chrysalis: a preparatory or transitional state
chrysalism: the amniotic tranquility of being indoors during a thunderstorm
have you ever really thought about how amazing it is that a caterpillar
Samuel Jaffe
ACTUALLY
turns into a butterfly?
have you ever thought about how magical that process is?
what the hell goes on in the chrysalis to make such a transformation?
it's as if we learn about it in kindergarten
reading "the very hungry caterpillar"
then we stop thinking about it
before our fully developed minds
can contemplate what it really is:
the perfect metaphor
for being in the middle of things
brain brimming with questions
because you don't yet know
where you're going, how you'll get there
or
that the questions you have
about yourself, the world
have no real answers
no explanations
no beginnings or ends
life just moves on,
mysteriously,
whether you like it or not
Rafael Araujo
but rather than assume
with a career
and a spouse
and a home
i'll burst from my cozy cocoon
i'd like to think we are always in the process of becoming
that the chrysalis is in fact...
perpetual
Fernan Federici
unlike our crawly counterparts
the butterfly we wish to become exists in the mind alone
a vision which steers us through the unknown
something to strive for but never to own
a state of being that is not determined
but rather, we create for ourselves
Yoshitaka Amano
and while we can find beauty in the console of others,
no one else can guide us through, for
"While all old people have been young, no young people have been old,"
and
"while you can describe your experience, you cannot confer it."
~Andrew Solomon, The Middle of Things
all we can do is
"Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms, or books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."
~Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
or, do as David Sedaris does, and
"prefer to believe that inside every television there lives a community of versatile, thumb-size actors trained to portray everything from a thoughtful newscaster to the wife of a millionaire stranded on a desert island. Fickle gnomes control the weather, and an air conditioner is powered by a team of squirrels, their cheeks packed with ice cubes."
~David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day
~
