Metamorphosis: Moments of Miraculous Expansion
It has finally become spring in my part of the world, which is marked by my neighbours’ magnolia tree standing in full bloom. Therefore, I decided to go sit outside in order to think and write. While I am sitting there wondering what to say about my journey on the yellow brick road, a beautiful orange-brown butterfly is sitting down in front of me. Sometimes it’s flying away due to people walking by and talking, but each time it’s settling down again somewhere in our garden, usually only two feet in front of me – even facing my way. I am wondering just what this creature wants to tell me by obviously landing right in front of me. It’s happening so frequently, that I go online to look up the meaning of the butterfly symbol. Of course, how could I not see that immediately? A symbol of transformation, of utter and complete change from egg to caterpillar to beautiful butterfly. To quote the site I found: “For example, we can relate the butterfly’s stages of life to our own life-phases…growing pains, times of ravenous hunger, times of vulnerability, moments of miraculous expansion.” Ha, in short, that’s my journey on the yellow brick road!
For now, when I think about where that road took me, I’d say, to liberty. I have a lot more liberty, I have more power to believe and to act without restraint, and to express myself as I choose. I got there by freeing myself from certain false believes, and especially by not judging myself so harshly anymore. As I love myself more I have more liberty to be myself. One of the ways this is apparent, is that I am very comfortable to be on my own. I gained more liberty to create my life according to my own wishes and desires for example, by choosing what to do for a living as my mind is not fixated on a corporate job to create income. I have more internal liberty to feel all of my feelings and also notice when I empathically feel for others. That allows me more bandwidth to experience positive emotions such as gratitude, love and contentment. I cannot only feel them more intensely, more often they are becoming the norm, the emotional foundation of my life. I also have the liberty to choose at what time of day I go shopping. That might sound trite to others, but to me it’s the ultimate symbol of being free to choose and create on my terms. I connect with that in gratitude each time I am in an uncrowded grocery store and I can shop in peace.
I generally feel more free to access that power to choose for myself. Just like the butterfly has the choice to fly wherever it wants, and today it has chosen to fly to me, to help me see. Thank you, beautiful butterfly!
Written by: Sabine Roggermeier
