Growing Pains: What Nature Teaches us About Transformation |

One mid-winter afternoon not long ago I found myself contemplating the magic of metamorphosis, the great hero’s journey of mother nature. As many sagas are wont to do, the introspective journey began at the end, inspired by a video explaining the difference between happiness and joy. It described joy as a deep and general state of contentment whereas happiness is more of an ephemeral and externally-focused moment of pleasure.

Both are beautiful to behold and require a certain receptivity. Happiness may ask for openness and presence in the now in order to let in the abundance of the world around. Joy, however, necessitates a profound upheaval, ultimately leaving behind the previous paradigm. Of course most dictionaries fail to mention the journey into the underworld in their definitions of joy. But who can blame them?

Setting aside the limitations of language, this got me thinking about evolution and revolution. When it comes to transformation, perhaps the most immediate image is that of a butterfly delicately but dramatically emerging from its chrysalis after its period of dormancy; its wings fully-formed, ready for beauty and buoyancy.

Beyond the fanfare of their coming out celebration, which mirrors the pain and glory of the same phenomenon in humans, the life cycle of butterflies is a real-life mythology, with meaning to be found in every stage of development. Even from their earliest moments as caterpillars, they are intrinsically moved towards metamorphosis and shed their skin several times as they grow to about one hundred times their original size. Every time they are about to outgrow their outer casing, their body releases an enzyme called ecdysone, telling them it’s time to molt.

I can only imagine what the world would be like if humans were more like caterpillars, who don’t feel remotely confused or conflicted about inhabiting a bigger, bolder being, not once pausing to weigh the pros and cons. Nature simply sends the signals and they respond. In our distracted modern lives, we routinely receive signs from the universe, but often discount or distrust them because they are not sufficiently concrete. Instead we’re worried about losing what is in front of us. Caterpillars, creeping capsules of divine consciousness that they are, are not concerned about what they’re leaving behind; they intrinsically intuit that there is a greater abundance to be had from letting go and surrendering to the journey.

It goes even further as caterpillars simultaneously sense both the power of possibility and the danger of delay, knowing that if they don’t molt they will soon die. As humans, we’re shielded from such an immediate and precarious reality in terms of postponing transformation. But in a certain sense, we too die a little when we don’t shed our small shells as we outgrow them, becoming a shell of ourselves. In this way, nature has bestowed caterpillars with the painful gift of necessity, which we have come to regard as the “mother of invention”.

When we humans are “pushed out of the nest” and are left without options outside ourselves, we finally look within and, in doing so, discover our true power. In my own life whether coming out of the closet because my clothing was too sparkly to stay hidden, coming to Latin America because I was so unhappy before, or coming out of the pantry with a mere three ingredients, I’ve found these feelings of restriction led me to look inwards ultimately leading to greater abundance for anything and everything, from my life to my location or even lunch.

Fortunately, while mother nature demands her creatures “heed the call to adventure”, just as with Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey, she also adequately equips them for the quest. In addition to caterpillars’ biology only emitting the ecdysone enzyme when they are ready to expel their exoskeleton, they also maintain the “juvenille” hormone throughout their entire duration as larvae, which prevents them from metamorphosing into butterflies until the time is right. The same natural design is at work in the human world, whether we know it or not, in that life gives us what we can handle. When changes come our way, it’s usually because we asked for a shift, whether consciously or subconsciously. Can we be like caterpillars and welcome the catalyst here to bring us to our butterfly?

Beyond the roller coaster ride of transformation, another challenge in staying the course and making it to the other side of the murky underworld is the invisibility and vulnerability of it all. With butterflies there is a very clear external signal of their internal journey in their cocoon. This protects them somewhat from the outside world so they can focus inward, yet they lose the ability to evade or defend themselves from predators, making it a time for patience and faith in the process.

In most cases, however, especially in the human world, transformation is truly something you cannot see with your eyes but can only sense with your intuition. Another example from nature of the clandestine process of changing states is, well, changing states…of matter.

In a laboratory when you heat up matter, whether solid or liquid, it will change states when it reaches its melting point or boiling point, respectively. Until that moment, the temperature of the matter will increase; a clear calibration of the effects of the energy applied. When it reaches that telling threshold of melting or boiling, however, the temperature will plateau. Without getting into the specifics of the science, instead of the energy being applied to the movement of particles that relates to temperature (kinetic energy), it is instead redirected to breaking bonds and rearranging itself into something else. Then, once fully melted to a liquid or boiled to a gas, the temperature of the matter will rise again, reborn in every sense!

To the ordinary observer fixated on the thermometer, it will appear nothing is happening at the melting or boiling point. But someone who understands the nature of nature will know a greater power is at work. I’ve thought about changing states as a symbol of transformation for some time now, especially in terms of its invisibility to the naked eye. But only now has it occurred to me the way in which spiritual consciousness is inherently embedded in the natural world. The divine dance of form and formlessness, yin and yang are happening in harmony, at the molecular, organismal, and ecosystem level, from the Amazon rainforest to the concrete jungle of New York. Particles permeate, racing faster and faster until they reach the limits of their form and need to break bonds to flow freely again as a newer, lighter substance. Humans, made up of matter, also enjoy the rush of kinetic energy and the joy of movement until they run into the limit of their current paradigm. At their boiling point, they too shift their energy to breaking the bonds that hold them back, after which they are transformed into a freer spirit who can now move merrily about the metropolis and experience the contentment of true joy.