From Caterpillar to Butterfly

Well, I told you I probably would and I did it. I changed the heading again! It doesn't have the snappy ring of "Surviving Reality" but it's the next step. "Thriving reality" is a state of being, a state of grace, a stage in life. In order to move from one stage to the next, be it victim, survivor or thriver, we have to grieve the last stage, let it go and move on. It's a never-ending process.

Here's a little poem I wrote about it:

Does the caterpillar know
when it’s turned into a butterfly?
Does it mourn its
flat-footed groundedness
when it’s flying through the air?
Those wings, like arms of a
royal robe, opening and closing,
decreeing, celebrating, does
the butterfly know that it is now
what it was not?

And how, with time,
we must all detach
from the chrysalis that
incubates our future selves.
How, before long, life’s womb
spits us out and sends us flying
into the air of change?
Some would cling to the cocoon
forever but the cocoon fades, too,
and soon becomes a grave.
We might as well release the cast
that holds us to the ground.

Grieve the caterpillar.
Fly.