When we gather together in our circles, it’s quite common that people will begin to talk about initiation and the transformations that take place in our lives.  And inevitably, one of the metaphors that comes up again and again is that of the butterfly or the moth; creatures that start their lives as one form, go through a huge transformation, and emerge on the other side as something completely different – almost unrelated to the thing that they were before… 

I don’t know if the caterpillar envisions the butterfly when it crawls into the cocoon, but it does seem that there is some intangible force that drives the whole thing – that guides the process…