Be the Butterfly

Hello again! It's been far too long and I couldn't let this year come to a close without touching in. When I logged in to create this message, I saw it's been 9 wild, intense, full months since I last visited your inbox. Thank you for taking a moment to connect at this threshold between the old and the new.

Almost a decade ago, while in a meditation, I received very clear guidance that there would come a time when my life would be very full. I was shown through a felt sense, the difference between a full life, and a busy life. After my last email to you at the Spring Equinox, life became incredibly full and full-on in all the ways. Many times I heard that wise counsel reminding me to discern between living a full life or a busy life. Perhaps you can relate given your own experiences navigating these strange and wild times?

My greatest lesson this past year has been coming into deep relationship with my capacity. As a solo parent, a healing arts practitioner, a caretaker of a home, and a newly full-fledged Cat Lady (another pandemic plot twist), I quickly realized that I cannot do it all. It was both humbling and liberating to discover the limits of my capacity in different areas and learn to respect and tend to them. I'm still rather mystified by it all, but somehow, amidst the most challenging, full, bizarre year of my life, I find myself at the close experiencing a deeper and more embodied sense of contentment than ever before.

Back in October, on an evening walk with my son, he noticed a butterfly resting in the gutter. On closer examination we discovered it was a mummified butterfly, in perfect shape. His response was, "Oh mama, this feels important, we should take it back home." And so we did, and it's been resting on my altar as you see it in the photo above. As I sat with the message in this experience, a butterfly gently rescued from the gutter by a watchful child, what came was the clear directive - Be the butterfly.

Over the following days as I let that percolate in my consciousness, I started to see the places in my life where I was still living as though I was the hungry caterpillar. Or snug in the cocoon, my caterpillar self dissolving into a gooey pool of imaginal cells. Or feeling the discomfort and impatience of wondering when it would be time to finally emerge from the confines of the cocoon. I began to see the aspects of my life, my healing, my learning and growth where I haven't even realized it's time to Be the butterfly.

For most of us, this has been an immeasurably challenging year in myriad ways. As it draws to a close, I invite you to consider the aspects and ways that all you've worked through, all you've learned, all you've discovered about yourself prepared you to Be the butterfly.

Can you let your outstretched wings carry you on the breeze, connecting you with the updrafts of ease and grace? There are areas of your life where you can fly steady and strong across the vast distances you're called to traverse, pollinating the world around you, drinking in the nectar, and seeking out the beauty. Sure there are facets of life where you're still the caterpillar inching along, or you're in the cocoon dissolving, but there are also aspects of life where you're fully formed and transformed. Where you're exactly who you're here to be in this lifetime.

My wish for you and each of us in this New Year and beyond, is that we'll see and celebrate the ways we've gone through a metamorphosis and successfully emerged to spread our wings and fly. That we won't let the places where we're still a work in progress diminish the ways we're already transformed and new. That we'll each allow ourselves the space and grace to Be the butterfly.

Now more than ever we need to feel the wind under our wings, the lightness, the joy and wonder of flight, and the ability to see the landscape of our lives from greater heights and new perspectives. Quite frankly, each one of us could do with an afternoon soaking in sunshine and napping in the garden too! May we each tend to our tender spots after a challenging year, honor and befriend the limits our capacity, and in so doing allow the parts of us that are still evolving to do so all in good time.

I look forward to creating more space to connect with you this next year. Know that while I may have been quiet in your inbox, you've been on my mind, in my heart, and in my prayers each day. Please reach out if I can be of support going forward, I'm here.

May the grace of the gentle breeze be ever under your wings.