Metamorphosis Through Loss

When a caterpillar turns into a butterfly, it does not just grow wings; its whole body turns into a kind of mush first. This is like how we feel when we lose something important, like a move to a new school or a toy breaking. It feels like everything is falling apart and getting messy. But that mushy feeling is actually your life getting ready to rearrange into something new and beautiful. You have to let go of the caterpillar parts of your life to fly. Without the going down into the mush, the coming up into a butterfly could never happen.

Feel your breath leave your body entirely. Now notice the automatic, powerful rush of the new breath coming back. That is loss and rebirth in one second. You do it 20,000 times a day.

Metamorphosis requires liminality — neither here nor there. In alchemical traditions: the nigredo or blackening, decomposition as first step toward the Great Work. In human development, post-traumatic growth: disruption of core beliefs allows construction of a more complex, adaptive worldview. The descent clears away old, insufficient structures.

SOUND: The crackling of an old dry leaf being crushed.

SMELL: Petrichor: rain hitting dry pavement.

TASTE: Saltwater from a tear.

TOUCH: The shedding of a sunburnt layer of skin: the old falling away.

SIGHT: A forest floor of dead leaves with tiny green sprouts poking through.

BODY: Floating in water where you cannot feel your limbs: total surrender before total transformation.

Music: Cleopatra by The Lumineers

Music: The Longer I Run by Peter Bradley Adams

Music: Kaleidoscope by Coldplay

Part of The Underworld & Descent — MYTHOLOGY — Education Revelation