Three Butterflies of Love

You are being called to honour your emotional and spiritual growth through ritual.

You have completed a phase of emotional and spiritual growth. In your growth you have experienced pain, which like a light has led the way to emotional and spiritual doorways. You have opened these doorways to enter the hidden sanctum within to experience the joy of your inner core. It was your journey back to self. You have gathered core parts within you – both the dissociated and the rejected – and have walked through the layers of emotions of your limited perceptions, walked through the doorway of purification and welcomed these core parts lovingly back into your conscious awareness.

This card indicates that you are successfully emerging from a significant growth cycle (emotional, physical or spiritual) and like the life cycle of a butterfly you have passed through three very distinct stages.

Stage 1: The caterpillar – this is the impulse to growth, the event or relation-ship that asks you to change your perceptions.

Stage 2: The chrysalis – the meltdown is first a dismantling of self, followed by a restructuring and resetting of the parts. By synthesising the pieces of your puzzle into a fully transformed self, you are now ready to fly.

Stage 3: The butterfly – this is the transformation of self through connection and regeneration. Regeneration comes when you are fully connected and in relationship to your true self. This connection links you to the flow of energy from Source and the feeling of love. With this confidence you can then connect beyond your current mindset to form new relationships (with boundaries reset) with others. You open up to new creative endeavours, possibilities and adventures (of love).

Ritual
Take the time for a ritual of completion and pay homage to your journey. Choose three candles to represent the journey that you have been on and wish to honour.

Find a place that is appropriate for your ritual and symbolises for you the journey that you have been through and completed. Choose three candles that you feel represent each stage of your journey. These may all be the same or different colours, shapes and sizes. On three pieces of paper write briefly a word or a couple of sentences that describe each stage of your journey as outlined below and place one under each candle.

Light each candle when you are ready to acknowledge each stage of your journey. Say with each candle ‘I light this candle …’ followed by the guided messages below. Then complete your journey with each candle by saying what expresses your heart’s journey.

The first candle: a prayer for the caterpillar — growth

I honour those that have contributed to this phase of growth (name each person, event or health condition.) Each of you fed my spirit and you fed my soul. You lit the path before me, showed a path that taught me and inspired me. I honour the gift you gave with my acknowledgement of you. I honour your spirit and I thank you and ask that your spirit be replenished by the Divine Source.

The second candle: a prayer for the chrysalis — synthesis

In my awareness I see the gifts that each person has contributed to my emotional and spiritual growth. I thank each person whose image I recall now – the fleeting moments of the past when I felt let down, disappointed, betrayed by you, or moments when I felt abandoned or unloved. I see these moments that carried darkness around my heart were really your gift to me to help me learn and find myself. To each person who gave me these gifts I acknowledge that each challenge you presented me with was designed to dismantle my beliefs and my mindset, to help me find what was true for me. On that journey I worried. I feared that I had lost and missed out on what I thought was true. I see now that you were in my service. You played your part so that I could find my part. I can see my voyage clearly. It was a path started long ago. Each part you played located the necessary wisdom within me and I now acknowledge that these different parts of me are now real and true in full awareness. I thank you for the many gifts you have given me. I honour each part I thought was broken within me, dissociated, alone and rejected as a spoke disconnected from its wheel. Now I see the part I played in disconnecting each. I see these parts of me, the spokes of myself connected to core, now strong and light-filled. I give thanks and blessings for each aspect within, each spoke within the wheel now restored to its connection at the core. I now see the wheel of my life start to spin, moving firmly and steadily, ready to come home and be an active part of my life. I thank the Spirit that is ever there, ever more as my guiding light.

The third candle: A prayer for the butterfly — regeneration and connection to Source

I give thanks as I emerge like the butterfly newly transformed into something of beauty – rich and full of the journey that has been. Doors have opened presenting new opportunities and newly developed skills. With these freshly minted skills I am now able to connect in intimacy with others. I accept that connection with others is the joy and purpose of a butterfly in its lifespan. I now connect to repeat the cycle and wheel of life. Connected at my core I connect to you. I feel stronger and energised and filled with the light of wisdom. I bring my highest level of awareness to this moment, an act of creation as I allow myself to experience the vulnerability of the connection with you. In this relationship I bring the very best in myself as I accept the very best in you. As I give a gift of love I accept this gift of love and the timelessness of love that resides within.

Integration

While the candles burn down visualise the journey that you have completed. See that you were part of this journey on behalf of others as they were on a journey on behalf of you. See each stage of the journey. See yourself passing through the caterpillar stage and next see yourself through the chrysalis stage. You are now ready to emerge from your chrysalis. The butterfly that is you emerges in its expansion and beauty. Look at your butterfly in its parade of different and vibrant colours. You have changed from one state to another and welcome a new way of being – accepting and confident. You now appear as you were meant to be.

Reflect on the different types of love that you experience. Love is expressed all around you. From a leaf falling from a tree, to a baby bird flapping its wings with excitement as its mum or dad arrives with dinner, to the smell that says to you ‘I’m home’. We live without noticing all these moments. Take the time to observe these aspects of the world around you to slip into timelessness. Enter a flow of energy that is there for you each day. As you emerge from your chrysalis the light appears different, brighter and more luminous. See that light emerge from your solar plexus as the sun radiating outwards connected from the core of you to your world and people around you. See them blessed with love and surround them with love (or the sun’s rays). Do this for ten days to anchor a feeling of light, love and freedom.