Skye Thomas () wrote this unique way of understanding the transformational process. This is a powerful analogy to understanding our selves, our lives, and our business. It goes like this..
After a caterpillar buries itself inside its cocoon, it waits to morph into a butterfly. The caterpillar does not simply shrink a bit and sprout wings. Instead, it sort of disintegrates into a puddle of ooze within the cocoon. If we were to open the cocoon halfway through the process, we would not find a half-caterpillar half-butterfly type creature, but a blob of primordial goop. (Basically a mass of death and decay.) The goop is made up of a bunch of individual cells that are all basically the same type of oozy cells. For whatever reason, these new cells start popping up.
They are not the original cells changing into these new cells, but rather they seem to come out of nowhere. These new cells are called imaginal cells and they are so completely different from the original ooze cells that they are thought to be a virus or some other form of enemy so the ooze cells begin attacking the imaginal cells. However, even though the imaginal cells are being killed off for not fitting in, they still keep showing up, more and more of them. Eventually, the imaginal cells begin to find each other and cluster together. Like attracts like, and the clusters begin to join up with other clusters. The original cells still keep attacking them but they continue to multiply and cluster together.
Eventually, they get to be a large enough community and they switch gears from simply being a group of like-minded cells into the programming cells of the butterfly. Some imaginal cells start changing into wing cells, some start changing into antenna cells, some start changing into digestive tract cells, and so on. They are no longer imaginal cells but become butterfly anatomy cells.
As we all know, if left alone to do his thing, the butterfly eventually emerges as a completely new entity from the original caterpillar. Do they hold the same memories, life lessons, and consciousness? Who knows? One would think that for survival of the species, the butterfly would still retain whatever knowledge the caterpillar had learned before entering into the cocoon state.
If you are an imaginal cell (Imaginal Light) in your family, in your workplace, in your community, in your political system, in your spiritual viewpoints, in your global world; know that you are not alone and know that what you do to improve life for your fellow man does matter and it does add weight to the collective consciousness of humanity. You may feel like you are completely alone in your battle, but know that there are others who agree, who are also dying for your cause, or who are so inspired by seeing you put it all on the line that they are finally brave enough to step forward making their agreement with you known.
If the imaginal cell is a quiet little thought somewhere in the back corner of your mind telling you that you could make huge changes in yourself to become less like the caterpillar and more like the butterfly, then know that you are not alone. Many people have done it before you and many more will follow your lead. You will know if you are meant to grow, morph, and change into some new and improved version of yourself by the reoccurring theme of those tiny little imaginal cells creating inspirational thoughts within your mind. The reoccurring thoughts will both haunt you and inspire you. They will cluster together creating themes of healing change, themes of growth, and themes of becoming something completely different then who you used to be. Fear not, for you are simply undergoing the butterfly’s experience. You too will feel alone in the dark unsure of what is you and what is not you. You too will have to claim that which is beautiful within and you too will have to fight your own way out of your self-imposed prison to strengthen your wings so that you can fly for the entire world to see, inspiring others to look within at their own imaginal cells.
More on Imaginal Cells can be read here http://www.theinfinitegames.org/e06/
And so, Imaginal Light was born from this seed.
In light,
Leon
Great essay. Is the imaginal cell (goo)your imagination of what is going on inside the cocoon or based on some scientific study?
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