A guest staying with me recently saw this beautiful quilt hanging on the wall and said she remembered reading an article I had written many years ago about "the butterfly experience". So I thought I'd re-publish it here along with a photo of the quilt made for me by Marion Robinson.
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I was given a most unusual gift this Easter. It came in a small plywood box. On the lid was a label: "The Butterfly Experience". I gently slid the lid open and there, nestled on spaghnum moss, was a monarch butterfly chrysalis!
The friend who gave me the gift had been given a chrysalis herself a week earlier and hers was further along on its transformative journey. We hung them both on a pot plant in the house where we were making our Easter Retreat. Each day we looked carefully to note any changes. By Easter Saturday the more mature chrysalis was darkening. We could see the red wing colour and the black body through the capsule.
Resurrection day dawned. Still the chrysalis was intact. Perhaps it was too much to hope that the butterfly might emerge today! But wonderfully, that afternoon as we sat reflecting together on the meaning of Easter, the chrysalis split! It happened silently and quickly. If it hadn't been right in front of us we would have missed it. We sat awed at the wonder of new, beautiful life being born from a tiny enclosed case. The wings at first looked too small and almost deformed. I wondered if something was wrong. Surely this butterfly would never fly? We watched and waited. Over the next hour the wings gradually unfolded. The butterfly was in no hurry. It allowed the transforming process to be completed at its own pace. Soon the wings were full size. Now it was time to let them dry and to test their movement. A tentative opening and closing began, with long rests in between. We wanted to see the butterfly take its first flight but our retreat was over and we had to leave. We left the newly resurrected "caterpillar-turned-butterfly" on a sheltered plant in the garden and drove away.
My own chrysalis came home with me in its mossy box. It was a wonderful gift because for some time the chrysalis has been a powerful symbol for me of spiritual process. There come times when it feels as if the way life used to be (as a caterpillar!) has disappeared. It is dark, confined and mysterious in the chrysalis. There seems to be no movement, no externally observable "progress". We just hang there. There is nothing to do but stay still and trust. Staying still and trusting might sound easy to the uninitiated! But anyone who has entered a chrysalis stage of spiritual transformation will know it is not. It challenges all our notions of independence. We either surrender to the process - or we stay as we are. (Apparently some caterpillars choose not form a chrysalis until a year later than their contemporaries.)
Transformation always involves leaving behind the way things were. But being drawn away from the familiar into a confined space where the future is unknown is usually frightening. It was so even for Jesus. He agonised over the journey to the cross. "Isn't there some other way?" he pleaded. Yet he allowed death to take him into cocoon of the tomb. What if he hadn't? What if he had not followed through on his mission? We can scarcely even imagine the alternative. But perhaps there come times when we are invited to transformation and we balk at entering the chrysalis. It feels like death. How can I let go the old familar ways? How can I be sure this will lead to something better? Probably the answer to the latter question is: "You can't! Surrender. Stay still. Trust."
Today, a week after Easter, my cocoon hatched! I was at home most of the day and I sat with the newly emerged butterfly for several hours. I so much wanted to see it take its first flight. I had to go out for a meeting and as soon as I got back I rushed to the plant on my porch where I had left it resting. At the very moment I arrived it climbed to the top of the plant and took off with a few shaky wing flaps to a nearby tree! I gasped aloud with thankfulness and wonder. Whatever the cynics might say, I do not think the timing was just coincidence. I think God smiled on me and let the butterfly reassure me that transformation does lead to the ability to fly - even if shakily at first.
