2020: The Year of the ButterFLY
“I believe I can fly; I believe I can touch the sky. I think about it every night and day, I spread my wings and fly away.”
The memory of my preschool graduation is one that haunts and taunts me. There I am: standing on the stage among my 5-year-old peers. Smiling wide with my chubby cheeks. I’m wearing my glossy royal-blue cap and gown. Singing, or yelling really, “I believe I can fly.” Apparently, I was the loudest that day. I was leading the way. Wait, really? I question my aunt when she brings up this memory. I question her because who I was that day on the stage: bold, confident, and beautiful—is a far cry from how I saw myself thereafter. Sometimes, our memories serve as a guide towards what’s to come. Sometimes, we are provided just enough hope to keep us inspired as we move through a dark season.
2019 was the year of the Cheetah. It was a fast year, it required balance and agility in order to keep pace with the demands of change, growth, and opportunities. As the year began to close, I awaited the prediction for 2020. When we least expect it, the answer comes. I began to see them randomly. And then they began to show up in conversations. That’s it: the butterfly. The butterfly is a symbol of beauty, grace, and transformation. 2020 will be about you using your wings, based on your accumulated life lessons and where you feel yourself being guided. It’s your year to harness the wind, to believe in your Universal connection and the authentic power within you.
“Caterpillars are primed to become butterflies from birth.”
Caterpillars are stubby, crawling, land-based insects with a basic urge to eat and grow. Mostly, they desire to do this quietly, secretly. Not yet a butterfly or moth, but within them are “bundles of cells that are already primed, destined to become adult butterfly features.”
Similarly, we are all born with the necessary material within us to become butterflies. There is one exception, however: humans need love and validation. What will advance or delay our becoming a butterfly, is dependent on the quality of our childhood relationships. If a child is not cared for with consistent love and nurturing of needs, the impact can be catastrophic. Feelings of being unloved contributes to a blurred view of self and others. Resulting in adults who interact in this world with a skewed sense of self, seeking toxic relationships, and likely, an abandonment of their true purpose. The way a child thinks, the words they choose, and their behaviors or mannerisms are set before most kids reach preschool (birth to six years old). All of this, is influenced by our interactions with our parents/caregivers and the rest of the world (“Effects of growing up,” 2018). Over time, we begin to internalize how and who we perceive ourselves to be, based on the world’s response to us.
Consider this: as an infant or child, the absence of love, sustenance, and care from our parent figure is equivalent to death (“Effects of growing up,”2018). Think about that: death. We associate death with the absence of the heart beating, air filling the lungs, and blood flowing through the body. What if death, for some, occurs far earlier than the moment we take our last breath? Death, for some, comes in the form of the absence of love and trust in our most important years of life.
“Disturbing a caterpillar inside its cocoon or chrysalis risks botching the transformation.”
A shift occurs in the caterpillar. It stops eating and is led to make itself a protective encasing: a cocoon made out of silk. Within this cocoon, the caterpillar release enzymes that begins to break down its parts in order to rearrange its body into what it will become. Any disruption in this secret process, and the transformation is negatively impacted.
Similar to a caterpillar, or butterfly in waiting, our transformation usually occurs in seclusion. Maybe you were pulled apart from your family or friends—sent off to school, you moved to another state or country. For some, prison can even provide the opportunity for transformation to occur. The key in understanding transformation, is that we MUST be taken out of the environment that supported us as caterpillars. Transformation requires a new temperature, the space for a new heart & mind, and above all, the space to grow without the influence of outside forces. Have you witnessed a season of seclusion in your life? Are you in that season now? Do you feel a deep urge to find seclusion, to give yourself the freedom to transform?
Spread your Wings. Fly.
One day, the butterfly will emerge from its cocoon with soft, delicate wings. It will need time to rest, time for the blood to fill out its new wings. In time, the butterfly will master the ability to fly. Flying, the butterfly will begin contributing to the flow of life through pollination. They will also reproduce at every chance they get. You see, like humans, butterflies are also born to create (reproduce). Like humans, butterflies also have a purpose. Above all, you notice that once a butterfly is a butterfly…. they are no longer crawling and eating as a caterpillar. They are no longer attempting to hide themselves as they did when their instincts led them to make a cocoon. They have found freedom. They are living in the fullness of their beauty.
Behold, I am Doing a New Thing.
Our early childhood experiences serve as the fuel that will either support us to become butterflies or encourage us to remain on the ground as caterpillars. If this is true, what does a person do if their childhood did not support them to become a butterfly? What if you were told that you were a caterpillar all of your life? Where do you turn as an adult?
Corinthians 1:12 says this: “when I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” No matter where you are today, you have within you the capacity to become a butterfly. Becoming a butterfly will require a new mindset, courage, and Faith that the transformation is even possible. And if that’s not enough, allow my story to be your inspiration and confirmation that it’s possible. A black, gay, and all out weird kid from the Eastern Shore of Virginia. I was a contradiction in every way to what a boy and child should be like growing up. I always found myself being in environments where I was the outcast…the sore thumb. Yet—all along it was serving a purpose. All along I was being fed, I was growing beyond what the naked eye could see. One day, I entered my cocoon. I began my spiritual journey towards healing. Unbeknownst to me, one day I would finally break free from being a caterpillar, out of the cocoon, there would be a butterfly. I’m here to tell you it’s possible. I’m here to tell you that I’m a witness.
This is your confirmation. You are no longer a dependent child. You are no longer a caterpillar. You are no longer tucked in a cocoon. You are a butterfly. 2020 is your year to fly.