Butterflies and moths are two of the most spectacular creatures ever to grace us with their presence on this planet. Their delicate wings glide on invisible currents, carrying them on long distance journeys humans can only achieve with machines.
Both winged marvels start out as squirmy little caterpillars, whose stubby nature is quite beautiful when you take the time to look. Bright colors, outrageous fur, intimidating spikes, and exotic spots adorn the skins of caterpillars around the world.
Caterpillars are programmed to stuff themselves to capacity (and beyond). They eat hoards of green leaves until mother nature directs them into the next phase of their journey: metamorphosis.
If you grew up in this century on planet Earth, you’ve probably read a book titled The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. It’s a classic. For a whole week, a very hungry caterpillar eats his way through different foods until he gets a stomach ache. Then, he spins himself into a cocoon and eventually emerges as a beautiful butterfly.
This story of transformation is told by countless teachers in both academia and spiritual circles. The symbolism of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly connects deeply with the human desire for personal transformation. Who doesn’t want to land a delicate, winged body on a milkweed, and sip on the sweetest of nectar?
Ah, metamorphosis. One of nature’s sweetest gifts to show us what’s possible. You’d think mother nature would create a limited supply of this kind of magic, but she doesn’t. Butterflies are abundant.
In fact, as I was driving through the woods this morning, a beautiful, winged creature flew out from the woods and in front of my car…
All of a sudden…
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…
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In a single moment one of nature’s most beautiful, delicate, winged creatures was gone. Its colorful wings, long legs, and thirst for the best nectar were instantly reduced to nothing more than guts smeared across my windshield. In a single moment, that creature’s arduous journey of metamorphosis became irrelevant.
I bet you weren’t expecting to see smashed bug guts. You were probably expecting a beautiful story about how all of us have a butterfly inside us just waiting to emerge from the cocoon of our own fears and fly, baby fly…
What you got instead, is reality.
Those guts smeared across my windshield are reality; the romanticized story of metamorphosis is not.
I’m not saying the idealized story of metamorphosis isn’t useful; it can be a powerful place to stand. And I’m not saying humans don’t have the potential for transformation; they do. I’m just saying transformation isn’t romantic, and in the end, you’re still going to die.
Wait – before you close this tab in your browser, hear me out. You see, the story of metamorphosis has been romanticized for so long that the real process of transformation has been forgotten. As a result, people have been chasing an ideology rather than allowing themselves to be guided on their own personal journey through life.
Rumor has it transformation happens in a cushy bubble of warmth and love where all we need to do is close our eyes and dream up a beautiful future. Just like the caterpillar dreams of being a butterfly. Right?
Fuck, no.
The opportunity for transformation doesn’t come in an appealing, comfortable package: it’s an invitation to hurl yourself out the 100th floor window of a burning building without any concern for what’s below. If you’re on a spiritual journey and you’re not being called to skin yourself alive, Maya is singing you a sweet lullaby.
Transformation, in terms of waking up, is a grueling self-destructive process that compels you to throw every aspect of your identity into the fire and watch it burn.
It’s not enough to be consumed by the flames; you must allow yourself to be completely destroyed. It’s a suicide run from the start. If you’re not driven by the degree of madness that drove Ahab to relentlessly pursue and strike the white whale with a puny harpoon, you’ll never make it out of your cocoon.
Transformation isn’t a comfortable process
The idea of snuggling up in a cocoon for a few months and emerging as a completely transformed individual full of inspiration and on fire with passion sounds great. Unfortunately, that’s not how transformation works – not even for the caterpillar.
Transformation is an illusion; a caterpillar does not become a butterfly. Caterpillars undergo a brutal death and nature constructs a butterfly from their remains.
As larvae, caterpillars shed their skin about five times as they grow. At some point their biology triggers them to hang upside down from a branch. In about five minutes they shed their skin for the last time, revealing the chrysalis a butterfly will later emerge from.
Inside the chrysalis is where it gets gruesome. Like a scene from Mission Impossible, the caterpillar’s cells are programmed to self-destruct; inside its cocoon, the caterpillar digests itself into an unidentifiable goo that will be reformed into a butterfly. It’s a natural process, provided the caterpillar doesn’t try to call the shots.
However, it’s important to understand that the butterfly is not the caterpillar remade. The caterpillar had to die for the butterfly to be born.
Who wants to be a caterpillar?
Have you ever noticed nobody wants to be a caterpillar, but everyone wants to be a butterfly? The end result looks great, but what’s so bad about being a caterpillar?
Caterpillars don’t search for ways to become a butterfly. They don’t even see it coming. Because they move according to nature. What’s spectacular about metamorphosis isn’t the possibility of a caterpillar’s dead remains turning into a butterfly. The true marvel is the fact that it happens spontaneously, which points to a humbling intelligence in charge of all life…
Metamorphosis is the ultimate demonstration of how we are not in control. And here we are looking at metamorphosis from the selfish lens of “what’s in it for me? How can I transform into a butterfly, too? How can I use this metaphor to manifest things in my life?
We’ve taken a beautiful process nature controls and turned it into an ideal of reinventing ourselves according to our egos rather than just being who we are as we are created to be.
What if it’s not any “better” to be a butterfly than it is to be a caterpillar? Caterpillars are pretty fierce. Have you ever seen a caterpillar decapitate a bee?
Instead of being a caterpillar dreaming of becoming a butterfly, if you’re a caterpillar, be a caterpillar. When it’s time to be a butterfly, you won’t have a choice in the matter. When you’re ready to die to yourself, you’ll abandon all distractions and walk right off that cliff. Not because you’re ready to be a butterfly, but because you won’t have any other choice. It will just happen.
If you want to Awaken, you have to surrender to complete self-destruction. You have to jump off that cliff. You have to be willing to die to be reborn. If you want to Awaken, you have to hack away your false beliefs – all of them – and question everything until only truth remains. Even if it means abandoning your dreams. You have to be willing to throw your entire life into the fire and let it all burn. Awakening isn’t comfortable, and it comes with no guarantees. You have to be driven by a madness, a passion, holding no regard for how (or if) you’ll emerge.