What appeared to be months of isolation, months of my body fighting for life, begging for ease. Months of pain, of boredom, of uncertainty
was simply the spinning of a cosmic cocoon.
The grueling process of death and regeneration so that one day I would break free and feel the movement of gentle wing against open air.
This process is quite extraordinary, it turns out. Death comes first, then digestion. The eating of oneself with full faith that new life will be born from this grotesque meal.
A daring act of surrender.
And after, the cells become imaginal. That’s the actual scientific term! Imaginal. A term for cells that can transform into anything an imagination can dream up. And so a new body is imagined. A body with wings and a whisper to flutter.
But the opening doesn’t just appear like a garden gate, door flung wide and paved with soft moss. You have to hack away at this protective chamber. New, fragile wings pushing for expansiveness.
An aching and tedious act of hope.
And it is in this strengthening that the wings are primed for flight. But life doesn’t have to be hard, I think. Yet when the hard comes and you face it with the tender fierceness of a butterfly, you can be sure you’ll be ready for ascension.