What the caterpillar calls death, the master calls a butterfly.
Death is the greatest illusion AND the most real. It has been almost a month since Remi’s passing, and things are back to normal. Except they’re not. I am in uncharted territory and having to create a new normal. I am at a loss as to how to do that. I realize I am grieving more than Remi, but all the other little deaths from this past year: my home, my marriage, my idea of who I thought I was. All dead.
I go between wanting to DO something—anything, to wanting to be conscious about creating the next part of my life. “It shouldn’t be this way,” is a sure recipe for discomfort and it creates an illusion that things will be better IF:
If fill-in-the-blank didn’t die
If I had a fill-in-the-blank relationship with so-and-so
If I had a such-and-such job
If I lived wherever with whomever doing whatever
If I were still a caterpillar
This is where I am now. When I remember to accept that, I find peace. The struggle comes when I’m focused on how I think things ought to be or lament that they are not what they were.
Divine Midlife Chrysalis is the title of the book I’m not writing. I think it’s more of a chapter, now. It is what I have been experiencing over the past year. There are all sorts of cute euphemisms coming out to replace “midlife crisis;” Marianne Williamson says it’s a process, Tony Robbins says celebration. I think it’s a bit…messier. If you were to open up a cocoon, the caterpillar is no longer recognizable as a caterpillar. Nor is it in its future form as butterfly. It’s evolving from where it was to where it’s going. There is no going back, and there is no speeding up of the process. Nature has its own schedule. There was a farmer once who watched a butterfly emerging from its cocoon and decided to help it out by cutting the sides of the cocoon. The butterfly emerged but couldn’t fly and died. It was the work of breaking out of the cocoon that brought energy to its legs and wings and gave it the strength it needed to fly.
Death is the greatest illusion AND the most real. It has been almost a month since Remi’s passing, and things are back to normal. Except they’re not. I am in uncharted territory and having to create a new normal. I am at a loss as to how to do that. I realize I am grieving more than Remi, but all the other little deaths from this past year: my home, my marriage, my idea of who I thought I was. All dead.
I go between wanting to DO something—anything, to wanting to be conscious about creating the next part of my life. “It shouldn’t be this way,” is a sure recipe for discomfort and it creates an illusion that things will be better IF:
If fill-in-the-blank didn’t die
If I had a fill-in-the-blank relationship with so-and-so
If I had a such-and-such job
If I lived wherever with whomever doing whatever
If I were still a caterpillar
This is where I am now. When I remember to accept that, I find peace. The struggle comes when I’m focused on how I think things ought to be or lament that they are not what they were.
Divine Midlife Chrysalis is the title of the book I’m not writing. I think it’s more of a chapter, now. It is what I have been experiencing over the past year. There are all sorts of cute euphemisms coming out to replace “midlife crisis;” Marianne Williamson says it’s a process, Tony Robbins says celebration. I think it’s a bit…messier. If you were to open up a cocoon, the caterpillar is no longer recognizable as a caterpillar. Nor is it in its future form as butterfly. It’s evolving from where it was to where it’s going. There is no going back, and there is no speeding up of the process. Nature has its own schedule. There was a farmer once who watched a butterfly emerging from its cocoon and decided to help it out by cutting the sides of the cocoon. The butterfly emerged but couldn’t fly and died. It was the work of breaking out of the cocoon that brought energy to its legs and wings and gave it the strength it needed to fly.
This is my Eat, Pray, Love version without having to leave the country. I have been so blessed to be out here in nature. The birds are singing and the mountains are greening and there is this lovely trilling coming from the trees down by the river. Tree frogs, perhaps? I will consult with Fisherman Willie. In the meantime, life goes on . . . .
2 comments:
Beautiful!
Thanks, so much, dear Nadine! Re-reading this over a year later makes me so grateful to be where I am NOW. It really does get better! Namaste, :-) H.
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