Transformation!

In this time of great change, it feels appropriate to explore again evolutionary biologist Elisabet Sahtouris’s version of the butterfly story, tapping into its inspiring message. In this time of great change, it can help us to remember that even though it looks like everything is breaking down, something is also being born.

The butterfly story starts with the world of the caterpillar. They are typically voracious feeders and many of them are among the most serious of pests for both gardens and the agricultural community. In other words, they take more than they give. They also have a very limited world view for they can live on one tree for their entire life.

At some point the caterpillar creates a cocoon and inside, it turns into goo. Out of the goo come what the biologists call imaginal cells, the first expression of the butterfly. The goo always kills this first wave of imaginal cells causing these new cells to gather together and then the urge of the new is stronger than the destruction of the old and what appears is a butterfly. And a butterfly gives more than it takes as it pollinates and shares its heart soaring beauty. Also, its view of life is so much bigger than the caterpillar. Rather than living on one tree, monarchs can fly all the way from Canada to Mexico and back again!

Now, let us relate this to what is happening on our planet. Before you can discover how not to tighten and react around all the changes, you need to remember that you are part of an evolving process. At one time our earth was gas and dust and it has been through many phases that have brought it to where it is right now. In every single phase, as the next phase began to show up, the old battles the new until the new takes its place.

Just because human beings have shown up in this constantly evolving process, it doesn’t mean that these shifts have stopped. Life is still unfolding right now as you are reading this and I believe that we are in one of those major shifts now because, for the first time, this shift is happening in the human mind.

The old kind of mind that has caused so much war and heartache on this planet – the kind of mind that judges, reacts, and lives in ‘them and us,’ that builds walls rather than bridges – is represented by the caterpillar. You can see the old mind in the search to find somebody to blame for this virus, in the rush to buy guns, in the increase in Coronavirus scams, in fear of the future, in the hording of toilet paper and hand sanitizer, in bullying on the internet. And the old kind of mind seems to be getting stronger, just like in the butterfly story where the goo kills the first wave of imaginal cells.

But in this time of chaos, a healing kind of mind is also making itself more known. This is the kind of mind that includes rather than excludes, that meets with compassion rather than judgment, that unites rather than divides. You can see it in all of the people that are showing up for the community of humanity – a group of teenagers who are making surgical masks, a distillery stopping production of alcohol so they can make hand sanitizer, artists offering impromptu concerts on the web: people having sing-alongs while standing on their balconies, and in a letter on my doorstep and the doorsteps of my neighbors that said, “If you need help, please call this number.”

Yes, there is a lot of heartache and divisiveness at this time but there is also a lot of heart healing going on. As one newscaster said, “We are becoming much more of a ‘we’ society rather than and “I’ society.

Because you are reading this, you are a part of the empowering of the inclusive mind. You are becoming a butterfly! And one of the most powerful things you can do to facilitate this healing is to catch yourself when the old kind of mind is talking in your head without judging it. Can you catch how much your mind is playing in the stories of fear? Can you see how much you react to yourself, to your workmates, to your family? Can you notice how much you are addicted to struggle about little things as well as big things?

Noticing the stories in your head allows you to unhook from being caught in the world of struggle. This allows you to respond to life rather than react. Moments such as these matter – moments when you lead with your aware heart; moments when you truly see that we’re all in this together, living on a tiny jewel of a planet that is dancing through vast oceans of space; moments when you notice you are caught in ‘them and us’; or moments when you notice yourself putting someone or some group out of your heart. And instead of following the reactions in your mind, you unhook from them and respond instead with your aware heart.

You may say that this is not enough. There is so much uncertainty and unpredictability happening all over our planet. But every moment of responding rather than reacting matters. Every moment you don’t follow the fear based stories that can go all the way from being a little anxious to seeing this as the end of the world and instead, come back to trust in the process, you become an ‘imaginal cell’ for humanity.

As the ‘imaginal cells’ of humanity connect together, supporting one another during this wild and crazy time, the butterfly of our inclusive mind comes out of its cocoon and soars. With your help, what can emerge from this crazy time are wiser, more connected humans. We are literally being moved from human doings to human beings!