I love what the butterfly can teach us. That’s because the butterfly path has come up in my conversation several times today. It’s a path I know we all try out at some time or other in our lives. But it’s also a path that can turn into a dead end if we don’t notice what we are doing.

What do I mean by the butterfly path? I use the story of the butterfly to help people understand why they don’t appear to be making any progress in their lives. A caterpillar has a great time hatching from an egg and having one focus. To eat enough and grow enough to put itself into a hard skin. Then the caterpillar stays inside until it has transformed into a butterfly. It rearranges itself and emerges a whole new shape. Best of all it can fly. It sets off around all of the flowers enjoying it’s freedom until it’s time for that butterfly to lay it’s eggs. Having created a new beginning it dies. But what a life! All those wonderful blooms. Riding the air. Adventure and discovery. Who wouldn’t want a life like that.

There’s the issue. I started my spiritual journey like the caterpillar. Grabbing all of the experiences of a material world I gradually built up a rigid shell. It became restricting. And limiting. I had to reorganise internally to find a different way of being. A way that let me soar amongst the abundant energies of this world. I learned to sense the planet and it’s inhabitant in a completely different way. Through my intuitive senses I flitted from one bright experience to another. Never quite free of the caterpillar but trying to be all that I could. Yet I also knew there would be a price. That there was something I had to do in return. I had to do what I came into existence for. Lay the groundwork for the next generation.

That’s why the butterfly path can be a challenge. At some point I had to stop flitting around. It was my time to contribute instead.

I have worked with lots of people throughout my life. Those who are still caterpillars. Whatever their age. And those who are busy flitting from flower to flower. In the last ten years of my life I have started to notice those people who have found a flower and are busy laying eggs. The people who stick at creating what will be the new experiences for others. Every caterpillar knows it will become a butterfly. It will have to make a difficult transition. And every butterfly knows it must ensure that new caterpillars arrive. Yet it’s easy to get stuck trying to avoid the hard work of creating the new.

I say hard work because people often struggle to leave behind that old part of themselves. So they dash around from therapy to therapy, healer to healer or retreat after retreat. They have become so caught up in the butterfly that they deny their ability to create. Whilst also expecting someone else to wave a magic wand and make it happen without any effort. But effort is necessary. Creative effort ensures that I have remade myself. Even that I can help new caterpillars and butterflies remake themselves when the time comes. I can also empathise with all those caterpillars and butterflies still hanging onto that shape, those habits and the limitations.

I know it is time for me to become unstuck and create. Do you? Are you still gathering ‘stuff’ like the caterpillar. Are you flitting around looking for the right flower like the butterfly?  Or have you found the very end of the path? The place where you know who and what you are and why you are here? Are you grabbing the opportunity to create? Or still prevaricating? Be a beautiful creative butterfly. Share a new beginning with all of those other caterpillars and butterflies you come into contact with. It’s time for all of us to move on.

Day 851 of my blogging challenge