Unbecoming

The image of the butterfly, the pupa, and the chrysalis has long spoken to me. But in truth, the butterfly is what I really wanted to be. I longed to be in the butterfly stage of development, for it's where I felt safe, 'enough,' and good. The other, earlier stages - the caterpillar, pupa and chrysalis - were either something to rush through or something 'less than' the almighty butterfly.

There is something so tender and vulnerable about being in process, about being imperfect and continually unfolding. The drive for better or more - even for something as sublime as growth - can leave us exhausted, continually trying to improve, without any psychological or spiritual rest, homeless from ourselves.

The irony is that this rest is what enables any true growth or transformation to unfold.

I remember the day when I was startled open by the idea that all parts of the cycle are equally worthy, with their own beauty and becoming.

My garden continues to teach me this. While it may be a natural prejudice to value the butterfly over the goo of the chrysalis, or the riotous growth of summer over the dark silence of winter, when I look deeper, they all belong and are content within their season. One isn't higher over the other. They're all held within Nature, within the cycles of life.

There I find contentment, some release from striving.

Unbecoming by Karly Randolph Pitman

“Go softly.” - Joanna

You wanted to be the butterfly –
the fruit of the womb, the shining
star of the cycle. But the cocoon
is where the mercy comes, where
the caterpillar can let go of every thing
it thought it should be. You touch each
calcified chrysalis you've carried,
the hardened exoskeletons
of your former selves, narrow bones
that never fit. You invite each self
into the dark, let each pupa dissolve
into her liquid goo, the gold that says
I am always becoming.