The Butterfly Days.
A meditation on self-compassion.
I'm so glad you're here.
Arriving just as you are.
No need to change a thing.
I would say come in,
Take off your shoes and make yourself at home.
Take a moment to find your way into a comfortable position.
You might be sitting,
You might.
.
.
Be laying down.
Whatever allows your body to soften.
And feel held.
And let your hands rest in your lap,
Or gently place one hand on your heart.
And take a slow breath in.
And just let it go.
Let's do that one more time.
Just breathe in.
Through the nose and let everything go on the exhale.
You're here.
You arrived.
And that's enough.
So let's begin to feel the places where your body meets the earth,
The ground beneath your feet.
The surface beneath you,
Where your weight is being held.
You don't have to carry yourself right now.
The Earth.
Has you.
Imagine roots moving down off the base of your spine.
From the soles of your feet.
Warm,
Slow,
Living roots.
Reaching down through the floor.
Through the soil.
Deeper and deeper into the quiet earth below.
And with an exhale,
You release a little more tension.
A little bit more holding.
A little more of the story of the day.
You are safe here.
You're grounded here.
And the earth beneath you is steady.
It's holding you.
And you can settle in.
From this rooted place,
We're going to create something sacred around you.
We are opening up a circle.
A sacred container.
Calling in the four directions and animal spirits that align with the butterfly medicine.
Because today you don't journey alone.
We start in the East.
Simply turn your attention there,
Or your mind's eye.
From the east we call up the hummingbird.
Come and stand guard at the eastern gate of this sacred circle.
Lend us your lightness,
Your joy.
You'll remember.
That beauty is not earned,
It simply is.
We are grateful for your presence.
We turn our attention to the South.
We call upon the deer.
Come and stand guard at the southern gate of this circle.
Teach us how to meet our own vulnerability with the same gentleness we would offer a frightened form.
We are grateful for your presence.
And then return to the west.
Recall upon there.
Come and stand guard at the western gate of this circle.
Hold space for everything that has needed to dissolve in the dark.
Hold space for the crystallized times.
We are grateful for your presence.
And then we turn our attention to the North.
Recall upon the white owl.
Come and stand guard at the northern gate of this sacred circle.
Bring us your wisdom,
Your perspective,
Your steady witness.
We are grateful for your presence.
And feel the circle around you.
Hummingbird,
Deer,
Bear.
Holding you.
Watching over you.
Creating a container that is safe.
And sacred.
And entirely your own.
And in the center of the circle.
Gently settling her wings.
Is the butterfly.
So we are here today with a particular invitation.
Because so many of us carry something that the butterfly understands more than any other creature on earth.
The weight of judging our own becoming.
We look at our past selves with criticism.
We look at our slow seasons with impatience.
We look at our dark times with shame.
Today the butterfly has something to say about that.
Take a breath and let yourself fully arrive into the center of this circle.
I invite you to imagine that you're sitting in a meadow.
It is warm.
The light is golden and soft.
All around you,
Wildflowers sway.
Somewhere nearby,
You can hear the quiet sound of water.
This is a safe place.
A health place.
And as you sit,
You notice something on the grass in front of you.
A caterpillar.
Small and slow,
Unremarkable perhaps to the passing eye.
Moving one careful inch at a time along a green stem.
And as you look at it.
Something stirs inside you.
Because this caterpillar reminds you of someone.
It reminds you of yourself in one of those seasons where you felt slow.
When you felt small.
When you were doing your best.
But your best looked nothing like what the world seemed to expect.
Maybe it was a time when you were struggling or lost or making mistakes you now wish you could undo.
Maybe it was a time when you were doing something differently.
Than you do today.
Thinking differently.
Believing differently.
Choosing differently.
Let that version of you come gently to mind.
Not to judge,
Just to remember.
I want to ask you something.
If you watch this caterpillar on the stem,
Do you criticize it for not having wings yet?
Do you tell it it's doing something wrong?
Do you wish it would just hurry up?
And become something more beautiful.
No,
Of course not.
Because you understand.
You understand that the caterpillar is exactly where it needs to be.
And yet,
How often do we look at our own caterpillar season and say,
You should have known better.
You should have moved faster.
There should have been more.
Let's just take a breath here.
And let yourself see that version of you.
Younger.
Slower.
Doing their absolute best with what they had.
And just for a moment.
Offer them something different.
Offer them what you'd offer the caterpillar on the stem.
Click this one hand on your heart if that feels right.
Insightly,
Gently say to that part of yourself,
You were doing only things you could do.
You were gathering what you needed to become.
And just take a breath.
And realize you were never behind.
You will always be coming.
And from this place in your meadow,
Let's shift slightly.
The caterpillar has found a branch.
And you watch it as it becomes the form of the chrysalis.
It is a sealed,
Mysterious stage.
The in-between.
The place that looks from the inside.
Like nothing's happening.
Like everything has stopped.
These two might remind you of yourself,
The times you've been in the dark.
The times you couldn't explain to anyone.
Even yourself.
What was happening.
At times you felt like you were dissolving,
Coming undone.
Losing the shape of who you thought you were.
Not so many of us carry shame about this time,
About the things said or done in the dark.
About how long it took,
About how messy and graceful truth there was.
Your darkness was not.
Your failure.
You're undoing what you're becoming.
So let yourself breathe into that for a moment.
Just see yourself in this chapter.
A season where you have tried to hide,
Even from yourself.
You don't have to name it out loud.
Just let it gently surface like a bubble rising to the top of still water and just acknowledge it.
And I invite you from this inside place.
To feel something extraordinary,
Even there,
Even in the dissolving,
You did not lose yourself.
The wisdom you've gathered as the caterpillar,
It survived in the chrysalis.
And it carried through.
You did not lose yourself in your darkest chapter.
You carried yourself through.
The dark is not the enemy.
The dark is where the work happens.
And from this place.
This chrysalis time and slowly,
Slowly the butterfly begins to emerge.
I want you to imagine just for a moment that you are the butterfly,
That you are emerged.
Not ahead of yourself,
Not behind,
But exactly when the time needed you to be there.
That your wings are soft and new and still finding their pattern.
The light feels almost so bright after the dark And from this place,
This place of the butterfly,
You turn back.
You look back at everything that you brought here.
You see the caterpillar slow on the stem.
You see the chrysalis still in the dark.
And you see every version of yourself that you've been ashamed of.
That you've judged,
That you wished were different.
And here is this extraordinary truth about the butterfly.
She does not look back to contempt.
She does not look back with embarrassment.
She looks back with all of it,
And she thinks all of that made it possible.
All of that,
Every slow inch,
Every stark day,
Every moment,
Brought me here.
And she opens her wings.
And let yourself feel that.
However it arrives in your body,
Maybe it's a warm chest.
Maybe it's a softening of the jaw.
Maybe it's a breath that goes a little deeper than the last one.
Let the butterfly gaze be your gaze for a moment.
And say it inwardly,
Wherever words feel true.
Every stage of me was scared.
My past self needed my love,
Not my judgment.
All of it is me.
And all of it is holy.
You just take a breath in that and receive it.
And then slowly we'll begin to come back.
Gently the way you'd wake from a most beautiful dream Not wanting to rush.
You feel the circle around you warm and steady.
Take a moment to think each direction for witnessing you today.
Thank you all in the North.
Thank you bear in the West.
Thank you,
Dear of the South.
Thank you.
Hummingbird of the east.
And thank you butterfly at the center of this circle.
For showing me.
That every version of me was part of the becoming.
And the circle closes,
But the medicine stays with you.
And just begin to feel your breath growing a little fuller.
Notice the ground beneath you is firm.
And as familiar as earth after rain.
And let your fingers move for your toes.
And when you're ready,
Gently open your eyes.
Welcome back.
And welcome home.
