METAMORPHOSIS

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. - Anais Nin

I recently attended a show where one of the protagonists produced a musical composition that was more than that. Namely, in it were intermingled: personal history, the biblical myth about Jonas and the whale, the hero's archetype and transformation journey, and the caterpillar's metamorphosis into a butterfly. It was presented in the form of a narrative that alternated with piano music accompanied by drums, songs, and changing background. Influenced by this experience, I was reminded of my teenage years and the novel The Resurrection of Leo Tolstoy, which left a deep impression on me back then.

Namely, in this novel, the main character of the noble Dmitry was transformed as a result of the crime he committed in his youth. The triggering event took place when he was a juror of the court. He encountered the woman (Katyusha) whom he had raped ten years earlier. In the meantime, she became a prostitute and was charged and found guilty of an offense that she did not commit. Dmitri was so consumed with guilt that he suffered a mental and moral rupture. He gave up his privileged position and descended into a world of cruelty, injustice, and suffering that shook him profoundly. He left his noble life and accompanied Katyusha into exile with the intention of marrying her. On their long journey to Siberia, she fell in love with another man, and Dmitri gave her his blessing and decided to live in a criminal community, seeking redemption.

The story of the biblical myth of Jonas and the whale is straightforward. God commands him to go to the Assyrian city of Nineveh and preach repentance. Jonas refuses and runs away in the opposite direction, embarking on the ship. God sends a storm; sailors believe that somebody on the ship has angered God. Jonas says it's him and demands he be thrown overboard. The sailors do that, the ship is saved, and Jonah is swallowed by a whale. In the belly of the whale, he prays for three days, and God has mercy on him. He ordered the whale to throw him up on dry land. This time, Jonah obeys God's command and goes to Nineveh. There he prophesies to the citizens that they would be destroyed if they did not repent. Surprisingly, they comply, and Nineveh is spared.

If we understand this narrative as a metaphor, then we can say that Jonas refuses to follow his life mission in spite of the messages of the higher self. Consequently, he goes through a life-threatening crisis that forces him to face the darkness of despair from which he emerges and is now ready to follow his destiny.

I first heard about the hero’s archetype by reading Jung. But the wide popularity of this archetype followed much later thanks to the book of the celebrated scholar of comparative religion and mythology Joseph Campbell, Hero with a Thousand Faces. * Campbell describes the model of the hero's journey where an ordinary person leaves the world of daily life because of "the call." He embarks on a journey where he meets supernatural forces and beings with whom he fights until winning a decisive victory which transforms him into a hero. Thus "reborn" he returns to his fellow countrymen with the power to bestow on others the benefits of his transformative experience.

I "met" Campbell when I arrived in America via a television program called The Power of Myth. He was interviewed by Bill Moyers about the modern myth of the hero featured in the film Star Wars by George Lucas. This and many similar films have been a huge success with audiences due to the process of identifying with the protagonist and the compelling story of the dying of the old and the birth of the new through the process of transformation. The basic ingredients of the hero's story are found in many literary works, historical figures, world myths, and popular descriptions of persons in our neighborhood. Remember Odysseus, Prometheus, Jesus, Buddha, Moses, Dorothy in the book The Wizard of Oz, Princess Diana, etc. The hero really has a thousand faces.

At the end of this collection of transformation examples, I will list the strangest of them all: biological metamorphosis, the miraculous process by which a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. The caterpillar or larva eats everything it finds and one day, when it becomes fat enough, it closes into a cocoon. Within that protective shell, the caterpillar radically transforms its body, and at the end of this process, it appears as a new biological being, a butterfly. How is it possible? What's going on inside the cocoon? The caterpillar digests itself, except for a highly organized group of cells called imaginary discs, which represent imaginary parts of the butterfly's body. These disks use a protein-rich "soup" for the construction of a mature butterfly.

What do this miraculous biological process and literary descriptions mentioned above symbolize? In many cultures, both old and new, the meaning of metamorphosis is linked to the life cycle of death and rebirth, through faith, hope, and courage. In the book Sacred Medicine of Bee, Butterfly, Earthworm, and Spider, the authors write:

“Butterflies show us how we can go within ourselves to dissolve old forms and morph, rebuilding and evolving through the process of surrender and trust as the part of the essential process of growth and renewal.” **

As this quotation shows, death is presented as a symbolic vanishing of the old models of existence in order to enable the creation of new, more developed, higher states of consciousness.

Have you experienced something like that in your life and development? For my part, I can say that coming to America has been a major transformation of life in every way. To get there, I struggled to find faith, hope, courage, and perseverance to begin and continue in the process. I had to face many fears, play it all out, and enter the unknown. Obstacles arose along the way, and like our mythological hero, I also fought with "dragons" of different shapes and sizes. At the same time, I found helpers, elders, and other well-intentioned people who "jumped in" synchronously and provided support when I needed it.

The radical, "revolutionary" transformation, which in the figurative sense follows the model of the metamorphosis of caterpillar to butterfly, is rare in humans. It is found in enlightened people, people who have experienced near-death, profound mystical experiences, and other existential crises. In these circumstances, remaining in the old formats is more painful, if not fatal, than the new unknown path, despite the fact that it sometimes resembles the desperate attempt of an alchemist to turn lead into gold.

My metamorphosis did not follow this model. It is more in line with the symbolism of the dragonfly in whom the transformation is slow and gradual. So for me, the transition has become a progressive evolution that has manifested itself through: easier expression of emotions, a deep re-examination of everything that exists, exploration of all the possibilities I encountered, adaptation to new environments and situations, nurturance of the harmony in myself and others, reflective thinking about events and human actions, connections with the spiritual dimension of existence, and the discovery of my authentic self.

At the end of this text, let me mention the finish line of the cycle through which the hero's archetype passes. The process ends when our hero attains a balance between the material and the spiritual, inner and outer world, before returning to his fellow countrymen. That is also my wish, which I am trying to carry out as part of my life mission. One of the expressions of my aspiration is found in this writing.

* The Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell, Pantheon Books, 1949

** Sacred Medicine of Bee, Butterfly, Earthworm, and Spider, by Linda Star Wolf Ph.D. (Author), Anna Cariad-Barrett DMin, Bear & Company, 2013