A Long Car Trip - or Life as a Caterfly

How often God hears my plaintive cry of "are we there yet?  What a long trip this is!"  The challenge of being a caterfly is that all the familiar comforts of caterpillarhood no longer satisfy, but the butterfly wings are not yet ready for flight. What was is gone, and what is becoming isn't here yet.

All there is is now - the caterfly's reality.  There is nothing for this morphing creature to do but settle into the liquidity of change and notice what works - what helps - what brings life - and embrace it.  What causes the beauty to emerge - the wings to grow and strengthen - what brings lightness of soul?

Memories of life as a caterpillar are strong - sometimes overwhelming.  And although I have a growing longing for the flowers and flight, the familiarity of leaf-munching and terra firma is etched deep in my soul.  Although I don't yet understand why, I know that I need the experience of the leaves and the earth in order to fly.  I need my caterpillarness in order to realize my butterfly self.  Both/and - not either/or.  I can't be one without the other.  And so in the meantime, it is life as a caterfly.

Change - even good change - is hard.  I offer thanks for the wisdom that has been shared with me in a hundred different ways, all telling me to notice what brings life and let those experiences nourish me -

- and learn to love being a caterfly.

Transformation happens in its own time.  Right now, I want to learn to enjoy the ride.

With wonder,
Kim

View from the dancefloor

For twenty years I have prayed the Prayer of Abandon, written by Charles de Foucauld - given to me by a dear colleague and friend during a very trying time in life.  I have loved/hated this prayer, often modifying it with a host of qualifiers that took the edge off the concept of abandoning myself into God's hands...

...after all, wasn't I responsible for making the changes, doing the heavy lifting, being in charge of my growth, development and life?  Isn't handing over the power to God irresponsible and lazy - taking the easy way out?

I have struggled mightily with where my responsibility ends, and God's begins.  If we are dance partners, who leads?  Of course I say "God leads," while I immediately try to direct the dance.  The tension generated by this prayer drives me crazy!

And yet I pray it morning and evening.  

Lately the prayer has been prayed without qualifiers.  It is a time of change and transformation in my heart and life, and I have been  most frustrated by my inability to shift a few patterns that, while they served a purpose forty or fifty years ago, no longer serve me well.  Wise guides encourage me to be gentle with myself and accept that the changes will come with time.  I, in the meantime, alternate between trying to bench press the changes into reality and throwing my arms up in despair because they are not happening quickly enough!  Why won't things shift NOW?!

Wise guides encourage me to gently immerse myself in that which leads to life, light, and healing - that which is the basis of the changes I seek to make, and trust God in the process.  I listen to their wisdom, and then again resume alternating between leaning into this with gentleness and patience, and trying to figure out how to make it happen NOW!  But try as I might (and do I ever try), I cannot make change happen.  I cannot manage to embody that which I seek.  

And then, when least expected - there it is.  The shift.  The insight.  The breakthrough - given as gift, not as prize won or dividend earned.  I am stunned - amazed - surprised - grateful - and tears express the "thank you" said by my heart.

Another both/and moment.  Each choice to open myself to what leads to life, light and healing helped to prepare my heart for God's freely given gift.  But the gift came from God - in God's time, and in God's way.  And we dance...together...and the question of who leads is irrelevant!

I am humbled, awed, and deeply grateful for the nurturing love and wisdom of our Mother/Father/Creator.

Dancing with abandon,

Kim