I have been on a journey of metamorphosis over the last 4 years, prompted initially by a mystical experience I had with monarch butterflies in Big Sur in December of 2016, several days after someone I grew up with died in a tragic fire. At the time, I was distraught about my friend’s death and the fire that had killed 35 other souls, coupled with feelings of dread about the future following the election of Donald Trump.
Everything felt looming and dark and life seemed meaningless.
That was until, I looked up into a Eucalyptus tree to discover hundreds of monarch butterflies grouped together, their bright orange wings glistening in the sunlight.
I stood under the tree awestruck by their majesty, fully enraptured by the beauty of the present moment.
The monarch butterflies that day seeded within me an unshakeable belief in the divine intelligence orchestrating all of life, and inspired in me a vision of global metamorphosis through cultural regeneration.
That day I experienced what psychologist & author Bill Plotkin calls an ‘eco-awakening’, where my worldview dramatically shifted to one in which I began to truly experience myself as a cell in the larger body of a living earth.
This communion with the butterflies inspired me to want to do something to help protect our earth, and to play a part in shifting perspectives around our relationship to one another and the natural world. I began to do deeper research on the climate crisis, and learn about the main drivers of environmental destruction. I had studied climate change/environmental studies in college, which prompted me to become vegetarian in 2012, and go mostly vegan a few years later. Thus, I was familiar with the climate crisis and had made changes to live more consciously in reciprocity with the earth, but I now felt re-invigorated and motivated to do more.
My past partner and I wanted to help tell the story of what was happening to the Amazon rainforest, so in the summer of 2017 we prepared to go down to the Brazilian Amazon to make a documentary about indigenous forest protectors of the Guajajara tribe, protecting their land from illegal logging. In preparation for the trip, I was feeling in over my head, and extremely anxious. I began to read a book called “The Work that Reconnects”, a powerful body of work developed by eco-philosopher, Buddhist scholar and elder Joanna Macy. ‘The Work that Reconnects’ propelled my ‘eco-awakening’, giving me rich language to describe my experience and desire for healing our world. It introduced me to a living systems framework and enlightening concepts and ideas such as mutual causality, deep ecology, the role of the bodhisattva, and Gaia theory. ‘The Work that Reconnects’ helped me to metabolize my anxiety, and brought me peace, courage & grace in a time of need. I was able to go down to Brazil feeling resourced and ready to learn, expand, and create something meaningful.
Nevertheless, the journey of creating the documentary triggered profound grief in me, which propelled my own journey of unravelling. We had travelled to a part of the Brazilian Amazon that had been decimated by industrial agriculture, and we spent hours driving on roads surrounded by rainforest burning in the distance, and cattle grazing on pasture that had very recently been standing virgin rainforest. I felt helpless in the face of what seemed like unstoppable destruction, fuelled by the powerful forces of cultural/american imperialism and extractive capitalism.
This experience changed me, and I returned home with more questions than answers, and plunged into a years long (really lifelong) process of reconciling my pain for the world and feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, with a desire to make a meaningful and positive impact on it.
A year later in 2018, I deepened into metamorphosis through the process of uncoupling from a 7 year partnership, which in turn led to a significant dissolution of who I thought I was. In the midst of uncoupling from my previous partner, I faced parts of myself that I had relegated to the shadows. Life had made it very clear that it was time for a reset. We had both developed coping strategies that were keeping us complacent, stuck in loops, and feeling victimized by our circumstances, the world, and by one another. I realize now how much I seeded my identity in our relationship, and how this identification created a false sense of security. I identified so deeply with the relationship that when life was asking us to let go of the comfortable cocoon we had created over so many years, I was terrified. I had no idea who I was outside of the life we had built together. I am grateful that through the process of our uncoupling, we shared a mutual commitment to do so with love and care. Thus, together we dove into the unbalanced dynamics that had developed over time and we went on a healing journey to learn how to own our own stuff & honestly communicate our feelings.
The last two years have been a process of coming home to myself. Along the way, I have made many mistakes. I have gotten involved with people when my intuition was telling me to be more restrained, and I’ve made choices that I now regret. At times, I’ve found it challenging to have healthy boundaries, and I’ve felt ungrounded and at a loss for what to do, and for how to ‘be’. I’ve gone through cycles of feeling alone, depressed, and entrenched in grief. Through this process, I’ve also delved into different spiritual practices, and as a result have had profoundly connective experiences. I’ve spent a lot of time inquiring into my own psyche, to in turn develop an internal process of self-compassion and self-acceptance. I’ve learned (and am continuing to learn!) how to get truly quiet so I can listen to ‘the little voice within’ so that I may trust and follow the natural wisdom that spontaneously arises. I’m grateful to now feel more at home in myself, settled in my body, connected to my heart, and to feel an eagerness to contribute meaningfully to the new story emerging.
I feel that I have undergone a metamorphosis over these years. I feel further along the path towards realizing my power and how I am positioned to make a positive impact in the world around me, and I am grateful to be on this forever-deepening path. In sharing my story within the frame of metamorphosis, I hope to convey my belief in the greater life intelligence at work in the world, and the value in taking a leap of faith and making big life changes. Change is inevitable and with it comes dissolution of identity, where we must relinquish so much of what we’ve known to be true about ourselves and reality, in order to make space for whatever is wanting to emerge.