Letting Go – Day 2
Letting Go – Day 2
Systems of Nature: The Journey of the Butterfly
Most of us have seen the glorious colours of butterflies as they flit from flower to flower and play on the currents of breezes. And no doubt most of us know something of how they came into being. The process is one of letting go of an old identity, completely surrendering the experience of grounded caterpillar to embrace a new, airborne definition of self. As the caterpillar passes through this time of stasis, it reaches a state akin to death, where the old cellular memory of the clumsy larva that was, is like a sketch for the new and divine masterpiece that emerges.
Letting go happens a number of times. Firstly, the caterpillar completely sheds its skin four times before one final shed that reveals the crysalis. (There’s a short and quite fascinating time-lapse video available here.) Think about the level of trust involved in this process, and the instinctive need to shed this skin to become something different, something unknown.
Secondly, the caterpillar literally digests itself inside the chrysalis, all of its tissues dissolving into a soupy mess of protein rich food. The main purpose of the larva is to eat in order to have the energy to undertake this metamorphosis into its eventual incarnation as butterfly. The larva is born with cellular structures that hold the blueprint for the final design, so to speak. These structures are fed by this protein rich, ‘caterpillar soup’ for as long as it takes for the metamorphosis to occur. The caterpillar lets go of its old identity as it allows itself to be swallowed up in the biological process that will result in an almost entirely new creature.
