Saturday, October 24, 2015

Fragile Power

With apologies for continuing the metaphor...

As I emerge from this transformation, just as the butterfly begins to open its wings, there is an sense of unknowing that lives just above the level of abject terror that arises from within. There is nothing in my memory as a caterpillar that has anything to do with wings, let alone flying. This new body seems far less rugged, in fact it feels frail, thin and vulnerable. And I have lost that voracious appetite for any and all things.

Yes - it is kind of like that. Only I can't seem to connect with the DNA that would instruct my wings to work yet and I've yet to experience a gentle wind that would lift me off this branch I seem to be so desperately clinging to. Perhaps I am not suited for butterfly life. Worm life was simple: eat, shed, grow, repeat, eat, shed, grow. This life seems not only fragile but finite. Something in me knows that there is not a next step after this form. And most certainly there is no way back.

But there must be some power in these wings. If only I can figure out how to use them I might begin to see what this branch is attached to and where it is in the bigger picture. With the power of wings I can see well more than the ground or leaves I walked on. I think that might be a great new perspective. But this fragile new power is very much an oxymoron. I have no clue what Paul meant by, "When I am weak, I am strong." Though I think it is dawning on me that "I have died and something else is living in me."

Thursday, October 22, 2015

How Wings Are Formed

At this point, I am pretty certain, though I have absolutely no hard evidence to support this certitude, that there is absolutely no intentionality on the part of the caterpillar when it comes to forming wings. Most certainly though it is in the DNA of the caterpillar-turned-chrysalis that when guts are cooked for enough time inside the protective layer of the cocoon. But that operative word there is cooked.

This business of being transformed is not easily done nor is it without any associated discomfort. In fact I feel like it is as violent a process as the actual formation of the chrysalis in the first place. I was meditating last Sunday when the image of the crucifixion came into my mind, and instead of letting the intruding thought image float away down stream as I normally do with other intruders, I looked at it, and took it in.

I had always seen this image as one of death and pain - an execution of an innocent man - as well I should because that is what was happening. But this time I saw it differently. It is a very powerful image indeed, but not as an image of the scapegoat upon whom we placed our collective transgressions so that we could be cleansed. Nor was it significant as an icon of the "savior" conquering death so that we mere mortals now could have a free ticket to some beautiful vacation land called heaven. Not in the least!

It was an image of a man with his arms wide open - the posture we take when we see a long-lost friend - ready to embrace the beloved - welcoming whatever stories and hurts they brought back with them. Only this man, this one on the cross had no alternative, as his arms were nailed wide open. It suddenly occurred as THE message of the crucifixion - the "follow me" message. What if my arms were nailed wide open; what if I had no other choice than to welcome and accept whatever life threw at me with open arms?

Rumi's poem "Desire" starts with the line, "A lover knows only humility, he has no choice." While it is often taken as a purely love poem, ecstatic Sufism speaks of the Divine One as the Beloved and brings it down to the visceral corporeal level. I might paraphrase Rumi to say, the crucified knows only humility, he has no choice. The chrysalis knows only humility, he has no choice. Wings are forming and I must receive whatever this life offers - in full humility - I have no choice.

Sunday, October 11, 2015

Wings, What Wings

Though I have never asked a caterpillar or a chrysalis or a butterfly for that matter about the formation of their wings, I am quite certain that their development is a process that happens without the respective bug-phase's awareness - if said creatures can be said to have awareness at all.

What one may notice about the development of wings is probably akin to what one notices about the transformation through which they may be going. From the inside nothing seems to have changed - I am still the same man, still married to the same woman, and still struggling to lift my emotional body out of the swamp of sadness over my "losses" at it were. But what seems different is what others say to me. "You sound different."

"Really, in what way?"

"Oh I don't know - you seem different, more introspective, quieter." But I don't want to be quieter. I need to be my powerful self in order to deal with the clients I had - despite the fact that I am trying to bring out a different message. My new message is that coaching and leadership first must come from the heart, not the intention of a zealous ego. But more importantly, I have to walk the talk. I understand now what my teacher Richard Rohr means when he says "unless you allow yourself to be humiliated by life's trials, you can't understand the bigger life."