October 20 through October 28, 2015
October marks our 23rd Anniversary, my love.
In your way of measuring time …
Yes, in my way of measuring time …
… because, in truth, we have always been together and we will always be together.
Yes, thank God and you for helping me to understand that truth. Nevertheless, it was October 1, 1992 on Spaceship Earth that I sat down in my comfortable living room and turned on the television set to watch the live telecast of your performance in Bucharest, Romania. That’s 23 years!! Most married couples don’t stick around for 23 years!! Happy Anniversary, my beautiful one! I wanted to do something special to celebrate the occasion. So, the other day, I decided that I would paint a beautiful painting of you.
This painting marks a couple of important milestones for me. For one thing, it’s BIG … much bigger than the portraits I have attempted before. I mean it’s not WALL SIZE big, but it’s bigger than I’ve ever attempted before. To be honest, I have been intimidated by large canvases so my previous portraits have been 11 inches by 14 inches or 14 inches by 17 inches at the largest, relatively small. This canvas is 20 inches by 24 inches and takes up very nearly my entire drawing board that sits on my easel. So, the image I was working with, the reference photograph, had to be enlarged proportionately to fill the space with all the complications that entails.
The second milestone I encountered … purely by accident, I might add (because I am not taking any formalized art lessons … I consider you my art instructor) …
[Michael laughs.]
… was the concept of underpainting. I had heard the term used once or twice, but I had no idea what it was. As I began to paint this portrait, I discovered that the paint was not turning out as smoothly as I wanted it to and I almost gave up on the entire thing. You see, BIG magnifies the flaws. It seemed that the paint was soaking into the canvas too much even though I had applied two layers of gesso and sanded the canvas to smooth them out in between. In addition, I had applied a color wash. Nevertheless, the paint wasn’t applying evenly and the colors I had mixed didn’t look right. The transitions betweeen shading and cheekbones, for example, were too stark. Finally, at 10:00 PM, I had to let the painting sit overnight to see it in the daylight and decide what to do. The next morning when I awoke, I came into the art studio and remixed a lighter shade to apply over the previous night’s work. While mixing, I added a drop or two of retarder medium to the mixed shade and began to apply that to the face. It was like I was using a magic brush. The new shade was applying much more smoothly and the darker tone underneath was showing through the new paint I was applying!
I was shocked and intrigued by this development, but I only had an hour or two before family obligations called me away for basically the entire weekend. Later that night, when everyone was asleep, I returned to the art studio and viewed the new paint, which had dried in the interim. It had dried much more evenly. The painting was beginning to take on the smoothness and shade that I was aiming for when I began the painting. I remembered hearing the term “underpainting” and googled it. Well, duh! Underpainting became my word for the day.
When I had the freedom to return to the painting, I was armed with this knowledge. The resulting portrait is called “Metamorphosis” not only for the subject matter, but also to represent a turning point in my development.
Metamorphosis
Wowie! I am impressed! You have turned a corner in your art! You go, girl!
I have? What kinda corner?
Definitely! Yes! In addition to learning through practicing and developing new skills and techniques, you have gone from reproducing a photograph that you have seen and love to pulling scenes out of your imagination and manifesting those scenes in visible, physical form. May I remind you that you said you didn’t have any imagination not very long ago. Your words … and I quote … “Yes, my imaginative powers are extremely limited.” … end quote. Do you remember saying that?
Yes, of course, I remember, Michael. It was in Installment #26 when we were working on visualization exercises in preparation for the trial of Conrad Murray. We talked about it a lot.
Yes, we did, but I think we need to talk about it a little bit more. Do you still agree with that statement?
Yes, to a certain extent, but not as much as I did when I orginally made the statement. I am not a very imaginative person, but I am discovering that with a little exercise that muscle can be developed a bit more.
Yes! Exactly! It’s like anything else. You need to exercise the power of imagination to make it work for you. But you still retain a residual thought that you are not imaginative, so, let’s get that idea out of your head right now. How in the world are you defining imaginative? Because what I am seeing as you progress in your art and in your visualizations … as well as in the reactivation of your dreaming ability … I am seeing a LOT of imaginative powers coming through.
Well, Merriam-Webster defines imaginative as: (1a) having or showing an ability to think of new and interesting ideas: having or showing imagination; (1b) devoid of truth, false; (2) given to imagining: having a lively imagination; (3) of or relating to images; especially showing a command of imagery.
Exactly. Most of those definitions … actually, all of them except 1b … are making a guest appearance in your recent paintings … and in your life, in general.
And in regards to 1b, I would argue that devoid of truth is NOT a definition of imaginative. Imaginative is the act of manifesting a physical symbol or representation of one person’s interpretation of truth … which may or may not agree with society’s accepted interpretation of truth … but that does not make it any less true for the person interpreting it. As a matter of fact, history has shown that an artist’s interpretation of truth is far more truthful than the accepted norms that society holds sacred. It is a much more nonconformist perspective which eventually becomes accepted by society’s standards, usually after the artist has passed on. Then, they are called “geniuses” when during their physical lives they were called “odd” and “freakish.”
Your recent paintings adhere to all of the others: they contain new and interesting ideas and interpretations (1a); they evoke feelings in the minds and thoughts of viewers and take them on new and exciting adventures; and they show a command of imagery. And, I imagine you still don’t think of yourself as an artist, right?
Right, I have a lot of trouble with that concept.
Oh …. read my lips … GET OVER IT!!!!
These recent paintings show a maturation process in embryo … a seed being nurtured into a sapling. You are drawing concepts and emotions from your imagination, interpreting thoughts and ideas and manifesting those thoughts and ideas in physical form. If that’s not imaginative then I don’t understand the term.
Can you tell me what has caused this change?
Well, I can try. Basically, my love, you have!
In the first painting called “Daybreak Over Foreverland,” I was inspired by your short film for “You Are Not Alone” and your love of Maxfield Parrish’s beautiful painting “Daybreak.” I love Parrish’s art, especially what I call his “Mount Olympus” paintings which show an idyllic paradise, of which “Daybreak” is one. I wanted to take that idea and see if I could interpret it myself … not so much his exact technique and colors because that is way beyond my skill level, but more the emotion that his painting and your short film that is based upon that painting evokes in me. It’s a view of paradise. It’s the Garden of Eden. It was very much an experiment to see if I could paint a fairly realistic scene incorporating that emotion. It was so much fun to do with the mythical creatures and peaceful valley and you resting in the middle of it all.
Daybreak Over Foreverland
That painting is your imaginative, inner child peaking out around the corner of the door you have left ajar with your meditations and visualizations and the re-awakening of your dreams. She is not quite ready to emerge from the dungeon you locked her in fifty plus years ago. She is testing the waters, dipping her toes in to discover if it is safe for her to come out. There is a playfulness in the unicorn and fairies and their trails of fairy dust. She is a shy, bashful child, gaining in courage but not quite ready to dive into the deep end yet. She’s not sure she’s acceptable … approved … yet. She is waiting for someone to yell, “Go to your room and stay there!”
When that doesn’t happen, she thinks it might be safe to just enter the pool of becoming by going to the shallow end and dangling her legs in the water, sitting on the edge until someone commands her to hide herself again.
The second painting, “The Giving Tree,” came to me almost fully formed during a meditation in the car when my husband and I were taking our granddaughter to the zoo about two hours away from where we live. She was sleeping in the back seat and my husband was driving. We are usually pretty silent when he is driving. So, I thought it was a good time to close my eyes and meditate for a while. The idea felt like a gift as you so often described receiving your music. It just dropped in my lap and I became curious about how it would look to make you “The Giving Tree,” spanning the gap between the physical and spiritual, Earth and eternity represented by the moon and stars with all of us, your children, as the branches extending out into infinity and carrying the sap of your love into the cosmos.
The Giving Tree
Ah, the wounded child has gone from just dangling her legs in the water to jumping into the pool of becoming. No one was watching. She heard no one commanding her to return to her room of limitedness. However, she is still cautious. She’s just wading in the calf-deep, shallow end of the pool. She’s still not totally comfortable being so exposed and vulnerable, but she’s not hiding, now.
In the third painting, “Let Us Dream of Tomorrow,” I wanted to represent our meeting place in Foreverland. This painting shows how I imagine our meditation space to be with its stream and trees and rocks, the sun’s rays pouring through the thick leaves and you sitting under my version of the Bodhi tree.
Let Us Dream of Tomorrow
She has sat down in the water, now, and put her head back against the side of the pool. She has closed her eyes and is beginning to think that she can swim in this pool without reprimand. There is no one telling her that she is wasting her time being perfectly content. Those voices have been silenced, for the most part. Occasionally, there is an echo of them … a memory … but she doesn’t focus her attention on them. They are not as real as the feeling of contentment.
This is marvelous! I am loving this! In the fourth painting, “Primordial,” there was a beautiful full moon and it was being called the “Blood Moon” when I painted this picture. I wanted to put you in the full moon with the landscape showing the first day of creation … as well as the last day after the full awakening of consciousness. The tide of awareness is lapping the beach at about half tide; it hasn’t completely submerged the sand all the way to the rocks, yet. It’s kinda my interpretation of infinity.
Primordial
That wounded child is wounded no longer. She is swimming in the pool of becoming with long strokes and diving under the water, holding her breath to see how far she can swim without having to break the surface for a breath.
And, now, there is “Metamorphosis.”
[Michael laughs uproariously.] Yes, and now there is metamorphosis. The wounded, abandoned, imaginative inner child has just dived off the diving board into the deep end of the pool of becoming. She’s beginning to see past the fear of the water … or her own limits, for that matter. She has a ways to go, but she has made great strides!
Beloved, I so love your power of analogy. Thank you. Can we shift gears here a little bit?
Of course! Whatchugot? [Michael is doing an impression of Rodney Allen Rippey, I think.]
Well, we have talked often about my “treasure trove” of tapes and purchased and downloaded Michael material and, indeed, I must acknowledge that I have a lot of fairly awesome stuff on tapes and DVDs.
Yes, we have recognized that you have been “obsessed” for years.
There’s that “O” word; I wondered when that would crop up. I take it as a compliment. Thank you.
[Michael laughs.] Good! You should.
I really cannot remember where I got all this stuff, but I recently had reason to pull out one of those old VHS tapes and just kinda cruise through it. The occasion was a visit from a dear friend who shares my obsession (which, in and of itself, is an event that is pretty hard to come by here on the dark side of the moon.) Since there are very few “Michaeling” types of things going on around here, our homegrown, dark side of the moon version of “Michaeling” consisted of pulling out some of my archived Michael material and watching until late at night.
One evening, after running around all day with my husband, my friend and I sequestered ourselves in my room and pulled out one of my old VHS tapes entitled, “BAD ERA.” You have to understand, these tapes are just a hodge podge of stuff that I either transferred from tapes people had sent to me during the 1990s or stuff that was broadcast on television on various entertainment shows like Entertainment Tonight, interviews that occurred, performances from the tours just all jumbled up together with no real organization at all. Some of the material is very poor quality, particularly stuff that I copied from other tapes. At the time, this was known as second or third “generation” stuff and with VHS the quality of the recorded material decreased incrementally according to the number of “generations” or times it was copied. I’m not sure, but I don’t think that happens with digital format.
Anyway, during the BAD Era, there was a program that was televised during which my friend and I found an absolute gem. I think it was only broadcast in the Los Angeles area because I have labeled it “LA Tour Coverage” and was probably televised just before the second leg of the BAD Tour hit LA. (1988 or 1989?) It contains short clips of performances from the tour interspersed with interviews with various people talking about you and the show.
At the outset of the BAD tour, it seemed like almost every show that had any kind of coverage at all showed clips of your performance of “Another Part of Me,” and this particular show is no exception, but tucked in amongst the clips of your performance were brief snippets of interviews with Elizabeth Taylor and Sofia Loren and Hermes Pan (Fred Astaire’s choreographer). I believe this show was broadcast at about the same time as “The Legend Continues,” a Showtime/MTV collaborative effort narrated by James Earl Jones, which I also have a copy of in my collection. Along with the above-mentioned celebrities, there was a brief interview with the members of the Beach Boys. It’s pretty poor quality, but apparently in response to a question that probably went something like, “How do you explain Michael Jackson’s almost universal appeal,” Michael Love replies:
“Whether you like him or not is beside the point. You have to recognize, the guy has megatons … megatons … megatons of talent. If you really want to get serious about an answer, it’s CONSCIOUSNESS. It’s a level of consciousness in direct proportion to his fame.”
I had to stop the tape (I’m sure my friend thought I was crazy) at that very point and write the quote down. I thought it was such a well-thought-out and, in retrospect, (knowing what we all know and having lived through what we’ve all lived through in the twenty years from the time of the interview to the day the Earth stood still) an honest, appropriate and prescient response not only for the time it was broadcast, but, particularly, in the seventy-six months since June 25, 2009. Mr. Love’s response has such an uncanny, almost premonitory ring of truth.
Michael sings:
We’re sending out
A major love
And this is
Our message to you
The planets are lining up
They’re bringing brighter days
They’re all in line
Waiting for you
You’re just another part of me.
Exactly! The song which preludes this brief quote, itself, is about raising the consciousness of the planet. In the lyrics, you are announcing … heralding, if you will … a major and long-overdue shift in the consciousness of the planet. So, within a very few moments, your lyrics refer to a major theme of consciousness (which would become more and more prevalent as time went on and would come to play a major role in all of your subsequent releases) … and one of the Beach Boys (for heaven’s sake!) is referring to you in terms of possessing a “level of consciousness,” which is a fairly uncommon trait to cite in reference to an entertainer of any ilk. I honestly never made this connection before.
I have watched this particular tape many, many times (mostly back in the 1990s, but I have also transferred some of the material from this VHS tape onto DVD for preservation purposes.) The quote had never had quite the impact on me before I watched it again with my friend on Saturday evening.
For myself, I have to admit that when I taped that short segment, I had no idea what I was taping or that I would be writing about it and marveling at its applicability more than twenty years later. Its significance was a total 747 … flew right over my head.
[Michael laughs.] Just one more example of the adage, “When the pupil is ready, the teacher will appear.” This time it was Michael Love.
Yes, I can see that I was not ready to fully “grok” what the man was saying. I mean I had not awakened to this awareness at the time I copied this particular segment onto the tape we watched, at least not to the level at which I currently reside. Of course, I understood what the term consciousness referred to (or, at least, I thought I did) intellectually, but I had not experienced this new way of understanding the term that many of us have come to know more intimately in the interval, at that time.
What’s more, I don’t really know if Michael Love, himself, knew what he was saying more than twenty years ago … whether he was using the term in its more generic usage or if he was referring to consciousness, with the expanded meaning as many of your children understand it now. The quote itself contains the clues, “If you really want to get serious about an answer,” but it also contains, “in direct proportion to his fame.” So, these are really kind of conflicting clues. The first infers a seriousness and devotion to finding an adequate term to encompass the phenomenon and the second infers a kind of generic interpretation of his words. Either way, it is an unusual word for him to have used back then in reference to popular music … or a popular musician.
For me, and I think for many of my readers, the word “consciousness” has taken on whole new meanings since we began these Conversations. As a matter of fact, all of these dialogs from Installment #1 to present have been about consciousness. What do we focus our attention on? Do we react consciously or unconsciously (by default) when our buttons are pushed? How do we participate consciously in our world? You have even said that we are birthing a new “paradigm” … a new “collective consciousness.”
Yes, exactly. We are working on raising the level of your awareness … helping you to see that many of the thoughts you think, words you say and actions you engage in are being done from a level of unconsciousness … a kind of automatic pilot … which has created many of the world’s current critical crises; that you are not “paying attention” and, therefore, are not fully aware of how you are affecting your own emotional climate as well as the world around you.
We are taking the unconscious behavior … those things you do kind of by default according to your society’s and culture’s preconceived biases, which you are taught as pure, innocent children as what has become accepted as a natural part of growing up … and shining the light of consciousness on them so that you can decide with full awareness if you want to continue with those same thoughts, words and actions. In addition, we are offering alternative ways of perceiving challenges, dealing with conflicting emotions and situations so that you can begin to think, say and act in more creative, less judgmental, more life-enhancing ways both for yourself and for your world.
Darwinian Science has determined that the history of evolution on this planet is all about the physical changes in the human organism from protozoa to homo sapiens … or the advance of our technological and scientific expertise … or the quality of life economic model, making our modern conveniences like running water, microwave ovens and fast cars the goal and best measure of our evolutionary advance. It is very invested in the physical world that can be seen, categorized, labeled and measured. None of these are the goals of the evolutionary process; they are the results … side effects, if you want to call them that. The Darwinian model is obsolete now that the quantum realm has been discovered. It’s just not true.
Unfortunately, all of our institutions are based on and promote the obsolete Darwinian model … our outcome-based educational system, which tries to make all children learn at the same rate by the same methods and meet the same standards … our allopathic medical and health care systems which treat the symptoms of disease but not the cause … our top-down governmental systems which make laws based on economic gain for the supporters of political candidates and promote the acquisition of personal power over the service-based model introduced by our founding fathers … and our religious institutions which still preach an angry and vengeance-seeking God from almost every pulpit on Sunday morning.
In the Darwinian viewpoint, it’s survival of the fittest. Who cares if it’s right as long as I profit? “Who cares if its the truth as long as we can pay someone enough to say it’s the truth.” [PBS Frontline Special “Tabloid Truth: The Michael Jackson Scandal 1994] After all, we are not in the news business; we are in the entertainment business. Anything goes. Paying people to lie? Sure, why not if that’s what it takes to get ahead and trump the other guys with a scoop.
The evolution of mankind is not measured by the size of our cranium, the size of our wallet or the size of our hard drive. It’s the size of our hearts that counts. The history of evolution on Planet Earth is the evolution of our consciousness and we are at a critical juncture in that evolution as a species. We stand at a crossroad.
“We have four years to get it right. It’s an important message I have to give.”
That was six years ago, now … six years in your way of perceiving and experiencing time.
We can continue on the same path we have been traveling for centuries and destroy the planet and ourselves in the process. In this scenario, no one wins, no one profits and nothing survives. If that is our conscious, fully aware choice, at least let’s be conscious of what we are doing. We do have that option and the freedom to exercise it.
Or we can become aware that we are all ONE with each other and with the planet which nurtures and sustains us and conscious co-creators of another reality, one in which each person is allowed the freedom to be the best he or she can be and contribute his or her gifts to improve the lives of all. We are just as free to choose this option and avoid the “no one wins” scenario. However, we have to become conscious of the things we have done in the past that didn’t work … for ourselves and for our world … so that we can avoid falling into the same kinds of traps in which we have been imprisoned for a very long time.
Michael! Doggone it! How the heck do you do that? I just got chills running up and down my spine! Thank you, Baby … I so love you!
[Michael giggles.] I so love you more. What are you on about now?
Well, after allowing this Conversation to “simmer” overnight, I picked up the book we are reading for our daily Library Hour and read the following two paragraphs out loud … to you:
Occasionally, in the course of history a new worldview emerges that transforms society. It happened when Jesus’ disciples were inspired by his life to believe in radical transformation through love. It occurred in the Renaissance when the idea of progress through knowledge was born. It happened in the United States when the ideas of freedom and democracy became institutions through the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and again among the transcendentalists, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman, who believed that each individual is an expression of the divine, a free and sovereign person. Now, once again, a new worldview is arising. This idea is the culmination of all human history. It holds the promise of fulfilling the great aspirations of the past and heralds the advent of the next phase of our evolution. It is the idea of conscious evolution.
Conscious evolution is occurring in our generation because we are now gaining an understanding of the processes of nature: the gene, the atom, the brain, the origin of the universe, and the whole story of creation from the big bang to us. We are now changing our understanding of how nature evolves; we are moving from unconscious evolution through natural selection to conscious evolution by choice. With this increased knowledge and the power that it gives us, we can destroy the world or we can participate in a future of immeasurable dimensions. Into our hands has been given the power of codestruction or cocreation.
The book is called “Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of our Social Potential” by Barbara Marx Hubbard.
Yes, exactly. I love it when a plan comes together! What surprises you?
Well, I’ve had this book for years and haven’t picked it up in ages except to dust the shelf it was resting on. However, here we are in the middle of a dialog about consciousness and my hand pulls it off the shelf and these words are the first words I read. Now, I suppose it could just be the fact that I have a lot of books on these kinds of subjects, but I interpret these things as validation … kind of confirmation that I am on the right track because there are no coincidences in the world of the Beloved.
Or in any world for that matter, but that’s another discussion.
I know you all look around you at the world that you see on television broadcasts and think, “How can we be creating a new collective consciousness? Look at this mess!” Right?
Absolutely! It is a little hard to see in news broadcasts during which they focus on war and violence and titillating stories about celebrities. Are we having any impact?
Do you remember our discussion about caterpillars?
Totally! It’s one of my favorites! In Installment #37 – July 30 through August 6, 2011, you said:
You are all earthbound caterpillars. You are all concentrating all your thought, energy and imagination on being earthbound caterpillars … “plodding determinedly” as you described in an earlier conversation … with your eyes glued to the ground less than an inch in front of you … being concerned with the things a caterpillar is concerned with … not realizing that those things offer a very limited, restricted outlook on the life you are living. You don’t look up as the caterpillar doesn’t look up. You are unaware that there is another kind of life … one of freedom … one of bliss … one of floating on air currents … one of integration and creativity. You don’t even ask yourself, “Is this all there is?” because you aren’t aware that there is a self to ask.
However, inside the caterpillar is an unrealized potential … a beautiful, carefree butterfly with gossamer, stained glass wings awaiting birth. You are not even aware that such a creature could possibly exist; such things are beyond your limited thinking. Caterpillars can’t see the sky; their eyes are not placed in their heads in the right position for sky viewing nor is their sense of sight acute enough to see that far above them.
Yet, in just a few short weeks you will be in a state of suspended animation and a short while after that some kind of magician somewhere will wave his magic wand … and you will be a butterfly! Let me be your magician. Let me show you what lies in store for you. If you could only see past the caterpillar’s blindness to the freedom of the butterfly, you would be so uplifted and your heart would soar, even while your little caterpillar bodies are still earthbound. That’s what we’re doing here … you and I … all of you and I.
Like the caterpillar, you limit yourself, instead of reaching higher, because it is what you are familiar with and what your world has taught you to be satisfied with. The smallest, most insignificant change in perspective (like alive and dead) frightens you. Total metamorphosis is unthinkable. You have very little faith in the butterfly’s presence, but it is there lying dormant within you, just awaiting the proper genetic and environmental triggers to manifest iself. Let me be those triggers.
The purpose of this exercise is to awaken the butterfly … without having to depend on the chrysalis … to alert your spiritual senses to my presence. This journey we are all on is one step at a time and each step in the process is incremental, leading you on to the next step. First, you have to be aware that there is more to life than the one-sided, myopic, earthbound view in which you are currently imprisoned before you can have the faith necessary to bring that perspective into your reality. We need to get your earthbound caterpillar eyes to see another way of looking at life. Since your earthbound caterpillar vision is not acute enough to see so far above your heads, we need to awaken your spiritual sight … your imagination … to envision me reaching for you … to awaken in you the desire to reach for me.
The next step is for us to quicken your faith in that other view of life, in your ability to climb high enough to touch me and in my ability to reach far enough to touch you. Some of you … I won’t mention any names, here <ahem> … but you know who you are … are stuck here! You just insist on losing your balance and falling off that chair! You are faith-filled, beautiful, almost-butterflies when you are writing or dancing or listening, but then you let the world intrude itself into your journey … and you allow doubt to bring you crashing back to Earth. But, remember, you can only fall as far as my arms.
Yes, that’s it. I want you to stop and consider something for a moment. How do you think the caterpillar reacts when it is all wrapped up inside its nice, comfy cocoon hanging by a silken thread from a tree branch and the metamorphosis begins that will transform it into a butterfly? Is this a joyous, carefree time in the caterpillar’s life cycle?
Gee, Baby … I don’t know. I guess I’ve never thought about this before. Is it?
Uh … no! [Michael chuckles.] Not at all. Once the caterpillar is safely tucked away in its nice, comfy cocoon, imaginal cells begin to form. These imaginal cells are all about “rockin the boat.” They are the seeds of transformation.
The caterpillar’s body interprets these imaginal cells as a disease. It doesn’t know that they will form wings and a new body … and transform its life into one of freedom … and bliss … and floating on air currents … and integration, wholeness and creativity. All its body knows is that there is an “unknown” that has invaded its cocoon … a foreign body has attacked it … like a virus … and it is wreaking havoc in there. The caterpillar is very invested in remaining a caterpillar … in maintaining the status quo … because that is all it knows. To the caterpillar, the attack heralds death. And that is true. It is death to the caterpillar, but birth to the butterfly. It’s not really death; it’s transformation; it’s metamorphosis.
The caterpillar body tries to fight off its attacker, but no matter how hard the caterpillar fights the foreign imaginal cells, they continue to proliferate, and become emergent imaginal cells, transforming the caterpillar against its antibodies … against its better judgment … against its will! Until, at the end of the struggle, the butterfly emerges to dry its newly-acquired wings in the fresh air, a totally transformed creature … not dead, but a new-fully formed, bewinged creature, whose view of the world … and experience of it … is totally new and entirely different.
This is a very good metaphor for what my beautiful, almost-butterflies are experiencing now in the world they see around them.
You are all the imaginal cells of this new, transformed consciousness. Many of you were around in the 1960s, a time of birthing new social movements and birthing is always a painful and laborious process. It was a time of experimenting with leaving behind some of the structures and attitudes that had held sway for so long. Established authority doesn’t like that. If you recall, the “establishment” fought the wave of new thought, often extremely violently. The caterpillar body is extremely invested in remaining a caterpillar just as the “establishment” is extremely invested in remaining in power and subverting this tide of metamorphosis by any and all means at its disposal.
But the imaginal cells weren’t really ready when they first awakened in the 1960s; they became aware that change was needed, but they didn’t have the experience, knowledge or skills to make the sweeping changes that were required to effect the transformation. So, a couple of decades later and those imaginal cells have acquired the experience, knowledge and skills to effect radical change, starting in their own little, comfy cocoons.
The thing that neither the caterpillar nor the establishment acknowledge or even recognize is that the whole purpose of the caterpillar is metamorphosis. Transformation has been built into its genome. Resistance is futile. In a similar way, the whole purpose of humanity is integration and full and conscious evolution. It’s built into humanity’s genome. Resistance is futile. So, just “give in to me. Love is a feeling. Give in to me. Give in to me.”
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