Wet Wings Bursting Forth

On this, the final and 13th day of chanting for my teacher Thomas Ashley-Farrand since his passing over to the other side, I wish that he may fly like a moth to the flame of the divine and light his wings afire into bliss, until he is born into another incarnation on this earth. Having taken boddhisattva vows, I know that I will see him again in this lifetime, as a small child come back to feed the fire of devotion on earth. When he does, he will find an old woman smiling because she has long since opened her wings, shaken off the wetness, and flown to many flowers and carried the nectar of love with her. I remain forever grateful to him for his gifts to me when I might have died.

For now, I am not yet that old woman. I am only 43, but it is late in life to be just really spreading my wings. Yet, such it is, and so I have this to say to the world~

If a butterfly is about ready to fly for the first time, or the second as it may be, and is struggling to release its new wings from its cocoon, it is folly to try to speed up the process as an outside observer. A hand touching those wings, or trying to make them come out faster can easily leave the butterfly crippled. The butterfly needs to struggle alone to release its wings. The act of doing so strengthens them. It is a liminal moment...a crossing of a threshold.

I am there like the butterfly. I am struggling and making my way out of the cocoon.

I've been inside the safety of it for five years, inside the primordial soup of cells actually changing their DNA content. Now I can come out fully, and I know there are many who would like to help, who have helped in the past, but in this case, they need a hands-off approach. This is my journey to wholeness to make~ not my teacher's or anyone else who loves me~ it is MY journey out of the cocoon.

Before I made my cocoon of words and chants like silken healing threads to stitch, I was already coming out of the first cocoon. Someone touched my wings. Someone ripped them. A spider caught my butterfly body in his web and sucked the nectar out. My broken butterfly body was left for dead, its wings in shreds, its antennae mangled beyond repair. But someone else found a bit of nectar from the flower, the amrita from the heather, and mixed it with what was left of my once swollen insides. They made a new caterpillar of me, and I wove again~ this cocoon. Now my wings have cracked the surface. Once again.

"Please," I say to the world, "don't touch my wings. They are mine to stretch."

There comes a point in every student/teacher relationship when the teacher must let go, and the student must stop asking and trust their own inner connection to the source of being. I am at that point. My wings are wet and fragile. When they have dried, it will be safe to flit and play with the flock of other butterflies...to tease the caterpillars into thinking about spinning their cocoons. For now, it is my job and no one else's to squeeze my wet wings through the crack between the worlds.

And as I do so, my beloved mentor Thomas Ashley-Farrand has passed 13 days into the void. My father is making his journey into the unknown territory of healing from cancer. My prayers and my constant chanting are with them, but my hands do not reach out to touch their wet wings, nor would they touch mine. Thomas, my father and I, we know what can be said, and what must be left unsaid. And what must not be done.