I love the season I’m in. One of the quotes I’ve been reflecting on lately is, “We do not fall in love with others; we fall in love with the version of ourselves in the context of them.”
Fundamentally, we are all truly mirrors for one another, each experiencing our own internal version of reality while sharing the physical and temporal reality together. AND in this season, I love the mirrors (people) that I am surrounded by. They are amazing and incredible. I am truly honored and humbled that these are my mirrors, and they chose me to be theirs. Both parties voluntarily choose all personal relationships. Sometimes we cannot decide where to live, and there are lands where we are not in voluntary community relationships. I digress.
In the midst of great love, there is also a remembrance of great pain. Did you know that when the caterpillar acquiesces to the chrysalis that cells of its brain/memory are part of the butterfly in the end?
This weekend was the 5-year remembrance of my friend, Sandy’s transition to the 5th dimension. Sandy was my friend and sister. We walked together for years. I believe our world has a friendship problem, not an economic one. So let me model in my life the gift of friendship as a resource, not just money, without a relationship. Yes, there was a lot of front-end investment on my part. However, I was the one who was short-sighted. The gifts she has shared back for perpetuity are incredible. I have two grown sons that I love, who love me, and of whom I am so proud. I have the gift of the butterfly on every level. So, in ode to celebrating her, I would love to share the gifts from bio mimicry.
One of the super fun breakthroughs for me has been the deeper understanding around studying the physical world and applying it to the heart/quantum/unseen world. So, as I have kids that are still on the earlier side of their journey, I am learning a lot about natural development that I can apply to my own maturing process on the quantum side. Our kids (and we) have neurons in our brains called mirror neurons. What do they do? They get activated when we perform and when we watch someone else perform actions.
Dr. Gabor Maté shared that our brain is our social organ. It is where we physically interact with relationships. Our kids’ brains grow physically as they mirror our lives. Words matter. Mindsets matter. They are the foundation of our behaviors, which lead to our choices, which are then reflected back through the fruit of our kids. That is why parenting is leadership. Our kids are literally our mirrors of our strengths and weaknesses. As they are the closest to us and often the main carriers of our lives through the 4th dimension of time after our time here is done, it’s good to prioritize loving them well as a top priority. Anyway.
Mirroring nature has taken on a whole new level for me, especially around understanding liminality. So, I have learned to literally study physical things to understand. Mirroring nature has taken on a whole new meaning for me, especially as I’ve come to understand liminality—that sacred, in-between space of transformation. I often ask myself two questions:
- How does God run the world?
- Does my life line up with that rhythm?
The more I study nature, the more my faith becomes real. It’s one of my favorite journeys.
So in this deep dive of liminality, I have been deep diving into the physical process of butterflies to gain a true and real understanding.
Today I have been processing my personal relationship with death, as sometimes the goal of the chrysalis feels like FOREVER, I needed some perspective.
So, if I believe life is life except when life is death or just living, then let me deep dive into the concrete of the life cycle of the butterfly, AND as I process the “rule of thumb”, I am clear there are exceptions, as that has been my life’s story.
For non-migratory butterflies, the full life cycle lasts about eight weeks. The egg lasts about 5 days (2%), the caterpillar about 3 weeks (50–60%), the chrysalis about 10 days (20–25%), and the adult butterfly lives 2-4 weeks (20–25%). Maturing takes time. Living takes time. Experiences take time.
Chrysalis makes up 20-25% of the butterfly’s lifetime. This is the stage that represents our relationship with death, those moments of transition, surrender, and transformation. I see it as the time when we’re called to steward the endings in our lives: the passing of parents, the closing of chapters, or the letting go of decisions. Both those within our control and those outside of it.
It might look like releasing the wrong business or love partner, or even allowing space for the right ones to evolve into their 2.0 version. It can come through physical accidents, whether by fault or fate, or through the premature death of dreams, children, or possibilities. It shows up in moments of transition: New Year’s, graduations, milestone birthdays, weddings, even collective events like the World Cup or the Olympics. The culmination of moments. Fundamentally, any moment of transition is the moment of death that contains new life.
Then there is the season of being an actual butterfly, which is around 20-25%. BUT what surprised me in studying this is the difference for migratory butterflies. Migratory butterflies live differently. Their eggs and caterpillars take a similar amount of time, yet their adult stage can last 2-9 months. Their life isn’t shorter, it’s stretched, requiring endurance, not just transformation.
Non-migratory butterflies spend more of their life percentage-wise with death. Part of their focus is learning about becoming. Migratory butterflies have an inherent gift for endurance, which allows them to focus on being. We need both examples of becoming and being. Why must we misjudge each other’s journey? Though nuancedly different, both are important.
WOW…….. Life is life and more.
One of the gifts of this season is to share this hope with other “migratory butterflies” that may be confused with the wisdom and rhythms of their non-migratory friends, though similar, are nuancedly different and easier to misjudge.
Thank you to those who have held space for me. I am glad to pay it forward to hold space for the other migratory butterflies, as we know, to change the world really comes down to the butterfly effect.