What's Going on With the World? Cracks, Caterpillar Goo & Mindfulness Muscles (Part 3)

Plus a meditation where you meet the spirit of hope.

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Hi friend,

Oof, a lot has happened since last week’s newsletter, right?

As someone living near the US capital, I feel the collective intensity acutely. It’s like being in a pressure-cooker. Regardless of where you live, you might at times feel the same way.

And while that is uncomfortable, pressure can also help us stretch and speed can quickly move us out of our comfort zone.

I’m reminded of something Barack Obama once shared: after he left the White House, civilian life felt like moving at a snail’s pace. He had gotten so used to a much higher intensity that the “normal world” was like a slow-motion movie scene to him.

I am sharing this because at some point, this collective intensity (insanity?) will calm down. Even if that is years and years from now, we will get to enjoy the massive mindfulness muscles (MMM) we are developing. I mean, we are definitely playing this whole mindfulness game on a much, much harder setting than the Buddha.

Meditating under a tree by yourself for a few years while your wife raises your kid? Pah! That’s Mindfulness 101. (No offense to the Buddha intended. ❤️)

Try living in an entirely interconnected world, where information grows (explodes?) exponentially, where technology exceeds wisdom so much that humans have gained the dubious ability to potentially annihilate themselves, and where a calamity that happens on another continent feels like it’s happening right next door.

Whether or not we can stand the heat, we are definitely finding ourselves in the kitchen.

It’s not just collective stuff either. While the world is shifting rapidly, the same is true for us.

In the last few weeks, I quit a decade-old caffeine habit, got a nasty cold, flew to Iceland, spent more time with my brother than in a decade or so (yay!), visited the inside of a volcano (most beautiful thing I have ever seen!), experienced the US heatwave, re-dedicated myself to my coaching business after taking it slowly for years, worked a few 12-hour days, healed one of the deepest patterns of my life related to toxic productivity, managed to sprain my wrist because of a blanket of all things, figured out how to get us more sleep (after being woken up way too often), worried about a family friend’s intense health crisis… and that’s just a brief summary.

You might have a similar experience, where life feels like it’s suddenly moving at a break-neck speed, while pressure is being applied from all sides.

So, let’s talk about the pressure we are going through. This is part 3 in a series that explores what’s currently going on in the world. I don’t mean what’s happening on the surface level. After all, you get enough of that in the news. Instead, let’s explore what’s happening on the deeper, energetic levels.

Here are part 1 and part 2 of this series, in case you missed it.

With that said, are you ready for crack and caterpillar goo? I mean, cracks and caterpillar goo?

Caterpillar goo

Let’s begin with a picture of our protagonist. Let’s call her Carla, the caterpillar. As you can see here, Carla is enjoying her best caterpillar life:

Photo by Erik Karits on Unsplash

Things are good in Caterpillar Land. Sure, Carla sometimes thinks: “there must be more to life than this.” Sometimes, she even dreams of being able to fly. But then she remembers that she’s a caterpillar, and caterpillars don’t do such a thing.

One day, something incredibly scary happens:

After entering her chrysalis, Carla turns into goo.

Carla does not like this process one bit. (Who would?)

She wonders if she’s dying. Or going crazy. Or both?

All Carla wants is to get back to how things were BC (Before Chrysalis).

This goes on for quite a while (it feels even longer to Carla).

Until…

Carla emerges from the chrysalis.

Photo by Bankim Desai on Unsplash

We might see this as a glorious thing. However, Carla does not feel the same way at all. She has a brand-new body. She does not like her new body. It’s very, very different from what she’s used. How is she supposed to move in this thing?

Also, Carla is pretty shaken up by all that she went through to get here.

If only she could go back to BC…

<fast-forward while Carla is having her existential insect crisis… which is essentially like an existential crisis for humans minus the new car>

Alright, you know how this story ends: Carla, the Queen Butterfly, embraces the new situation, takes to the skies, and lives her best butterfly life.

What’s the moral of the story? You can’t make butterflies without cracking a few caterpillars! *

(* No caterpillars were harmed in the creation of this article.)

What if this is the chrysalis?

From the outside, Carla’s fate doesn’t seem so bad, does it? Turning into goo is a small price to pay for wings, isn’t it?

Well, that’s true only if you know what’s happening and why it’s happening. And even then, the death of something old and birth of something new really sucks. (Case in point: any Labor & Delivery ward.)

I hope caterpillars have some internal instinct that tells them all will be well.

Whatever caterpillars may or may not be experiencing when they literally transform, we currently don’t have the luxury of knowing what the future world will look like.

Scientists have mapped what caterpillars go through during their transformations, and doctors are aware of what happens during pregnancy and childbirth (at least as far as the physical level is concerned)…

… but we have no idea what’s happening if an entire planet is transforming or re-birthing.

Because that’s the alternative to all the doomsday scenarios.

Maybe this isn’t supposed to feel good

There’s only one thing we can assume for sure about this rebirth: while it might be beautiful, it sure ain’t pretty.

I love how Jeff Salzman describes our evolution towards a better world:

“we are evolving creatures in an evolving world… there is a teleology, a directionality, to our evolution such that we human beings are indeed developing into higher dimensions of goodness, truth and beauty.

I realize that it doesn’t always look that way as we tune into the day’s news and see that for so many people (and creatures of all kinds), life is anything but good, true and beautiful. But this points to a deeper, paradoxical truth about evolution in general: while in its grand historical sweep evolution is beautiful, in daily application it is often not at all pretty. This realization is powerful, and calls all who realize it to enlist in the project of creating a more good, true and beautiful world. This is perhaps Ken {Wilber]’s greatest teaching to me: that in the final analysis we ourselves are evolution in action.”

Yes, we are evolution in action, evolving beings in an evolving world.

We are the caterpillar and the butterfly.

So, is there something we can learn from Carla?

“I’m about to die” vs. “I’m about to fly”

Carla the Caterpillar could think of her transformation in two ways:

• Negative interpretation: “Oh no, oh no, oh no, I’m about to die.”

• Positive interpretation: “Yes, yes, yes, I’m about to fly.”

Both of these are true, in a way. Carla will never be a caterpillar again, so in that sense, she is indeed dying.

But she’s also about to fly, which should make up for the small inconvenience of turning into goo. (At this point, Carla interjects: “Check your human privilege… easy to say when there’s no chance you will spontaneously turn into goo.”)

Which of these interpretation we pick is a matter of perspective, and, ultimately, of belief. I will say that the positive interpretation leaves more room for us contributing to the creation of a better world (because it acknowledges that we do, indeed, matter).

It probably doesn’t come as a surprise to you that I prefer the positive interpretation. What about you?

If you would like to be orient more towards hope, I encourage you to check out the meditation below. I’m also including a playlist of some of my favorite songs.

Warmly,
Louise

Playlist

If you would like to be orient more towards hope, I encourage you to check out the meditation below. I’m also including my favorite song for staying in a positive mindset.

Guided Meditation for Hope: Bathing in the River of Hope

Below you will find a guided meditation. I recorded this a few years ago, during the pandemic.

In this meditation, we delve deeply into myth. Fair warning: after listening to this, you might never look at water, vultures, or Pandora's box the same way...

I hope you will join us for a bath in the river of hope!

Simply play the video, get into a comfortable position, and enjoy the journey. If you prefer reading to listening, you will find a transcript of the meditation here.

When you're done, you can find more information about the imagery and myth below! (I recommend that you go through the meditation before you check out the additional information.)

Pandora's box is a jar and contains the spirit of hope???

Yes. What we think of as a box these days is a mistranslation. It was actually a large jar (πίθος pithos) in Greek. In terms of the spirit of hope who got trapped in the box, I also didn't make this up. The spirit is called Elpis (which is commonly translated as hope).

In his poem Works and Days, ancient Greek poet Hesiod described it as follows:

"Only Hope was left within her unbreakable house, she remained under the lip of the jar, and did not fly away. Before [she could], Pandora replaced the lid of the jar. This was the will of aegis-bearing Zeus the Cloudgatherer."

In other words, it was Zeus being Zeus...

Vultures as a positive sign??

During this meditation, I mention that vultures were seen as a positive sign in Ancient Egypt (contrary to the negative association we often have with vultures). There are many sources that confirm this.

For instance, Brooke Byrd writes: "The vulture held a very high place of honor in ancient Egypt."

Brooke Byry also mentions that the vulture was strongly tied to both royalty and maternity.

Gossip—Move in the Right Direction:

This is one of my all-time favorite songs because of its beautiful message. When I went through a huge life and career change (leaving my legal career and moving to the US), this is the song I played on repeat and it helped a lot:

Thanks for reading this!

Question: what would you like for me to write about? Please leave me a comment or send me a message!