Let’s say hypothetically that I hated black people. Okay, maybe that’s a bad example, as it’s not a hypothetical but… You coach me on how to relate to a black man by having me read about the history of the struggle of the black people, so I can see where he has come from and what he has been through. You teach me about psychology so I can understand the anger and frustration that he must have felt from growing up in a racist society. You share with me the science of the difference between our skin colors, that his is just more densely packed with melanin, to help me separate the skin from the being. You give me techniques to speak to him in a way that will respect his needs and feelings. But when he’s finally sitting directly across the table from me, all I see is a nigger.
Jesus wasn’t giving us new “commandments,” he wasn’t trying to teach us new “techniques” of outward mastery; he was working to transform our “inner racist” so that all commandments and techniques would become obsolete. But we have resisted the transformation. We act like caterpillars desperately refusing to go deep inside the cocoon and leave it in a completely different form. Because what will become of our caterpillar self? That has been all we’ve known and to discard it seems like we will be discarding our very Selves, rather than a shell that doesn’t allow us to spread our wings and fly.
When we fight in relationships, be it with friends, families or our “significant” others (as if certain people are “insignificant”), what we are doing is desperately holding onto our caterpillar as we pull our backs up into an arch that says, “You’re a grubby little worm!” Perhaps we close ourselves off and run into the cocoon, not to transform but to hide in darkness, only to emerge the same tubular little larva as which we entered.
It is not the other person that we are mad at; it is the anger of knowing on some level that we are capable of expressing so much more and yet are trapped in a cocoon of our own conditioning. Most of us are so unaware that we mistakenly call this prison a home. Otherwise we would never stop clawing at its walls, through numb and bloody fingers, for even the slightest chance of liberation.
We are not afraid of losing the other but of losing ourselves, the false selves that we have held onto desperately. We put on make-up and go to the gym and take supplements in a desperate attempt to preserve that which needs to crack and be stripped away and buried in order to discover the God inside the temple. As time starts to work its magic, and the wrinkles appear and the dissatisfaction grows, we have the choice to either hide in our cocoon and avoid the world around us, or accept that a cocoon is no place for a butterfly and to fly away, forever leaving the safety of our former residence.
All we hold onto, be it ideals or beliefs or struggles or issues or religion or hatred or another person, is only a way to keep our hands too full to open to grace, to open to the unknown, to open to our Selves. And so we throw all our energy into “saving the world” or “killing the infidels” or “getting healthier” or “religion” and forget that ALL of these are just cocoons and that the only purpose of ANY of these is to help us grow into our butterflyhood, that in and of themselves they are NOTHING and IRRELEVENT.
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Ninja and I have had several serious fights that have lasted for hours, where she essentially tells me what a hypocritical, lying, manipulative, fraudulent, piece of crap I am. By the fifth hour I have usually grown weary of defending myself while trying to honor her needs and feelings and say, “I’ve had enough. Get out!” The repeated pattern has been that she will become emotional and apologize right then or in a text message later, saying that it is not me but her insecurity that is the problem. Sometimes we even have make-up sex. But whether after the cooling off period or the orgasm, I am expected to forget the insults and derision, to burn them in my cigarette with the tobacco of character assassination and pretend the smoke is not giving me cancer.
I have tried to make her aware of her cocoon but she lashes back, claiming the prison she calls home to be her defining uniqueness, when it is nothing but a gathering of conditioned behaviors that might have served to protect her from the storms of long ago but certainly doesn’t bring lift to either one of our spreading wings. Her distrust has her bring things up from the past, such as pieces I wrote over a year ago on my un-blog about people that I haven’t thought about since, interpreted through eyes not acclimated to life outside of the cocoon, and this keeps her unable to see all the colorful flower petals that I leave at her feet as anything more than dull. Somehow this reinforces her belief that she was a caterpillar, is a caterpillar and will always be a caterpillar and has her resenting those who don’t embrace her self-imposed limitations.
It’s become clear to me that while Ninja is definitely committed to making us work, while her insecurities and issues of self-worth are her guiding force, she will always look at me as a nigger across the table.
.
It is time to fly, my butterflies. Your wings are sprouting and the time of being a caterpillar is passing, whether you accept it or not. We can fly together or fly apart—but I need to fly.
Remaining in the cocoon will only lead to death. Breaking free will also lead to death, a death of all you held onto that you thought was important for survival but in that death will emerge a brighter life that takes flight. Remaining in the cocoon will lead to a slow rot, safe but dim in both its character and its wit.
Wouldn’t you rather risk being eaten by a bird in a world of brilliant colors than remaining safe in a black and white existence? I will no longer stay on the ground and try to entice caterpillars clinging to their cages that there is something more. My choice is made, whether by me or from a higher power that I am powerless to resist. I choose to fly. Join me or remain on the ground but I am ready to soar!
Perhaps one day we will sit on a flower together and laugh at who we thought we were and remind ourselves when we start to grow comfortable in our smugness that we are not even aware of our current cocoon and the next transformation ahead of us. I wonder if we will be ready to drop our butterflyhood for something else…for better or for worse.
“Let me be your alarm. Open your eyes. You have slept long enough. It is time to awaken. The morning is knocking at the door.”
—Osho from Meditation: The Firt and Last Freedom (p. 258)
So many thoughts in my head.
Every teacher whose words have resonated with me has said that we all have to find our own way.
YOU know that trying to stuff a caterpillar into a cocoon before it is time is pointless.
The best way to get a butterfly is to allow a caterpillar to have enough food in a safe place and let it proceed at its own pace.
Also, Be here, now.
Very true. But, just like parents to their children, it is often hard to let a caterpillar find her own way when you are blinded by your love for her and attached to the idea of flying together.