Jack Shadbolt from his butterfly series
Ours is an age between world views, creative yet disoriented, a transitional era when the old cultural vision no longer holds and the new has not yet constellated. Yet we are not without signs of what the new might look like. Richard Tarnas
The magical process of a caterpillar in a chrysalis becoming a butterfly is often evoked as a metaphor for us humans experiencing a transformational process, and it can provide encouragement and hope in times of confusion and darkness. I have personally found it comforting and have offered it to clients who seem to be needing a “map,” or to find meaning in a disorienting period of undergoing.
Unfortunately, such parallels sometimes become stale from over exposure, and they lose some of their power and potency. I think this has been the fate of the caterpillar/chrysalis/butterfly metaphor in many cases. But recently I listened to a podcast by Charles Morse in which he described in detail the caterpillar/chrysalis/butterfly process. He linked it metaphorically to the pandemic situation we are in, and I felt the power and potency of its medicine once again.
Morse acknowledges Bill Plotkin for this description and I am unsure how precisely he is quoting Plotkin, but here are Morse’s words:
The reason of the caterpillar is to consume. Some caterpillars eat so voraciously that their weight increases by ten thousand fold in a matter of three weeks. After four or five weeks, the caterpillar stops eating and forms a cocoon or chrysalis. Once cocooned, special enzymes begin to dissolve the caterpillar in its entirely until there is no structure, only a thick soupy substance. Some cells however, do not dissolve, but form collectives of ten to fifty cells known as imaginal discs. It is from these discs that the radically different physiology of the butterfly emerges. Imaginal discs are nodes of transformation.
It is easy to see the parallels with our consumer culture gorging itself to the point of “death.” A pandemic of major proportions, triggered by the ravaging of our environment, was inevitable and predicted by numerous scientists. And here we all are now, in the “caterpillar soup” together, experiencing loss and disorientation and afraid for the future.
But those imaginal discs! Now those are something to pay attention to! What if within this goopy, mucky, mess we are in - probably personally, but certainly collectively - there are phenomena that are akin to “imaginal discs” that carry a code of a blueprint, and are in this moment in the process of forming something new. They are part of nature and so can’t be manufactured or controlled but can be trusted and attuned to. We must be careful to not get in their way – chrysalises can be interfered with and destroyed – but perhaps if we can attend to the “imaginal discs” in our own microcosmic lives, we might align with and support those of the macrocosm.
For Chad Morse, these “imaginal discs” include “myth, nature, art, and metaphor.” I suggest we might discover them in our dreams, creativity, body felt sense, and through observing synchronicities. This endeavour is not just for getting us through pandemics. It is what brings back the ‘waters of life’ which transform the ‘wasteland’ into a rich and fertile landscape. Living in connection with the imaginal is the medicine - as simple as that. And one which we will need not only temporarily, but on an ongoing basis.
As Morse reminds us, we cannot go back to pre-pandemic reality. As much as we may resist this fact, as much as we long for a return to the ‘good ol’ days’, they are gone for good. The future is unknown. What we can trust is there are “imaginal discs”, codes and threads of some kind of blueprint for each of us as well as our collective future. We can become more conscious of these “nodes of transformation” through attending to dreams and other sources of symbols as mentioned above, and we can sense something taking shape. As we stay with this process, engaging and integrating these symbols into our lives, the form continues to develop, and we are likely to notice that our lives feel different. They are infused with inspiration, a deeper sense of connectedness, and a greater sense of aliveness. These are signs we are co-creating the fabric of the new reality.
link to Charles Morse’s podcast Islands of Sanity in Black Dog Times:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/996616/3309832-1-islands-of-sanity-in-black-dog-times
