Activating our Imaginal Selves

Four years ago, Rachel Ruach asked me to research the process by which a caterpillar morphs into a butterfly, and to share my findings with a group of beings with whom I was undergoing an adulthood initiation journey. This metamorphosis process has been on my mind and heart a lot, lately.

Here's a bit of what I learned:

A caterpillar is only capable of consuming. It consumes, consumes, consumes, until it gets so laden with all it has eaten, it plops down wherever it is, weaves a cocoon, and enters.

From the outside, it looks like nothing is happening. But inside, there's a process of radical transformation: the caterpillar is dissolving into GOOP!

Yes, all the caterpillar structures completely disintegrate and the caterpillar becomes a slurpy, formless mush.

Meanwhile, there are 'imaginal cells' that have always existed within the caterpillar, and have been dormant until this moment. As the caterpillar goopifies, the imaginal cells finally activate. They hold the blueprint for the butterfly. They find one another and begin to build the butterfly...

And the dissolving caterpillar parts don't like it. They try to fight back, but the newly emerging butterfly always wins. And eventually, the goopy caterpillar parts become nutritious soup that feeds the emerging butterfly.

When it's strong enough, it kicks its way out of the cocoon.

It's gorgeous, a flower in flight.

It goes to find a mate, and now is able to not only consume, but to create.

🦋

Collectively, we haven't yet morphed into the butterfly. We're in a dissolving, structures transforming, chaotic goop phase. And it's not comfortable. It may seem like everything is falling apart, AND IT IS! Because it has to, for something new to be born.

But imaginal cells are inside of us. And each time we take evolutionary, visionary action in the world, we ourselves are functioning as imaginal cells within the greater systems of which we are a part. Even as so much is disintegrating, these cells are activating. The dream encoded within us is more exquisite and creative than our old caterpillar selves could ever imagine, and this vision is what carries the process forward.

🦋

I painted this butterfly today to help myself orient less towards dissolution and chaos, and more towards vision and creation. To remember the process by which radical transformation - metamorphosis - comes about. To align myself with that process. And to trust it.

This week, I'm entering into a cocoon of sorts on an online retreat with ~50 women from around the world, to drop into stillness and make space for something new to emerge. See you on the other side <3

See more paintings at www.imaginalstudio.art ->