Caterpillar Goop May 13, 2008

I’m reading a new book (yes, as a work in progress I caved and bought yet another self-help book).  It’s by Martha Beck, an author I have come to identify with.  I didn’t even read the cover before purchasing.  I just knew that if she wrote it, I wanted to read it.  It could have been a cookbook for all I knew.  (I hope to have a similar following one day…oh, pardon me, while I ”manifest”…..)

In the introduction to the book, Martha talks about the proverbial metamorphosis one makes as they find their true path in life.  I was struck by her reminder about the caterpillar’s fate after spinning its cocoon. The caterpillar doesn’t simply sprout wings…The first thing that happens is a complete and total caterpillar meltdown.  The caterpillar literally dissolves (ick).  For the record, I, too, am dissolving.   And it ain’t pretty. 

The good news is, according to Martha Beck, I’m right on schedule for a complete metamorphosis. Woo Hoo!  The bad news is that no caterpillar that  enters a cocoon ever makes it out alive.  Joseph Campbell said, “You must give up on the life you had planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.” 

Ouch.  My fingernails are clinging to the edges of the old and my arms are getting tired.  Pretty soon it’ll be easier to fall into the scary unknown than to hang on, fingernails ripping.  (How completely melodramatic, no?)  Like my mom recently reminded me…”the horse is dead, dear….it’s time to get off.”

So, pardon my goop, folks.  It’s just that I’m right in the middle of becoming magnificent. 

And we’ll all just have to be patient, for these things happen in their own time…..