Water can freeze and become ice. Ice can melt and become water again. Water can be heated and evaporates into gas. Matter constantly changing states of being.
Our emotions can similarly transform into different states, often affected similarly by turning up or down the temperature or introducing other factors that bring tension and transformation.
At the same time, much of transformation and metamorphosis comes down to what is happening internally, a level most often invisible to the eye.
On Tuesday, I learned something new about transformation, courtesy of Aisha Shillingford. She shared the story of the imaginal cells that drive the transformation of a caterpillar to butterfly – a story that is equally magical and instructive.
After gorging itself the caterpillar goes off to a safe place and forms a chrysalis where it rests inside. This much I knew. But I never really questioned what happens next – and it is fascinating. Apparently, the caterpillar’s cells will just dissolve into some kind of amorphous cellular goop. From there some imaginal cells – once dormant – awaken. These cells contain the future potential and blueprint to become a butterfly. If you’re thinking, “cool – then these cells just grow to form the butterfly.” Well not so fast. You see, the existing caterpillar cells do not go down without a fight. They see the imaginal cells as a threat and these future butterfly cells are attacked by the caterpillar’s immune system. The imaginal cells which started off acting independently band together, reproduce and grow stronger – acting as multiple cell organisms that eventually become the butterfly which flies triumphantly into the world
Years ago while working on a project to reduce the stigma surrounding the food stamp program – one I personally benefited from – a woman offered this pearl of wisdom. “Change isn’t difficult. It’s the resistance to change that causes all the pain.”
Within our country, our communities, our families and most of all within our minds, transformation is always happening. As they say, the only constant is change. It is often imperceptible as it’s happening – as if inside an opaque chrysalis. Ideally, if you believe the arc of history bends towards justice, there is within that chrysalis a blueprint to a better future willing itself into existence.
It asks only of us some patience and a willingness to come together to overcome the inevitable resistance. Perhaps most of all it also asks us to realize that this transformation from goop to beauty is happening within the same body. The caterpillar and the butterfly have always been one. We are both the goop and the beauty.
Recommendation of the Week. The song “Is What It Is” by Chance Pena has really struck a chord with me recently. Apologies for bad pun.