Butterfly—Transformation

Shadow: Stasis

Butterfly is the winged messenger of Transformation. She alights when you are in the grit of transition, nose to the grindstone. Are you averting essential change in your life? Are you resisting a new phase in your child’s unfolding? Or are you emerging from the chrysalis and searching for a new expression of being? Butterfly tells you to shift positions in order to acquire a loftier perspective.The ever- turning wheels of fate never stop, says Butterfly. So accept change as the harbinger of your soul’s upward evolution.

Like caterpillars turning into butterflies, many of life’s passages bring with them irreversible change.When a child enters your life, there is no turning back— no matter what happens, you will always be a mother. The transformation can be disorienting: who are you when none of your previous roles fit? Mothering preempts everything else, but it can occlude a substantial part of your former identity, or obliterate it altogether. Butterfly wisdom tells us to overcome stasis by letting go with grace.Your old self must die in order to be reborn with stunning hues and outstretched wings.

Children undergo what seems like an almost daily metamorphosis. Greet even the seemingly small changes—new teachers, lost teeth, young love’s first breakups— with cocooning.Wrap your child in the fabric of home while together you metabolize the transitions swirling around you both. As change shakes your child’s world and baffles her sense of self, outcroppings of misbehavior may protrude. Don’t hit the panic button. Look beyond the frustration to anticipate new growth waiting in the wings. See life through her eyes: Imagine waking up one morning to find a new baby in your mother’s arms or menstrual blood on your sheets.A part of you would like to regress, but progress is the only way to move forward. As mother, attend to the flutters of trepidation and exhilaration as if they were the restless stirrings of a new becoming.

All wisdom traditions acknowledge the essentiality of marking and celebrating major transitions. Rites of passage—baby blessings, weddings, funerals—support individuals as they shed previous incarnations and cross the threshold into a new embodiment. How can you harness the transformative power of ritual in your home and community? Hold a blessingway ceremony to welcome new life or initiate a new mother, create a coming-of-age experience for the spirited adolescents in your tribe, or send a lost loved one to the otherworld on a boat of communal tears and remembrance. In the heightened experience of transformation, the poetry of life breaks through. Seize the change, Butterfly declares, and you will arrive at unheralded sweetness on ethereal wings.

~ the mother's wisdom deck 

by Niki Dewart and Elisabeth Marling

This deck is part of the #sacredbeginnings program, and part of my #sacredrituals , what decks inspire you the most?

I simply LOVE these images from www.belleverdiglionephotography.com.au 

(And can you spot the Butterfly?)

Want to know more about the Mother's wisdom deck? Check here:

http://motheringwithsoul.com/the-deck/

Explore more of Sacred Beginnings program:

www.sacred-beginning.com

#sacredpregnancy

#sacredlivingmoveme