Season of Change

Monarch butterflies are masters of change.

A new climatic season is a time of change. In these first days of summer in our little southern hemisphere land, the days are longer, the weather is warmer, we're wearing lighter clothes and flowers are in full bloom. The air here is also all-of-a-flutter with monarch butterflies trying out their new wings born from the mush of what they once were.

I remember loving the word metamorphosis when I first learnt it at primary school - partly because it was impressive and poetic to say, and partly because of the wonder of what it meant. A walking caterpillar wearing yellow and black striped pyjamas chooses to sleep upside down in a jewel-like chrysalis, then turns into a freshly painted orange butterfly with black and white accessories. 

Imaginal cells.

Very recently, I heard that this metamorphosis involved something called 'imaginal cells' which I assumed was a layperson's lyrical description of the magical process. But no. Imaginal cells (or discs) are a technical biological reality. These micro-organisms exist as sleeping DNA in the caterpillar and only wake up in the chrysalis when the caterpillar starts to turn into mush. While there are still some remnants of caterpillar-ness in the primeval mush, the imaginal cells are attacked as outsiders by the caterpillar's immune system.

But they persist and gradually combine with the genetic mush. In the mush-making process, nothing of the caterpillar form remains to be transmuted. All of it is turned to a primeval soup. Then the imaginal cells activate this soup as a formative matrix from which all the body parts for a fully formed butterfly are created. This is truly a chrysalis-cocooned crucible. 

Wings in Waiting    

My painting Wings in Waiting was inspired by this extraordinary process. Both the image and the process serve as symbols of a gestating possibility in these times of seasonal and circumstantial global change. The old forms that no longer serve us are completely breaking down and the energetic soup of that devolution is the catalyst for the human-scale imaginal cells to wake up. Many of us have been sleeping and waiting for the wake up call. It's here now. We have creative work to do. The work is to imagine and bring into form an up-levelled human reality that feels better on every level and is integrated with the natural world that sustains us.

This will take some imagining. Our potentially evolving state may be as different from how humans live now as the butterfly is from the caterpillar. From its voraciously feeding, ground-bound physical form, the caterpillar completely surrenders to become the gossamer-winged airborne butterfly. It naturally resists letting go of what it was until enough signals from the imaginal cells pull it towards what it can become. 

Any human equivalent will be energetic (on emotional, mental and spiritual levels) rather than physical but the pre-requisites for the process are likely to be the same. It will take some sustained signalling from imaginal creatives - lots of creatives - and some strong reassurance that the change is for an improved outcome for all of us.

When our systems and ways of being are so obviously no longer serving us well, there's powerful permission to create something better. There's an imperative to imagine and then model new ways. Each human 'imaginal cell' will have different imaginings and each is essential for creating any collaborative new human state.  

You Passed This Way is a painting inspired by the many monarch butterflies around our coast. The pohutukawa trees here are sometimes a magnet for them to literally hang out in over the winter. 

The place also provides a haven for the caterpillars as they form and hatch from their chrysalis in summer and autumn.

With them, the butterflies bring the wonder of transformation. They are changed for having passed this way. The air is changed for them having passed this way. And we are changed for them having passed this way. 

In ancient cultures, the butterfly symbolizes a visit from a soul who has passed on to other realms. As we navigate this season of change, the flutter of these souls in the air may be able help us imagine what we can become. Listen well.