I was reflecting the other day upon the butterfly theme that keeps cropping up in my posts on a fairly regular basis, for a time I considered it to be one of my totems. It probably isn’t so much these days, the snake has well and truly taken over that role, and it represents the really deep shedding from my core that’s been happening for the last two years, particularly since the summer solstice of 2012. The world may not have ended, but it certainly went through a huge shift, and for myself, I feel so different it’s as if the world did finish at that point in time.
But for a time in the early naughties the butterfly was my symbol, it represented transformation and freedom, I always loved the idea that the butterflies were tasting the petals with their feet as they danced from flower to flower. A butterfly came to visit me at the end of 2001 when my mother and I were setting up the stall for our last Woodford Folk Festival on Christmas Day. I kept shooing it out, the tent was baking hot and not a good place for such a delicate creature. I thought it had gone but towards the end of the day I found it, it had been determined to stay with us, and I was touched that it had chosen to spend its last day with me and mum.
Butterfly in flight.
I felt that the butterfly had come to tell me that it was my time to come out of the cocoon and to begin my transformation, I was about to do my first deep shamanic training starting on January 2nd, and so the timing was very significant. It was the beginning for me of fundamental change that came from a deep exploration of my being, and the release of cellular memory, the beginning of the long path home.
Through the Vortex 