m hiding, I know, but a cocoon is no escape. It’s an in-between house where the change takes place. It’s a big step since you can never return to caterpillar life. During the change, it will seem to you or to anyone who might peek that nothing is happening – but the butterfly is already becoming. It just takes time! And there’s something else! Once you are a butterfly, you can really love – the kind of love that makes new life. It’s better than all the hugging caterpillars can do.”
Do you find yourself in the void, cocooning, and in process of emerging anew? If so, you are definitely not alone.
While the holiday season is fast approaching, and thoughts turn to the hustle and bustle of parties, gifts, friends, family, and gatherings…creating anxiety or short-tempered stress to do it all right and to provide what we think abundance means, perhaps it’s a time to approach the season in a new way.
A way that honors who you are and the lasting values and innate abundance already available in the love of your heart.
Love yourself and all others as the reflection of that love, responding to others as you would want, and have wished, to be responded to.
It’s not the “things” in life that make it worth living. It’s not what we “need” from others that creates lasting wholeness. It’s the love for your life and all that you are, that is what brought you here in the first place and will create the experiences you most cherish.
In Love and Creative Magick
The butterfly said to the sun, “They can’t stop talking about my transformation. I can only do it once in my lifetime. If only they knew, they can do it at any time and in countless ways.” ~Dodinsky
You have the ability to transform your life in every moment with your choices.
This image and quote felt synchronously appropriate, due to yesterday’s major Solar Flare hitting Earth (it was heart shaped btw) and how these energies can also be used for transmutation.
That’s exactly how it felt to me – like an activation. And I’ve learned that the more we align ourselves with the shifting frequencies, the more we receive the beneficial effects of things that take place.
We can use this kind of energy in amplifying ways toward intentional and wisely discerning change.
I normally don’t feel the effects of the Solar Flares, but yesterday’s, along with learning there was also a strong geomagnetic storm, a pulse from Galactic Center a couple of days ago, and a meteor fly by CA yesterday too, it had my head feeling a bit loopy (in a good way) early evening and night.
Thank you once again to my dear faery sis, Laura Bruno, for always keeping me updated on the “goings on”, as it then made sense why I was suddenly experiencing this floaty state.
The timing also felt very synchronous in terms of things I’ve been shifting in relation to what I’m sensing. Things are definitely vibrationally speeding up and ascension activation is at an all-time high, not to mention I’ve been having this feeling of impending change on a larger scale.
But yesterday evening my equilibrium was completely off and laying down on my patio lawn chair only had my head spinning with tons of visions flashing through it that seemed to span timelines and come through from the collective consciousness. I felt fine and without nauseousness, pains, headaches, pressure, disruptions, or discomfort. It was more just like I had water on the brain and I was flowing/floating in zero gravity.
In essence, a more natural, fun, expansive, unconfined place to be in for me than solid and fixed. 🙂
It also had me feeling this sense of deeper knowing and awareness I can’t right now explain, and rather than continue working, which is what I was doing when it hit, I just honored the feeling space of it and stopped everything to just lay outside on the lounger in nature to embrace the experience fully – see where it was taking me.
It was like my head was mirroring the vortex of possibilities, as we enter new portals of experience. It definitely felt like a spiraling galaxy and like soaring through the cosmos, as I picked up pieces of myself and books of collective information were lighting up on the shelves of my inner library. DNA activation, definitely…the opening of more of the Chakras beyond the 7 we usually speak of, definitely.
These are interesting and evolutionary times indeed.
It reminded me that every experience provides the opportunity for transformation, rather than it being debilitating.
To the level of how you embrace change, is the level to which you can harness the energy for huge potentials.
And you have that opportunity, as the butterfly shares, to do this with creative continuity.
Indeed Earth is shifting and so are we. How that all looks is and is experienced is up to us.
I had the honor of being interviewed by the beautiful and compassionate, Annabel Ruffell, founder of Journey for Earth, a global awareness company committed to inspiring change for humanity, the environment and animals, one choice at a time. We actually connected back in 2012 and synchronicity through the interview she shared on my friend, Jenny Yemaya of The ARC, brought us full circle.
Annabel is also a fellow artist, and an amazing one at that. I love her passion for focusing on the inspiration to effect change and she does this out of a love for all of life – something we also share in common.
You can learn more about her through her TEDx Change Talk
Annabel also interviews founders of environmental, animal, and humanity organizations, parents, and inspiring public figures – people that are making a difference – as she believes that we can be inspired through other’s passionately living their life journey with commitment to a purpose and desire to make positive impact on our planet. The question she poses to everyone is, “What kind of journey are YOU on?
Here are my answers in the written interview with Annabel.
Eleven years ago, today, Nestor (aka Nestie), came into “this” life of mine and every year I like to remember with reverence her beautiful presence that is eternally and ever-prevading. I like that this “11” energy – a Master number – is around this week, which included our Reiki Retreat weekend where “11” Reiki Master Teachers were present together at culmination of our workshops.
My life has never been the same since she and I found each other “again”. And it is because of her that Joy is now in my life and that I am where I am today in all ways.
And to add to our 11th anniversary, I’m hearing from the beautiful souls/my students from this weekend on their amazing openings and from people they are touching with their healing gifts, who have personally messaged me about their experiences received from them and to share their gratitude with me in assisting this process. A full circle of love and giving. So I am literally overflowing with love and reverence right now. Tears of All That Is.
And it’s all just compounding what I already was feeling and realizations I’d come to since this past weekend – doors closing and opening in an expansive new way.
Yesterday evening’s large earthquake not far from here, while I was early in bed, came at just the synchronous time I was affirming things and releasing into complete detachment to however change may want to manifest.
This experience/life we share is such a gift that keeps on giving.
I’ve written and shared a lot about Nestor, so today I just simply wanted to publicly tell her “thank you” and “I love you”.
Usually I post one of the songs that are special to her and I, and they often are these enchanting melodies, or have poignant words that mean something to us.
But today, I’m guided to share one of our expansive songs between us – one of my all-time favs – with high energy and limitless possibilities – titled “Airwave” by Rank 1.
She and I share a meditative journey through Earth and Cosmos with this one that I just LOVE. And being that I am feeling a more full embodiment of my Galactic Nature, this feels fitting right now and perhaps reveals more of who I am.
It seems to reflect the energy I’m feeling now as well, and the adventure ahead that is WIDE open to imagination and creative potentials.
I’m also now getting huge chills, as I had no idea until I looked at my CD that it is in fact #11 on the CD!!! OMG!!!
And this different version (which may be my current favorite) of it with gorgeous photos that I found is so WOW, perfect right now, and beautiful to me! A love for all of life on this beautiful Earth and beyond! And I know that visuals are what people enjoy, if they can’t journey within there yet themselves, so I think you’ll find this first version to satisfy on that level. 🙂
Following the first version, with visual adventure, is another of the same version I found, but with a static, perfect image I loved, and then a portion of the actual version I have listened to with Nestor, right after that.
I couldn’t help myself as I LOVE this song, what it means to me, and where it takes me when I LET GO. Plus, Nestor deserves a LOT of honoring and we, as multi-dimensional beings deserve recognition and embrace of what that fully means to embody.
Total joyous, loving, EVERYTHING tears and chills.
Enjoy the journey!
This felt particularly resonant today, as I stumbled upon it, so it felt to be perfect for today’s inspired post. Hope you enjoy the message from the Hopi and from one of my animal totems that has been the symbol of my life’s path since I began a conscious journey – our friend, the alchemical Butterfly.
“Grandmother Mona believes that giving the origins of her ancestors is as important as telling her name…Her last name, Polacca, means butterfly in the Hopi language and is the name received from her paternal grandfather. In Hopi lore, the butterfly is the symbol of man’s spiritual transformation.
‘At the level of existence, when it crawls on Mother Earth in the form of a caterpillar, it only sees what is right in front of it,’ Grandmother Mona explains. ‘There comes a time in the development when it puts itself into a little cocoon and enters the darkness. In this darkness, it completely breaks down. During that time a great change takes place…’
‘Finally it emerges into this world, into this life as a beautiful creature,’ Grandmother Mona says. ‘Yet it doesn’t immediately fly away. It sits there as if to be making a connection again with the elements of life: the water, the air, the fire, the earth. Then there is a moment when its wings start fluttering, developing movement, developing strength within itself using these elements of life.’
‘When the moment comes and the butterfly takes flight, it suddenly sees the world from a completely different point of view, a view of vaster beauty and a much, much wider worldview. This is what I was told about being a butterfly.’
…Grandmother Mona believes the Hopi legend of the butterfly can see us through these turbulent times of darkness and confusion by revealing to us our path of transformation.
These times can actually be viewed as necessary to enable humanity as a whole to transform into a comprehension of the truth of our oneness with each other and with all of Creation.
Only by going into darkness and breaking down our old ways can we move from the myopic view of the caterpillar to the greatly expanded view of the butterfly~ a necessary view if we are to save the beauty and resources of our planet for the next seven generations to come.
Then we will have emerged out of the darkness of ignorance into the beauty of the butterfly to see the wonder, hope, compassion, faith, and charity so essential for our survival.”
~Grandmother Mona Polacca from Carol Schaefer’s book “Grandmothers Counsel the World: Women Elders Offer Their Vision for Our Planet”
Life Renewed by Tania Marie (1998)
A quick little inspirational post I felt nudged to repost here, since not everyone is on Facebook.
Many see change as the enemy, but until you make it your friend and valued ally, you won’t experience the graceful way it can bestow gifts in your life. Transformation is a force for real growth and real growth can sometimes mean pain or discomfort, though can be experienced with the understanding of its natural cycle.
Without this interim of pain you would not feel alive and there would also be no aliveness of joy, nor a butterfly birthed from the caterpillar.
It is when we block, stop, or judge the change set in motion, that we experience increased and unnaturally prolonged discomforts, which in essence are merely lovingly trying to get your attention because, guess what?
You love yourself more than you allow yourself to realize and the knowing part of you will always act in your best interest to support you into remembering who you really are.
