Caterpillar Transformation Quotes

When she transformed into a butterfly, the caterpillars spoke not of her beauty, but of her weirdness. They wanted her to change back into what she always had been. But she had wings.

Awakening is not a thing. It is not a goal, not a concept. It is not something to be attained. It is a metamorphosis. If the caterpillar thinks about the butterfly it is to become, saying ‘And then I shall have wings and antennae,’ there will never be a butterfly. The caterpillar must accept its own disappearance in its transformation. When the marvelous butterfly takes wing, nothing of the caterpillar remains.

Meditation is the process of transformation and beautification of soul from a leaf-eating caterpillar to a nectar-sipping butterfly. It grows with the wings of love and compassion.

How does one become a butterfly?' she asked pensively. 'You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.' 'You mean to die?' asked Yellow, remembering the three who fell out of the sky. 'Yes and No,' he answered. 'What looks like you will die, but what's really you will still live.

What makes a genius? The ability to see. To see what? The butterfly in a caterpillar, the eagle in an egg, the saint in a selfish person, life in death, unity in separation, God in the human and human in God and suffering as the form in which the incomprehensibility of God himself appears.

In her novel Regeneration, Pat Barker writes of a doctor who 'knew only too well how often the early stages of change or cure may mimic deterioration. Cut a chrysalis open, and you will find a rotting caterpillar. What you will never find is that mythical creature, half caterpillar, half butterfly, a fit emblem of the human soul, for those whose cast of mind leads them to seek such emblems. No, the process of transformation consists almost entirely of decay.

Nobody really metamorphoses. Cinderella is always Cinderella, just in a nicer dress. The Ugly Duckling was always a swan, just a smaller version. And I bet the tadpole and the caterpillar still feel the same, even when they're jumping and flying, swimming and floating. Just like I am now.

She said it was because one day I was going to have to go through a metamorphosis like a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly and that scared me, so butterflies scared me.

Your life will be transformed when you make peace with your shadow. The caterpillar will become a breathtakingly beautiful butterfly. You will no longer have to pretend to be someone you're not. You will no longer have to prove you're good enough. When you embrace your shadow you will no longer have to life in fear. Find the gifts of your shadow and you will finally revel in all the glory of your true self. Then you will have the freedom to create the life you have always desired.

If only you could have witnessed how much I have changed: sit alone in a disused theatre and feel what I have felt, see how the world has transformed me, like the metamorphosis of a caterpillar.

A moth was a caterpillar, once, but it no longer is a caterpillar. It cannot break itself back down, cannot metamorphose in reverse. To try to eat leaves again would mean starvation. Crawling back into the husk would provide no shelter. It is a paradox -- the impossibility of reclaiming that which lies behind, housed within a form comprised entirely of the repurposed pieces of that same past. We exist where we begin, yet to remain there is death... I could not have predicted each version of me that I shifted into, but through my history, one constant has always remained true: change itself... I did not know who she was, the one waiting for me to start moving toward her. I was curious about her, all the same. I was eager to meet her.

To regret the exchange of earthly pleasures for the joys of Heaven, is as if the grovelling caterpillar should lament that it must one day quit the nibbled leaf to soar aloft and flutter through the air, roving at will from flower to flower, sipping sweet honey from their cups, or basking in their sunny petals. If these little creatures knew how great a change awaited them, no doubt they would regret it; but would not all such sorrow be misplaced?

When the world told the caterpillar its life was over, the butterfly objected, “My life has just begun.

Swathed in silk, I feel like a caterpillar in a cocoon awaiting metamorphosis. I always supposed that to be a peaceful condition. At first it is. But as I journey into the night, I feel more and more trapped, suffocated by the slippery bindings, unable to emerge until I have transformed into something of beauty. I squirm, trying to shed my ruined body and unlock the secret to growing flawless wings. Despite enormous effort, I remain a hideous creature, fired into my current form by the blast from the bombs.

Only those who stick around long enough to see the caterpillar turn into the butterfly actually get to witness the transformation.

During that long terrible ride to Munich, I finally swallowed the bitter pill of my lover's rejection and poisoned myself with it. I murdered the personality I was born with and transformed myself from a butterfly back in into a caterpillar. That night I learned to seek the shadows, to prefer silence

Keep up your faith to go high and fly, even after so many pains and sorrow. You can turn from a caterpillar to a butterfly. Life gives you a second change: a call to grow.

And just when the darkness became too much to bear and the struggle too hard, the light broke through and the caterpillar emerged a butterfly delicate but unbroken, wild and gentle, finally free to spread its lovely wings and fly away on the wind.

How does one become butterfly?' Pooh asked pensively. 'You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar,' Piglet replied. 'You mean to die?' asked Pooh. 'Yes and now,' he answered. 'What looks like you will die, but what's really you will live on.

The thing about the old is that we never change so much as the young. We slip in degrees, adding rings like trees--a new wrinkle here, a shade less color there, but the young transform like caterpillars into butterflies. They become whole new people as if overnight.

The people thrown into other cultures go through something of the anguish of the butterfly, whose body must disintegrate and reform more than once in its life cycle. In her novel “Regeneration,” Pat Barker writes of a doctor who “knew only too well how often the early stages of change or cure may mimic deterioration. Cut a chrysalis open, and you will find a rotting caterpillar. What you will never find is that mythical creature, half caterpillar, half butterfly, a fit emblem of the human soul, for those whose cat of mind leads them to seek such emblems. No, the process of transformation consists almost entirely of decay.” But the butterfly is so fit an emblem of the human soul that its name in Greek is “psyche,” the word for soul. We have not much language to appreciate this phase of decay, this withdrawal, this era of ending that must precede beginning. Nor of the violence of the metamorphosis, which is often spoken of as though it were as graceful as a flower blooming.

The Transformation from Chrysalis can take weeks, months or even years- mine took one year. And although I have become this person, I'm still in the midst of a Larger transformation, one that I won't recognize until I look back at me now and say"who was that girl?" We are constantly evolving; I suppose I have always known that, but because I always knew that, I feared stopping, and it is Ironic that it was only when I finally stopped that i moved the most. I know now that we never truly stop, our Journey is never complete, because we will continue to flourish- just as when the caterpillar thought the world was Over, it became a Butterfly.

Caterpillars can fly, if they just lighten up.

You had heard of a caterpillar that couldn't turn into a butterfly. And you would like to examine how it would feel to be denied such a beautiful thing. You would like to know how it feels for the caterpillar to watch other caterpillars transform while all the time knowing he would never have that opportunity.

Butterflies are not called butterflies overnight. They have to undergo tons of changes in order to acquire that name.

Don’t be afraid of caterpillars – They are reborn as butterflies. Transformed by love are saints and killers. The truth is sometimes worse than lies.

Transformation is not a kind place, it’s chaotic and a source of inner conflict because it is not a ‘safe’ place, but it is a place of growth; a place of rebirth where you can restart and realign with who you are. We can learn so much from the caterpillar that grows its butterfly wings in the ache and darkness of its own cocoon; and is reborn, beautiful and free, with wings to fly. This is the true meaning and profoundness of transformation; it is where the truest parts of you can emerge and you transition into the most intuitive and vibrant canvas of yourself.

Does a caterpillar sit on the same leaf when it's a butterfly? No! It goes for a little fly and sees something of the world. Does the tadpole stay in the same pond once it's a frog? No! It stretches its legs, goes for a jump, explores other waters. Did Cinderella go back cleaning hearths once she married the prince? ... Transformation means moving forward. If a butterfly stays on the same leaf and a frog stays in the same pond, then they may as well have stayed a caterpillar or a tadpole. There was no point in metamorphosing.

Nothing truly ends. It changes. Change is eternal. In being changed, you too are eternal. You are here in this moving moment and in being here, you are also forever. A fire becomes ash, which becomes earth. Sadness becomes joy, sometimes within the same cry. Birds molt feathers, then grow new ones for winter. Love becomes grief. Grief become memory. Wounds become scars. Doing becomes being. Pain becomes strength. Noon becomes night. Rain becomes vapor and then rain again. Hope becomes despair then hope again. A pear ripens, falls, transforms as it is tasted. A caterpillar disappears into its silk wrapped cocoon and things go dark, and then…

Just as it takes a baby nine months in the belly of its mother to develop, the moon many nights to become full, and a caterpillar weeks in a cocoon to become a butterfly, through entering the womb of Ramadan and fasting the entire month, our faith transforms.

It takes years for the moth to evolve from an egg into an adult," he said. "In its final stage the caterpillar spins a cocoon and then it dissolves completely until it's just liquid, then it transforms. It becomes something else entirely. A huge emperor moth. But it's not that easy. Before it can live as a moth it has to fight it's way out of the cocoon. Not all make it." "They would if I was there," said Ruth, taking another gulp. Gabriel was uncharacteristically silent. "What? What is it?" demanded Ruth. "They need to fight their way out of the cocoon. It builds their wings and muscles. It's the struggle that saves them. Without it they're crippled. If you help an emperor moth, you kill it.

Today’s caterpillars are tomorrow’s butterflies.

While the whole world was asleep, the caterpillar was awake, working towards becoming a butterfly.

because one day I was going to have to go through a metamorphosis like a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly

It can’t be done,” they told the caterpillar. “It can,” replied the butterfly.

As the caterpillar undergoes transformation within the cocoon before emerging as a butterfly; likewise, life experiences shape character.

I think that positivity— real positivity— is like the butterflies. The whole essence of the butterfly: caterpillar, cocoon, winged creature. When I look at a butterfly, I not only see a winged beauty, but I also see a strong beauty! A mind that decided: "I'm going to become better, I'm not going to be afraid of the dark, I'm going to roll myself up in this thing that I am and I will come out winged and colourful." A butterfly can never become a butterfly unless the caterpillar realises that it needs to become one. This, to me, is true positivity. I don't like what others do— the way they paint on colours and tape on wings. I like what the caterpillars do. They truly BECOME.

caterpillar must shed its skin five times before it forms the chrysalis. The caterpillar doesn’t just change. It completely transforms. The old form dies and the new is reborn. That’s the miracle that gives us hope.

Don't be so stuck in a situation or feeling that when the tide turns you can't see the transformation or manifestation. The caterpillar eventually turns into a butterfly. You will need to determine which perspective you will see.

It’s very painful when circumstances don’t allow you to act as per your nature. It may force you to change your nature. If you keep shame, guilt, regret etc. away, this change can be a transformation of caterpillar into butterfly.

Lazarus,” he says, his face fierce, “nothing actually goes. It transforms, but transmutation isn’t actually lost or gone at all. You were you before you had a body, and you will still be you when you no longer have one. A caterpillar might become a butterfly—and a human might become a spirit—but it is still the same essence. It has simply been transformed.

Rivers knew only too well how often the early stages of change or cure may mimic deterioration. Cut a chrysalis open, and you will find a rotting caterpillar. What you will never find is that mythical creature, half caterpillar, half butterfly, a fit emblem of the human soul, for those whose cast of mind leads them to seek such emblems. No, the proces of transformation consists almost entirely of decay.

The concept of hard times resulting in a positive transformation is repeated in nature over and over again; it’s why they say that a diamond is a piece of charcoal that handled stress exceptionally well! Think about how a caterpillar has to cocoon herself in darkness and wait, in a space which becomes far too small for her expanding wings. If you were to interfere with the process and help her out, she would never develop the strength she needs to fly; it’s the struggling which makes her powerful enough to break free and become a butterfly.

Just like the way a beautiful butterfly can’t come into life without its transformation cycle from egg to larva, caterpillar to pupa and finally to a brilliant creation, to become a successful digitally transformed organisation, similar transformational stages are essential.

Crawling across the barren ground, life was hard for the tiny colorless caterpillar. But today, she shimmied in delight like a ballerina twirling before a great audience. She transformed into an iridescent butterfly full of mystery and wonder. As she took flight on a magical adventure, she was caught in a spider’s web. Her story was just beginning.

Trust to Transform. LET GO…like a Caterpillar that eventually turns into a beautiful Butterfly.-RVM ‪

Even the caterpillar must endure the dark journey before gaining wings and transforming into a butterfly. It is their spiritual struggle in life.

The caterpillar achieves its full freedom and potential by transforming into a butterfly. This is the real beauty of change.

When she transformed into a butterfly, the caterpillars spoke not of her beauty, but of her weirdness. They wanted her to change back into what she always had been. But she had wings.

...how often the early stages of change of cure may mimic deterioration. Cut a chrysalis open, and you will find a rotting caterpillar...the process of transformation consists almost entirely of decay.

Very often in our culture, you are treated as though you have little spiritual capacity, as though you have no inherent power, and that people ‘in the know’ have to always liquidize your food in order for you to grow. But it is important that the true seeker understands that they must be open enough to be deeply challenged to awaken the living aspiration necessary for true freedom. To be free you are going to have to break out of the mold of personal conditioning, out of your cocoon. Each sincere seeker must be willing to undergo the necessary transformation from caterpillar consciousness to the butterfly of freedom!

Like caterpillars our metamorphosis begins with what comes from our mouth. Caterpillars spin silk cocoons from the mouth. We speak life or death, success or failure. All transformation starts with what comes from our mouth.

He told me the story of the butterfly emerging from the hard pupa. Its life begins as an “ugly” caterpillar. When the time is right, it forms a pupa and retreats behind its hard walls. Within its shell, it transforms into a butterfly, unseen, unheard. When ready, it uses its tiny, sharp claws at the base of its forewings to crack a small opening in the hard, protective outer shell. It squeezes through this tiny opening and struggles to make its way out. This is a difficult, painful and prolonged process. Misguided compassion may make us want to enlarge the hole in the pupa, imagining that it would ease the butterfly’s task. But that struggle is necessary; as the butterfly squeezes its body out of the tiny hole, it secretes fluids within its swollen body. This fluid goes to its wings, strengthening them; once they’ve emerged, as the fluid dries, the delicate creatures are able to take flight. Making the hole bigger to “help” the butterfly and ease its struggle will only debilitate it. Without the struggle, its wings would never gain strength. It would never fly.

Transgender people are not caterpillars who transform into butterflies, as lovely as that tired analogy may be. We are more like pet snakes who slough off our skin to keep growing, in full view of anyone peeking through the glass. When we finish shedding, our old selves lay there for a while, decomposing. It’s not very glamorous, but it’s closer to the truth.

You thought yourself the lynx, your claws gladly sheathed, but always, should you need them, they would extend from the tufted fur and velvet-soft paws to slash at any foe. But you are not the lynx. You are the caterpillar, transformed into a beautiful butterfly whose wings glitter with promse and whose touch helps the flower grow." Uluenia closed Desidora's hand. "But you have lost your jaws.

Then, step by step, you start to understand the difference that it produces inside yourself. And in the end, you choose who you want to be from that moment on. And when you reach that state of mind and being, you cannot undo what you just did. And you change. You transform yourself from a caterpillar into a beautiful colorful butterfly. You start to love your new colors, your wings, and once that process begins, you may develop this desire to fly up, and from up there, you see yourself first, then your life, your family, your friends, your job, everything. You start to compare your previous caterpillar perception, with the new butterfly one. If you like the caterpillar view, you stick to it. If not, you will change it completely. But this is not an easy overnight process. It takes time, patience, and perseverance to live like a butterfly.

suppose we are all children in the eyes of the Lord. But when God points us in the direction of his plan and we accept it, we morph and transform like the caterpillar emerging after living so long in its cocoon. No matter what that butterfly does, it cannot return to the cocoon nor can it go back to being a caterpillar.” She felt Alejandro squeeze her hand under the table. “I believe that when we follow God’s will without question, that is the day when we truly become an adult in his eyes and, at that point, there is no turning back.

...if we're to experience change in our very nature, we need to enter the cocoon of the Word of God. When you sit in your lounge room or your favorite chair reading the Bible, think caterpillar. It's like you're spinning your own spiritual cocoon. It's in the confines of the cocoon that the unseen work is done in the caterpillar...This is exactly what happens to us when we abide in the Word of God. It's here He can do His greatest work in us. As we commit to this process we too will experience internal transformation that in time will cause external change.

The transformation from chrysalis can take weeks, months or even years - mine took one year. And although I have become this person, I'm still in the midst of a larger transformation, one that I won't recognise until I look back at me now and say 'Who was that girl?' We are constantly evolving; I suppose I have always known that, but because I always knew that, I feared stopping, and it is ironic that it was only now that we never truly stop, our journey is never complete, because we will continue to flourish - just as when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly

Butterflies by Maisie Aletha Smikle Colorfully colored butterflies Black yellow orange and green With their beautiful specks Align the garden decks Butterfly butterfly… Lovely flies that ain't got butter Their beauty makes one stutter And their heart go pitter patter And will soon melt like butter They won’t eat from a platter And one can only mutter Butterfly butterfly .... Radiant as the sunshine Beautiful as the colors of the rainbow Harmless as a deer Adorn for all to see First it was a caterpillar Crawling on its tiny legs It's entire body stretches out on a leaf In the twinkling of an eye The caterpillar transforms And are given wings to fly And fly it must…. It was not created to crawl Miraculous indeed Is the life of a butterfly Displayed for all to see Hope in the life of a radiant butterfly

To explain the metamorphosis that takes place in the process of recovery from addiction, we have to wait for that physiological change to occur -you can’t rush it, it will happen in its own time. Imagine trying to teach a caterpillar how to fly. The poor thing might listen, take flight lessons, watch butterflies darting around. But no matter how hard it tries, it won’t fly. Maybe we get frustrated because we know this whole day has it in him to become a butterfly. So we give him books to read, try to counsel him, scold him, punish him, threaten him, maybe even toss him up in the air and watch his flap his little legs before crashing back to earth. The miracle takes time, we must be patient. But just as it is natural and normal for caterpillars to become butterflies, So can we expect addicted individuals, given the appropriate care and compassion, to be transformed in the recovery process. The metamorphosis is nothing short of miraculous, as people who are desperately sick are restored to health and a “normal” state of being. So don’t sit around feeling sorry for yourself, be grateful that you have a disease from which you can make a full recovery.

Ram laughed softly. ‘You know, Guru Vashishta had said to me, when I was a child, that compassion is sometimes an overrated virtue. He told me the story of the butterfly emerging from the hard pupa. Its life begins as an “ugly” caterpillar. When the time is right, it forms a pupa and retreats behind its hard walls. Within its shell, it transforms into a butterfly, unseen, unheard. When ready, it uses its tiny, sharp claws at the base of its forewings to crack a small opening in the hard, protective outer shell. It squeezes through this tiny opening and struggles to make its way out. This is a difficult, painful and prolonged process. Misguided compassion may make us want to enlarge the hole in the pupa, imagining that it would ease the butterfly’s task. But that struggle is necessary; as the butterfly squeezes its body out of the tiny hole, it secretes fluids within its swollen body. This fluid goes to its wings, strengthening them; once they’ve emerged, as the fluid dries, the delicate creatures are able to take flight. Making the hole bigger to “help” the butterfly and ease its struggle will only debilitate it. Without the struggle, its wings would never gain strength. It would never fly.

the story of the butterfly emerging from the hard pupa. Its life begins as an “ugly” caterpillar. When the time is right, it forms a pupa and retreats behind its hard walls. Within its shell, it transforms into a butterfly, unseen, unheard. When ready, it uses its tiny, sharp claws at the base of its forewings to crack a small opening in the hard, protective outer shell. It squeezes through this tiny opening and struggles to make its way out. This is a difficult, painful and prolonged process. Misguided compassion may make us want to enlarge the hole in the pupa, imagining that it would ease the butterfly’s task. But that struggle is necessary; as the butterfly squeezes its body out of the tiny hole, it secretes fluids within its swollen body. This fluid goes to its wings, strengthening them; once they’ve emerged, as the fluid dries, the delicate creatures are able to take flight. Making the hole bigger to “help” the butterfly and ease its struggle will only debilitate it. Without the struggle, its wings would never gain strength. It would never fly.

Observing the transformation of your fellow caterpillar into a butterfly does not mean you can also be a butterfly. You may just be eaten along the way if not fortunate.

I am seventeen-years-old. The world is changing around me so rapidly that I worry I might never find my place in it. Just a few short years ago, I was so sure of everything. I loved boybands, and horses, drawing and playing my guitar. Then, almost overnight, nothing was certain anymore, and things I thought I knew to be true no longer were. It was as though I was a caterpillar, happy, learning and growing, and then without warning I began to transform into something else. There has been no chrysalis, though, no cocoon to hide away inside, safe, until I’m ready to reemerge into the world, new and fresh and complete. No, all of my transformations have taken place out in the open, in public, for all to see, and the process has been horrific.

Exactly. Imagine you cut a chrysalis open, what do you find?” “A caterpillar?” “A rotting caterpillar. The process of transformation starts with decay. Most people don’t think about that.

Just like caterpillars who come into this world to undergo a process of transformation and evolve from ugly, earth-crawling creatures to majestic, magnificently colored butterflies. Humans are also born to engage in a process of gradual and perpetual transformation, aiming to progress from tiny, helpless newborns to empowered, knowledgeable, and skillful individuals.

You know, Guru Vashishta had said to me, when I was a child, that compassion is sometimes an overrated virtue. He told me the story of the butterfly emerging from the hard pupa. Its life begins as an “ugly” caterpillar. When the time is right, it forms a pupa and retreats behind its hard walls. Within its shell, it transforms into a butterfly, unseen, unheard. When ready, it uses its tiny, sharp claws at the base of its forewings to crack a small opening in the hard, protective outer shell. It squeezes through this tiny opening and struggles to make its way out. This is a difficult, painful and prolonged process. Misguided compassion may make us want to enlarge the hole in the pupa, imagining that it would ease the butterfly’s task. But that struggle is necessary; as the butterfly squeezes its body out of the tiny hole, it secretes fluids within its swollen body. This fluid goes to its wings, strengthening them; once they’ve emerged, as the fluid dries, the delicate creatures are able to take flight. Making the hole bigger to “help” the butterfly and ease its struggle will only debilitate it. Without the struggle, its wings would never gain strength. It would never fly.

God provides for our complete transformation when we accept Jesus as Savior. This transformation often takes a life time to achieve, still we’re to be moving continually and intently towards this goal. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed (metamorphoo) by the renewing of your minds.” (Romans 12:2) This transformation is a “metamorphosis,” as a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. Scripture uses different images to express the change that occurs in all true believers: We become “a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). We’re “made new in the attitude of your minds” (Ephesians 4:23). We “put off your old self” and “put on the new self” (Ephesians 4:22, 24; Colossians 3:9-10). We “live by the Spirit” and not by the flesh (Galatians 5:16; Romans 8:13). We become “instruments of righteousness” rather than “instruments of wickedness” (Romans 6:13). We have “been set free from sin and have become slaves to God” (Romans 6:22).

Passing from this world into eternity is like being a small seed. When we pass into eternity, we will grow as a beautiful flower. Recall that a squirmy worm transforms itself into a beautiful butterfly. Our present state is similar to a seed that God tends with great care. He is watering us and feeding our souls. Upon death, we will sprout forth and grow throughout eternity, growing beautiful, ever becoming like Christ. As that crawling caterpillar transforms itself a butterfly, so also does the soul of a Christian passing from this world into the next world.

This caterpillar does not just simply grow wings First, it must alter its mind; transform the very being of itself It must climb the tallest tree, the highest mountain Swim the deepest of oceans Walk through the fiercest of flames And then, if it chooses, this caterpillar can become a butterfly

So when you experience a so-called failure, don’t view this as failure, but rather as a “character muscle-building” process. It’s a process that will strengthen your resolve to transform your career much the same way a caterpillar transforms itself into an elegant butterfly. The job campaign necessitates that you embrace struggle and constructively address adversity. When you do so, new opportunities will present themselves sooner than you’d think possible.

The Transformation from Chrysalis can take weeks, months or even years- mine took one year. And although I have become this person, I'm still in the midst of a Larger transformation, one that I won't recognize until I look back at me now and say"who was that girl?" We are constantly evolving; I suppose I have always known that, but because I always knew that, I feared stopping, and it is Ironic that it was only when I finally stopped that i moved the most. I know now that we never truly stop, our Journey is never complete, because we will continue to flourish- just as when the caterpillar thought the world was Over, it became a Butterfly.

Meanwhile, an incremental vision will only turn you into a faster-moving caterpillar.

Think of a caterpillar entering a cocoon. Once he does so, one of two things will happen: He will either transform into a butterfly, or he will die. But no matter what else happens, he will never climb out of the cocoon as a caterpillar. So it is with your protagonist.

As if answering my question, a vision emerges before me. I see the butterfly life cycle, starting with round eggs clumped together on a leaf. Then, there is one egg, the others disappear. The egg hatches into a caterpillar. The caterpillar eats the foliage on which it had been born. It quickly grows, molts, and sheds its outgrown skin. Somehow, I know I am witnessing my journey. I understand the egg hatching is symbolic of my desire to grow spiritually. I also realize the caterpillar is where I am today. I need to shed my outgrown skin many times before I can enter the cocoon. That cocoon is the chrysalis. Intuitively, I know that while I am in the chrysalis, there will be enormous changes in my life. That will be when I will have real metamorphosis and spiritual transformation.

Far more beautiful than their real-life counterparts, my dream trees were always full of pearly plums that transformed into glittery cocoons, sleeping caterpillars, which I thought were beautiful in a strange and slightly repugnant way.

nothing actually goes. It transforms, but transmutation isn’t actually lost or gone at all. You were you before you had a body, and you will still be you when you no longer have one. A caterpillar might become a butterfly—and a human might become a spirit—but it is still the same essence. It has simply been transformed.

Everything has the chance to be something. The caterpillar can transform into the butterfly, but only through the creator. The artist allows something that longs to be something more to become something beautiful.

She told me I was just like that caterpillar. I was growing awful fast, but the time would come when life would wrap me up in a cocoon because I needed to change. When that happened, I was going to go through a complete transformation. God was going to break me down completely, so that I could become something brand new and beautiful. She told me everyone has to go through it.

God’s Song I am the amoeba swimming in pond water. I am the elephant stepping gently on huge feet. I am the whale that sings its song seven fathoms deep. I am the chickadee with dark bright eye. I am the hawk rising swift on currents of wind. I am the tiger stalking its prey. I am the platypus, most confused of all animals. I am the wild goose flying on strong winds. I am the rabbit, fleet of foot and timid of heart. I am the minnow, darting in shallow water; the tadpole transforming into something new; the caterpillar never dreaming of wings; the butterfly that speaks to you of resurrection; the cat curled in your lap; the spider spinning her web; the cow, patient servant of humanity; and the cricket, singing its autumn song. I am the breath of each one. I am the Spirit in each. Look. I am everywhere you turn, if you only had eyes to see.

Of course, battling past the ego to get to the truth has been at the heart of countless spiritual teachings in countless countries for countless centuries. Ego-death as a means to no-self—abiding non-dual awareness—is what this journey is all about. That’s the reason behind the devotion, the prayer, the meditation, the teachings, the renunciation. Anyone headed for truth is going to get there over the ego’s dead body or not at all. There’s no shortcut or easy way, no going under or around. The only way past ego is through it, and the only way through it is with laser-like intent and a heart of stone. The caterpillar doesn’t become a butterfly, it enters a death process that becomes the birth process of the butterfly. The appearance of transformation is an illusion. One thing doesn’t become another thing. One thing ends and another begins And why do so few succeed in this greatest of all journeys? For the simple reason that success, within the context of the dream, is pointless, whereas failure, or, at least, struggle, is very much to the point. Chasing enlightenment holds as many lessons for the unawakened soul as any other pursuit in the dreamscape of ego-bound reality; as any other ride in the park. The supposed mega-bliss of spiritual awakening is a carrot dangling from a stick no less than love or wealth or power. In other words, actual enlightenment is seldom the point of the quest for enlightenment. And why should it be? Success in realizing one’s true nature is absolutely assured because, well, because it’s one’s true nature. The greatest wonder isn’t that you’ll make it back, it’s that you made it away. Returning is the motion of the Tao. Struggling to achieve truth is, in its own way, as preposterous as struggling to achieve death. What’s the point? Both will find you when it’s time. Should we worry that if we fail to find death, death will fail to find us? Of course not, and neither death, nor taxes, nor gravity, nor tomorrow’s sunrise is as certain as the fact that everyone will end up fully “enlightened” regardless of the “path” they take. So, if I have to be interested in something, this seems like a good choice; watching the homeward migration of souls. And if I have to have a job, this seems like a good one; standing on the distant shore, keeping a beacon fire burning, helping newcomers ashore, offering a welcome and pointing out some of the sights.

Life is a common good, it inheres in man and beast and passes from one to another, from body to body, this is how souls travel. In nature, everything is constantly changing, nothing is lost. The soul, that is, what constitutes life, is like wax: it retains its identity but only changes shape and constantly appears as new individuals. This is the nature of being: nothing in the world remains in one state, everything flows, every phenomenon is in progress, time itself moves steadily, like a river. Night turns into day, day into night, the moon has different phases, the year has different seasons. Nor will our bodies remain tomorrow what they are today or what they were yesterday. How many changes does a person undergo in the course of life, from fetus through infancy, crawling, maturity, aging, and unto death! And the whole universe. According to theory of the four elements, everything that exists arises from these very basic elements, and everything then turns into building material. “To be born”means “to begin to be something else.”“To die”means “to stop being what you used to be.”The ingredients are interchangeable, but matter remains the same. What does geology prove? Eternal transformations of the earth. There were seas, and now there are no seas; there were mountains and they have vanished; rivers flowed and dried up; volcanoes erupted and cooled. And that’s just the inanimate nature for you! The law of change in the animal world is even clearer. Caterpillars turn into butterflies, tadpoles into frogs, larvae into bees. Human societies and states are governed by the same principle. Troy has fallen, Pythagoras said to Numa Pompilius, and it is from that fall, thanks to Aeneas, the progenitor of the Julian house, that the Roman Empire will be reborn. It will be very powerful. Pythagoras did not say what would happen to Rome next. After all, everything changes? Yes, everything changes, the golden age has passed, the iron age has come. Therefore, I tell you, do not eat meat, concluded Pythagoras. And Numa Pompilius, having heard his teachings, came to Rome, instituted civilization there, and instructed a nation of warriors in the ways of peaceful coexistence.

The transformation from chrysalis can take weeks, months or even years - mine took one year. And although I have become this person, I'm still in the midst of a larger transformation, one that I won't recognise until I look back at me now and say 'Who was that girl?' We are constantly evolving; I suppose I have always known that, but because I always knew that, I feared stopping, and it is ironic that it was only when I finally stopped that I moved the most. I know now that we never truly stop, our journey is never complete, because we will continue to flourish - just as when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.

All humans have the ability to transform like a caterpillar emerging from its cocoon and taking to the sky. This is the essence of personal development; taking information in, becoming inspired by it and allowing yourself to be transformed and in turn, inspire others as well. Seeing what you can become and what you can help others become is the major challenge in life

There is this transformation a woman undergoes when she becomes a mother. A sort of caterpillar to butterfly change, leaving them forever different and somehow more beautiful than you ever imagined they could be.

Adding wings to caterpillars does not create butterflies. It creates awkward and dysfunctional caterpillars. Butterflies are created through transformation.” —Stephanie Marshall

All human beings have the ability to transform like a caterpillar emerging from its cocoon and taking to the sky.

When a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, it takes all of its experiences and everything that lives inside itself and transforms into a beautiful creature. What people don’t always notice is the metamorphosis - the isolation, the discomfort, even the pain.

Let me illustrate what I mean by the fulfillment of our potential: Imagine the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly. The caterpillar does not transform into a cocoon and go beyond being a caterpillar. The caterpillar is still a caterpillar inside the cocoon, and it is still a caterpillar once it evolves into a butterfly — only, apart from being a fully actualized caterpillar, it has now grown wings.

As the caterpillar undergoes transformation and emerges as a butterfly; likewise, character undergoes transformation through experiences, aspirations and beliefs. How will you emerge?

There is a moment in the process where the creature is neither a caterpillar nor a butterfly. The transforming creature can feel, in that moment, that all is lost. But we know better.