Reading the plot again on the book's Wikipedia page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope_for_the_Flowers I am struck by the description of Yellow, the caterpillar who cocooned first while Stripe climbed the pillar, "follow[ing] her instincts" as she keeps eating and spins a cocoon. And that strikes me as so true to my own experiences because changing paths wasn't a fight for me, as I previously discussed: Rather, I needed to stop fighting myself so I could give in to what my bodymind was trying to do the whole time: Like eating and spinning come naturally to a butterfly, writing and creating come naturally to me. Building my life around that is my cocoon, the resting and testing place where I can let go and melt myself down to dream and forge the me(aning) I'm me(ant) to be.

For me it ties back to the Daoist principle of wu wei 無爲, which I interpret as "don't force it." It's like a huge calming breath, a comforting whisper from your core: You don't have to fight so hard. You can be exactly who and how you are, and it'll be okay. You are loved, safe, and whole just as you are. Breathe. Release all thoughts of right or wrong or being good enough, like beautiful winged things that you will crush by clutching too hard.

Let your form go, the upright spine of duty, the hard muscles of ambition. Melt down, relax. Be sludge. Sleep. Sleep and dream. The caterpillar and the butterfly are in you, and the cocoon and the leaf and the flower, they are all in you and you in them. The ugly and the beautiful are in you, a painful split you have merely dreamed. Let them melt into joyous embrace. Be. You can simply be. No matter how you may change, you are you. No matter how you stay the same, you are change. You are the joyous rush and the calm constancy, you are the moment and the eternity, you are the real and the dream, the order and the chaos, the Universe and the void, the sea and the drop

and

you

drop

ALSO did you catch how Yellow flying to Stripe after her metamorphosis anticipated the science of post-metamorphosis memory in Lepidoptera by decades, my heart I caaaan't 😭

#Butterfly #HopeForTheFlowers #TootEssay #Daoism

Reading the plot again on the book's Wikipedia page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope_for_the_Flowers I am struck by the description of Yellow, the caterpillar who cocooned first while Stripe climbed the pillar, "follow[ing] her instincts" as she keeps eating and spins a cocoon. And that strikes me as so true to my own experiences because changing paths wasn't a fight for me, as I previously discussed: Rather, I needed to stop fighting myself so I could give in to what my bodymind was trying to do the whole time: Like eating and spinning come naturally to a butterfly, writing and creating come naturally to me. Building my life around that is my cocoon, the resting and testing place where I can let go and melt myself down to dream and forge the me(aning) I'm me(ant) to be.

For me it ties back to the Daoist principle of wu wei 無爲, which I interpret as "don't force it." It's like a huge calming breath, a comforting whisper from your core: You don't have to fight so hard. You can be exactly who and how you are, and it'll be okay. You are loved, safe, and whole just as you are. Breathe. Release all thoughts of right or wrong or being good enough, like beautiful winged things that you will crush by clutching too hard.

Let your form go, the upright spine of duty, the hard muscles of ambition. Melt down, relax. Be sludge. Sleep. Sleep and dream. The caterpillar and the butterfly are in you, and the cocoon and the leaf and the flower, they are all in you and you in them. The ugly and the beautiful are in you, a painful split you have merely dreamed. Let them melt into joyous embrace. Be. You can simply be. No matter how you may change, you are you. No matter how you stay the same, you are change. You are the joyous rush and the calm constancy, you are the moment and the eternity, you are the real and the dream, the order and the chaos, the Universe and the void, the sea and the drop

and

you

drop

ALSO did you catch how Yellow flying to Stripe after her metamorphosis anticipated the science of post-metamorphosis memory in Lepidoptera by decades, my heart I caaaan't 😭

#Butterfly #HopeForTheFlowers #TootEssay #Daoism