Monday, April 15, 2002

Butterfly Soup

When a caterpillar is undergoing the transformation from grub to butterfly, there is a point when it is neither: grub....nor butterfly. After constructing a chrysalis of some sort, the caterpillar dissolves. Yet even as the caterpillar dissolves, the butterfly has not really started to form. It is, in effect, butterfly soup. Cells of caterpillar, cells of butterfly, but neither one still/yet formed.

In some other, slightly more civilized cultures, when someone goes through a crisis, when someone needs a life change, when someone needs time to go inward and reflect, that need is respected. One could go into a temple and be a monk for a while, with a saffron robe and a begging bowl. One could go off on a vision quest, coming back with a new name and a new role, and the change would be understood.

But in this overpriced overtempoed overtired overstretched culture, I struggle to explain, excuse, beg for forgiveness for this state. "The world is too much with me, late and soon..." If I were a card in the tarot right now, I would be The Tower. Not necessarily associated with death and destruction in every deck or reference, but associated with an overpoweringly intense release of energy. Fire. There Be Dragons.

So if you want to know what's wrong with me, why my mind wanders, where is my attention? why aren't you...paying.....attention..... it is all the same answer, "butterfly soup".

1 comment:

  1. there is nothing "wrong" with you

    thank you for this post

    ReplyDelete