Stripe looked at each caterpillar inebriated with joy that there could be a butterfly inside.
The Universal Wisdom appears in different forms in different times and places and cultures. One form of this wisdom is alchemy which can be seen in the ancient hermetic wisdom of Hermes Trismegistos and also in the Middle Ages with the transmutation of metals. On a purely spiritual level, it is about freeing the gold of the Spirit from the bonds of matter: a noble and venerable task, which has been incumbent on humanity since the dawn of time. And it still is. This process of regeneration is a process of revolution and transformation of consciousness, a task that is universal, always possible and also very concrete.
Alchemy is a spiritual process that takes place in the human being, so in fact we see this transformative process in all gnostic mystery schools, including that of the Cathars in the 13th century in the south of France for whom transfiguration was symbolised powerfully by the butterfly emerging from its transformation in the cocoon. Then and now the butterfly was and is an image of the real desire for deliverance, an intense yearning for liberation from our egocentric nature. This transformation requires the conscious abandonment of this egocentric nature.
Hope for the Flowers by Trina Paulus is a story about longing to become a butterfly – even though the caterpillars Stripe and Yellow at first don’t even know what a butterfly is. They meet each other as they are both climbing one of the many caterpillar pillars that dot the landscape. Eventually they leave the pillar to frolic in the grass, but Stripe can’t let go of his desire to know what’s at the top of the caterpillar pillar, so he returns. Meanwhile Yellow meets a grey-haired caterpillar hanging upside down from a branch, encasing himself in a cocoon. Why? To become a butterfly. But Yellow doesn’t know what a butterfly is. When he tells her, she asks him to tell her how to become a butterfly.
“You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.”
Yellow asks, “You mean to die?”
He answers, “Yes and No. It looks like you will die but really you will still live. Life is changed, not taken away. Isn’t that different from those who die without ever becoming butterflies?”
Yellow decides to follow her longing to become a butterfly and is helped in forming her cocoon. Meanwhile Stripe is climbing the caterpillar pillar. Nearing the top, he overhears those already there who are saying “There’s nothing here at all!” But they still try to stop those below from coming up. At that moment Yellow – now a butterfly – flies toward him, and the sight of her stirs his memory. He remembers the butterflies he had seen earlier: “We can fly! We can become butterflies! There’s nothing at the top and it doesn’t matter!”
On his way down the caterpillar pillar, “Stripe looked at each caterpillar inebriated with joy that there could be a butterfly inside.”
This process of transformation is possible for all of us based on the spirit-spark within us. During this transformation in human beings, an entirely new consciousness, a new serpent-fire system is constructed. This offering of the self to the Light allows the fusion of Jesus with Christ—the ignited spirit-spark with the universal and eternal divine powers. The victory is then total: in alchemical terms, the gold of the spirit completely transmutes the lead of the lower nature into gold. The human being, formerly inert matter, has become living gold in eternity. Transformation, or transfiguration, has become as complete as the miraculous emergence of the butterfly.
