Year of the Butterfly
Year of the Butterfly is the name I have given 2014. Normally I write this "naming" post earlier in the first month of the year, but I had to write my review of 2013 as my Nesting Year first, then I was having trouble describing what this Year of the Butterfly means to me without sounding hokey or cliche. I still may not succeed and this post may sound vague, but I will return to this topic often in the next few months as the meaning unfolds.
During my first year of college in the Spring semester of 2003, I was sitting in my dorm window looking out at a group of orange butterflies flitting over the William Jewell Campus' historic graveyard. At the same time, I had been thinking about the ways I had grown in my first year of college. God used the butterflies as a metaphor for the change that had occurred in my life to that point.
When a caterpillar wriggles along though it's daily activities of eating leaves, it is relegated to a tree or nearby plants, only as far as its little buggy legs can carry it. The caterpillar's perspective is limited to a few inches in front of its face as it walks along, leaf to leaf. When it is wrapped up in the chrysalis, the bug is confined to darkness, a tight encasement where all sorts of uncomfortable changes are occurring, wings growing, legs and body changing entirely. Finally, when the process is over, the butterfly emerges, fighting through the barrier that held it captive, yet was the necessary confinement for the creature's stunning transformation. After the wrinkled wings are spread flat and dry, pumped with blood, the butterfly takes off into the air. What a difference! No longer confined to walking a few inches of leaves a day, but soaring over the earth for sometimes miles! Now the winged bug can see whole trees and fly right over them, landing on brightly colored flowers full of sweet nectar.
This image typifies the stages that are often on repeat throughout our lives. Sometimes we go through a season of the daily grind, only having the strength to walk through each moment as it comes, not really understanding how "the leaves" are part of the whole tree, let alone able to make much evident progress forward. Other times, our lives are utter darkness. I remember seasons when I felt stifled and struggled with hopelessness. I couldn't see the meaning of anything, let alone understand that the changes occurring in myself were leading to anything worth all that pain. We all love the parts of life that align to the butterfly awakening fully formed and soaring over the land with a new vibrant perspective, but because of the butterfly metaphor, I am learning to see all phases of life as equally integral to my existence.
A butterfly can't become a butterfly without the caterpillar stage wherein the creature eats constantly to gain enough energy to make a chrysalis and fuel the changes it needs to undergo. The caterpillar can't change into a butterfly without the season spent within the dark encasement for the miraculous and revolutionary metamorphosis.
While we humans are more complex and undergo physical, emotional, and psychological changes throughout our lives, we often think of our existence as a constant upward moving trajectory, as if reaching a certain age will somehow mean we are done with suffering and will suddenly know everything there is to know about being human. This year, I have endeavored to accept the various stages of growing cycles which return again and again. Part of this "Year of the Butterfly" means for me to choose hope when things look dark and to look for the ways I am gaining strength during the seemingly mundane daily experiences. I choose to adopt the larger perspectives that I have learned in the past and apply them to my situations, to see how they connect. I choose to hope that God will bring good things and hold to his promises.
I also want to live freely. When a friend of mine, appropriately named Grace, heard about my plan to name 2014 "Year of the Butterfly" she had this poignant thought to share,
"The greatest thing about living out the transformations that have occurred in you is that if you are truly changed it is impossible not to show it. Sometimes when I feel like God has grown me in a certain area, I try to remind myself that I am changed so that I don't go back to my old ways. A butterfly doesn't have to be mindful of not looking like a caterpillar and when God has truly changed me, I don't have to live in fear, worrying that I may slip back. I can just spread my wings and fly. That's what the year of the butterfly makes me think of."
The "Year of the Butterfly" is a bit difficult for me to quantitatively measure, but not living in fear is a major theme. I know there are major areas that God has been healing in my life over the past two years so this year I hope to live out those changes and move forward instead of being choked by layers of fear. There are dark areas of my life which have been hidden for 20 years and crushed dreams that have laid bruised and battered since I graduated in 2009. I want to acknowledge them as parts of my story, but learn to use those seasons as fuel to soar into my calling. Last year was a season of strengthening physically and emotionally. There was a renewed emphasis on my creative endeavors, and an embracing of lifelong intellectual giftedness which I too often ignored or treated as something to hide so as not to stand out. In 2014, I plan to live out who I already know I am without fear or hiding. I want 2014 to be the year I step forward in hope that the pain was worth the changes which have taken place.
Resources about Butterflies:
http://www.uky.edu/hort/butterflies/all-about-butterflies
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