Usually, about now in the process of preparing and publishing a new post, I’m like a hound dog on the trail. I’ve gotten the scent of my topic and leap toward it, follow detours, reroute, and hurry back on track to the finish line. This time is different. I feel flummoxed, which is not a state I enjoy. I’m not fond of being uncertain, uncomfortable, bewildered. Yet that’s how things are right now. Maybe it’s not just me.
This is a time in-between. We are not at the beginning, nor at the end of the pandemic. We are starting to right ourselves in our body politic, but national and local political life is distinctly unsettled. You can hear the pot boiling, the steam wanting to burst out of the pressure cooker.
What is wanting to emerge? What does this unsettled time portend? What creature will we bring forward: a butterfly or . . . ?
The first time I saw the making of a monarch butterfly in full display on the wall of my home I was shocked. I had never had the opportunity to see up close the whole process of the caterpillar finding its place to attach, then weaving its cocoon, witness the quiet state that followed, see the colors and markings of the butterfly showing through the silky shell, and suddenly, gently the emergence of the butterfly, holding tight to her cocoon until her wings could dry. The process took many weeks to complete, and all the while I wanted to touch, to hasten, to protect from cold and rain and heat. Patience is not my strong suit. How often I thought I knew better what was needed.
For several years I had cocoons on many outside surfaces of my house. Dozens of monarchs placed eggs on the milkweed plants, caterpillars grew and scurried in slo-mo across the ground to find the best place to attach and hang. My puppy chased butterfly shadows for hours of endless delight. And then came years of decline. Last year I saw only three monarch butterflies on my ten acres. This year I have seen only one so far.
What process is underway? It’s hard to see right now what wants to emerge from this time of loss, turmoil and hardship. What will the next cycle bring? I feel apprehensive. I want to clench my fist around some small bit of hope or shard of reason; but I know better. I counsel myself to remain patient and respect the larger processes at work. What is emerging will be borne of all the elements: danger, fear, loss, sadness, hope, joy. My task is to stay present, to witness, and to tell the truth of what I see.
We are living in a time of trauma, personal and collective, political and ecological, in which issues of life and death loom large. We see the fragments of broken lives, broken moral codes, broken institutions, broken structures, scattered around us, but the larger picture to which they will belong is not at all clear. Some new shells are slowly being woven with fragile threads. We don’t yet know the shape that is forming within that will emerge into new life. When we look within ourselves we may find clues to enduring principles, and when we reach outward we may find the connective tissue that will help bind the pieces together to form a new being. But the full shape of our future self is yet to be seen and understood. It’s an uneasy time.
The poem “Birdwings” by Rumi, a Persian poet of the 13th century, in a translation by Coleman Barks, reminds me of what is needed.
Birdwings
Your grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror up to where you’re bravely working.
Expecting the worst, you look, and instead, here’s the joyful face you’ve been wanting to see.
Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralyzed.
Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birdwings.
