A Spirituality Around Springtime and Butterflies

[If you enjoy this blog, please SHARE it with your friends and others who might be interested.  You can click in the column to the right and choose how you want to share this.] This last Saturday, the topic at my spiritual community's service was how Springtime is considered by almost every major religious tradition as a sacred portal to experiencing God and opening one's self up to deep personal and spiritual growth.  Spring is a time of year that many consider a "thin place" - an opportunity to have the curtains of our hearts and minds pulled back a bit to provide us meaningful glimpses of and encounters with the Sacred.

"Spring naturally makes us see the renewal of life," writes the Rev. Jerry Hirano whose Buddhist tradition celebrates the festival Ohigan during the spring and fall equinoxes. "It makes us appreciate the circle of life, so to speak. We see that even in the harshest of winter, there is rebirth, renewal. One naturally follows the other."

I'm especially thankful for this reality.  It reminds me that life has seasons to it - that's a natural part of life for every living thing.  So when my life feels like it's in a deep dark winter, where nothing significant seems to be happening, where it doesn't feel like my life is growing or that I'm making a difference in any tangible or visible ways, spring will come!  The Creator God has structured life to be that way - the cycle includes both times of apparent desolation when things seem to go into hibernation, as well as times of new life, new birth, growth and transformation and productive activity.

One of the profound illustrations of this in nature is the butterfly's cycle of life.  It's called metamorphosis.  That's a Greek compound word, meta - change, plus morph - form, literally meaning change in form or transformation. When you take a look at the butterfly's metamorphosis, you can't help but notice not only how intentional but also how important every step of the journey is.  Transformation involves every phase of the cycle.  Here's a short trip back to your high school biology class (remember those good 'ole days?  Look how much has "metemorphed" since then - thankfully!).

The butterfly's metamorphosis involves four stages:

Stage one:  Egg

One thing worth mentioning here is that, female butterflies are very choosy about the plants they would want to lay their eggs on. The reason is that the caterpillar has to survive by munching away the leaves of this plant. For instance, the female Monarch butterfly would prefer to lay eggs only on milkweed plants. This is because the caterpillars of this variety of butterflies can feed only on this plant. Similarly, each variety of butterflies has its preference when it comes to laying it egg. Laying of eggs commences the first phase of butterfly metamorphosis. The underside of the leaves is where you find the butterfly eggs. These are white in color and are very small. It takes almost a week for the eggs to hatch. The larva develops inside the egg and nourishes on the yolk of the egg. Finally, they make a small hole in the egg and emerge on the leaf. Here the second stage begins.

Stage two:  Larva

The larva of the butterfly is called caterpillar. This is the second phase of the metamorphosis. Initially the caterpillars are very small and hardly weigh 0.55milligrams. The length of the caterpillar is merely 0.1 inch. However, the caterpillar grows fast feeding on the leaves. In two weeks they become an adult caterpillar. Now the size of the caterpillar is around 2 inches. This is a very interesting stage. The adult caterpillar has eight pairs of legs. As the caterpillar grows longer it outgrows its skin. It sheds the skin. This process is called as molting. In this stage of butterfly metamorphosis, caterpillar molts its skin around five to six times. The fully-grown adult caterpillar, starts crawling away from the plant it was feeding on and keeps crawling till it finds a safe haven to pupate. Once the caterpillar finds a place to pupate, it makes a silk-like mat on the surface and hangs upside down. The last pair of legs is attached to the silk-like mat. It hangs for one whole day like this and takes the shape of the alphabet "J". Caterpillar sheds its skin for the last time before it moves into the next stage of butterfly metamorphosis.

Stage three:  Pupa

When the larva enters the third phase, it has already shed its eight pairs of legs and the head capsule, which had housed six eye lenses. The skin of the caterpillar is shed for the final time and the casing takes the color of jade. This casing is called chrysalis. Though initially chrysalis is soft gradually within an hour it hardens to form a protective shell. Within the chrysalis the caterpillar slowly turns into a butterfly. There is a transformation taking place within the pupa. The body parts of the caterpillar disintegrate to form the body parts of the butterfly. The transformation period of chrysalis to butterfly takes around 10 to 15 days.

Stage four:  Adult

The hardened chrysalis cracks and the butterfly emerges from it. The wings of the butterfly are small and wet. It clings onto the shell of the chrysalis. At this juncture, a life-saving fluid known as hemolymph is pumped into the body of the butterfly. Hemolymph spreads slowly throughout the body and the wings. This crucial spreading is assisted by the struggle of the butterfly to emerge from its small cocoon opening.  This helps in enlarging the wings and the body of the butterfly. Remember that the wings are wet and the butterfly is unable to fly. However, within an hour the wings become dry and the butterfly is ready to fly and ultimately to mate and start the cycle all over again.

Some Lessons

Did you notice not only how intentional but also how important every step of the butterfly's journey is?  Metamorphosis / transformation involves every phase of the cycle not just the final stage of adulthood.  Here are a few lessons:

• Everything has its place, its reasons and purpose, its timing.
• Everything is provided for the butterfly in each stage to experience optimum health and growth for that stage - whether from its own DNA code written into its make-up or from external support systems.
• Nothing is wasted (notice the effective recycling that takes place).
• In order for growth and transformation to take place, multiple "sheddings" (or molting) have to happen.  It's amazing how difficult this step is to humans - we have a tough time letting go of something we've clung to at certain stages.  But if the caterpillar never molted, it would never continue transforming.  In fact, did you notice that it even drops its 8 pairs of legs and its head capsule with its six eye lens?  Does that mean it will never walk or see again?  No.  Its final body will be for a different purpose - it won't be crawling anymore, it will be flying.  So it will need 6 legs and 2 wings and 2 antennae.  And eyes?  The adult butterfly has 2 eyes with 6000 eyelets or ommatidia in each eye. An ommatidia is like an eye within an eye. It actually divides the eyes in the shape of a disco ball which helps the butterfly to locate things easier. They work like the pixels of a camera.
• So with each new stage, new systems and structures are needed for the newly developed form because each form has a new purpose with new needs.  And before the new structures and systems are in place, the old ones have to be shed and let go of.
• Crisis, difficulty is an inherent part of the transformational cycle.  The emerging butterfly with its new wings has to go through the small opening in order for the hemolymph to get spread to all parts of its body and wings.  Cut the opening wider so the butterfly doesn't have to work as hard to emerge and it is damaged irreparably, never able to fly, its death hastened.

In my next post, I'll talk about how this metamorphosis process applies to our spirituality and personal development.  Stay tuned!

A man once asked God for one thing – something to add beauty to his small potted garden. So God presented him with an ugly, prickly cactus plant and a wrinkled up, alien-looking caterpillar. The man was surprised, because he had asked for one thing and God gave him something else. After many days, the cactus bloomed with spectacular flowers and in the place of the caterpillar, there was a beautiful and stunning butterfly.

God seems to know what metamorphosis and genuine transformation are all about.  I'm discovering that the process of life for me is more and more about learning how to trust God's wisdom for life, and how to trust the process and the journey.  This Spring is a good time to embrace this kind of Life.

Looking For Thin Places: The Practice of Seeing God In Even Unlikely Spaces

[Please SHARE this blog with people who might be interested!  Hit the button on the right to subscribe or to share the post] My wife and I have been reading a book by one of our friends, Samir Selmanovic, It's Really About God:  Reflections of a Muslim Atheist Jewish Christian.  It's a personal exploration of a very different way of looking at religion which has historically too often degenerated into "self-serving God management systems."  To Samir, "To learn to live together on this fragile earth, authentic believers of all traditions need to see that it's really not about their religion, it's really all about God - God who is about all of us and cannot be owned by any of us."

To suggest a powerful spiritual paradigm that enhances this sense of the Sacred that refuses to be corralled and caged, he references the introduction of Christianity to Ireland by Saint Patrick around 431 C.E.  St. Patrick discovered that God had already been among the Celts before he arrived.  So instead of completely dismantling their spiritual experience in favor of his brand, he found the presence of God outside the walls of his religion and explored a more contextualized spirituality that ended up in a brand of Christian spirituality that is still popular to this day.

Celtic Christians sought after what they called "thin places," spots where the "membrane between mere physical reality and the reality of God's presence thins out to where it can seen, touched, tasted, or sensed in some unmistakable way."  The Celts often found these "thin places" at shorelines, fjords, rivers, and wells.  And later, they experienced them in cathedrals, prayer gardens, sacred groves and plots of ground - places where "the veil was so sheer, one could almost step through it" into the presence of God.

Another author I read recently said:  "There is a Celtic saying that heaven and earth are only three feet apart, but in the thin places that distance is even smaller. A thin place is where the veil that separates heaven and earth is lifted and one is able to receive a glimpse of the glory of God."

The contemporary poet Sharlande Sledge gives this description.

"Thin places," the Celts call this space, Both seen and unseen, Where the door between the world And the next is cracked open for a moment And the light is not all on the other side. God shaped space. Holy.

I'm moved by this concept of Thin Places.  A corresponding spiritual practice would be to develop a more intimate awareness of the Sacred wherever we are, an ability to find where the veil of the Eternal is pulled back to give us a glimpse of the divine, a place of encounter with the divine presence.  Discovering and exploring "God shaped space."

What would that look like in your life?  It could be at a busy intersection downtown San Francisco as you prepare to cross the street getting back to your office after lunch or running an errand.  You could come across a divine portal while you're walking your dog or washing dishes at your sink.  The veil could suddenly be pulled back in the midst of a conversation with a friend, a dream at night, standing on Ocean Beach, or pushing your cart down a Costco aisle.  You might discover a God-shaped space in the middle of a discussion with friends or in the middle of a song or while doing some personal internal work of self-discovery.  Thin Places where you suddenly find yourself pulled closer to God.

Have you ever come upon a Thin Place?  What ways have you found to enhance your awareness of the Sacred, places where you've encountered a portal to the divine?  How might you develop a spiritual practice to embrace more intimately the God of your journey wherever you are along that path?

The Jews were masterful at recording stories of their experiences with Thin Places.  My spiritual community Second Wind engaged in a Saturday morning discussion series a month ago about one such Thin Place which occurred at an unlikely spot called the Jordan River.  After having wandered and wilted in the desert for over 40 years, trying to get themselves to their land of promise in Canaan, this large band of ragtag nomads finally found themselves standing in front of the raging, swollen Spring waters of the Jordan, their land of promise unfortunately on the other side - no bridges, no footpath, no boats, no way across.  And yet it was in the face of this seemingly insurmountable obstacle that they encountered an amazing portal to the divine.

As per instructions from their God, the moment they stuck their anxious toes into the raging waters (in an act of bold faith), the veil between heaven and earth was suddenly blown back.  A dramatic Thin Place appeared.   The waters of the Jordan River split in two and dry ground stood before them all the way to the other side of this impossible river, straight to their promised land.  After everyone had crossed over, a group of their tribal leaders walked back into the middle, selected 12 large stones, placed them on top of each other as an altar of remembrance to this Thin Place of encounter with their God.  Then they walked back to the river bank and built another stone altar.  Why build these altars, with one of them remaining in the middle of the river?  They were to be visible reminders of their encounter with God, a Thin Place, a divine portal where they saw and felt God work on their behalf.

“In the future your children will ask, ‘What do these stones mean?’  Then you can tell them, ‘This is where the Israelites crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ For the Lord your God dried up the river right before your eyes, and he kept it dry until you were all across, just as he did at the Red Sea when he dried it up until we had all crossed over.  These stones will stand as a permanent memorial for all the people."  (Joshua 4)  Every time future generations would come upon those stone altars, it would be a Thin Place for them where they would be reminded of God's presence, past, present, and future.

Where are your Thin Places?  Might they even be in moments of deep crisis and difficulty, like those wandering nomads at the riverside?  What are some reminders you might develop for your encounter with Thin Places?  How might you be more curious and aware of possible divine portals all around you?  Imagine the powerful impact this could have on your personal spirituality as you discovered places where you could step beyond the veil and savor a glimpse of the glory of God.