Life in Small Bites

By Dr. Jeff Alexander

Consider the possibility that everything you ever thought was wrong with you was really right with you. Consider that every painful experience in your life has been an important ingredient to your development and evolution. As the extreme tons of pressure needed to launch a rocket into space, you have accumulated experiences until you can launch yourself into freedom. Of course the ego interpreted this as suffering.

Humanity has created the most violent forms of suffering and now risks extinction of it’s own species. We are the most powerful and dangerous species in the history of the world. There seems to be a lot of fear of the consequences if we do not change our behavior.

Yet we have used our genius to engineer the healing of disease, feed the hungry and save millions of lives through technology. This compassion has kept us alive in spite of our desire to dominate each other.

I have often talked about this as the “normal vs. natural” condition of humanity. We are natural at birth: loving, curious about our physical environment, ready to take risks to discover and explore. We soon learn to become normal and the shadow of fear takes over. It has been this way since the beginning of humanity.

Consider that even suffering is part of the divine plan.  Yes, even the role of our dear friend the ego. Without the interpretation of the ego, we could possibly have never experienced the motivating force of suffering to convince us to change. It has been said “You can get it with a feather or you can get it with a hammer.”  One only has to pick up a history book to discover which path we have taken. And because hammers hurt, pain has become our companion throughout this path.

When you can see the beauty in the entire process as an individual, then we will see it as a collective. You will understand with new insights that it has all been appropriate and part of a great plan. I am certain that we could have danced through the ages with lessons more in tune with the feather analogy. But that is definitely not the way it went down. We have taken the hammer, to each other and to ourselves.

Most of you know by now that I love metaphors. So here is another one for you that will help you learn to bless this whole process.

We know that the butterfly, which takes a completely different form from the one part of its life to the next, most often symbolizes transformation.  The final days of the caterpillar cause it to eat hundreds of times its own body weight. It violently consumes its environment. One caterpillar can devour a whole tree as it approaches the end of its existence. Its voracious appetite drives it to the point where its skin is stretched. It becomes very heavy outgrowing its own skin many times, until it is too bloated to move another inch.  The discomfort stimulates it to find a final resting place where it can hang upside down attaching to a branch forming a chrysalis. This dark place encloses the caterpillar and limits its freedom as it views the upside down world for the last time.

After the caterpillar entombs itself in its cocoon, it does not simply begin to transform into a butterfly. It literally disintegrates into liquid ooze.  If you were to crack open the chrysalis half way through the process, you would not find a creature that is half caterpillar and half butterfly. You would discover a bunch of ooze.  This goop is now what is left of the body of the caterpillar.

Then something very interesting begins to happen. The emergence of a new cell appears. These cells do not come from the previous goop. They seem to come out of nowhere. Scientists do not know how they appear and they are completely different from the original ooze of the caterpillar. These new cells are called “imaginal cells” from the word, imagine.

At first they appear individually and are perceived as foreign to the original ooze cells. These cells resonate at a different frequency.  They are so different from the caterpillar cells that the immune system thinks they are enemies and begins to attack and destroy them.  But these new imaginal cells continue to appear. After a period of time, the immune system cannot destroy them because they are coming too fast.  More and more cells arrive and then a turning point in the process occurs.

The imaginal cells begin to find each other. At first they cling to each other. The law of attraction is in effect as like cells cling to like cells. The next process is equally miraculous. The small groups of clinging cells find other groups of cells and form clusters. This new community of clusters now feeds from the nutritive soup that was the liquid caterpillar and the ooze supplies an important step in the maintenance of the clusters.

As the clusters bond with each other, they interact and exchange information from one to another inside the chrysalis. The imaginal cells become directors of the process. The DNA intelligence orchestrates which is to become antenna cells, what cells will be digestive tracts while others begin to change into wing cells. The violent attempt of the host immune system to annihilate the imaginal cells literally activates the sleeping DNA of this new cell to grow, cluster and create a new creature.  When the nutritive soup has been absorbed and the final imaginal cell completes its process, we have the emergence of one of nature’s most beautiful miracles – the butterfly.

If you are in the middle of your “nutritive soup” and feel the attacking of your own ego as the upside down world appears to close in around you, then you just might be right on schedule.

Like the caterpillar, humanity is now called “consumers” in the market place. Not a very flattering label. We have taken a toll on the environment and each other. Throughout our history, imaginal prophets and leaders have been attacked and eliminated by violent means. The ego of humanity, which consumed many beautiful souls, has been an integral part of our spiritual evolution. The hammer has cracked open the imaginal cell to begin the final chapter of transformation. This is normal consciousness.

We are the imaginal cells. We are clustering and understand our own limitations and potentials. We have been taught to love our enemies and understand that they are so consumed by fear and ignorance that they do not know what they are doing. The natural imaginal cell that has emerged from the nutritive soup of our ancestors has found each other.  We are clustering. If these words resonate with you, then something deep within you is being released. There could be thousands or millions reading these words because our chrysalis has become transparent by the Internet.

Any discomfort of your past activated the ego to experience suffering. Without the pain, the global immune system is not activated. We have done this individually and collectively. We are the immune system kicking in. We are also the imaginal cells that are the intelligence lying dormant in our own DNA. It is our job to find each other. We are part of the largest movement in the history of the world. There is no center to this movement. There is no spokesman and humans from all walks of life and corners of our world are turning their complaints into a commitment larger than themselves.

We are on the threshold of a new reality. We are resurrecting ourselves from the normal reality back to the natural existence that is our divine birthright. We are moving away from fear and toward love.  We must allow and surrender to our true nature as loving beings. We must learn to bless that which we once cursed, to embrace those whom we have rejected and to express gratitude for all we have experienced. And where do we start? We can look within and find that which we have not forgiven.

As we continue to cluster and awaken our global heart, we will overcome political corruption; heal economic degeneration, environmental disasters and the bloated accumulation of over-consumption. All personal and collective chaos is happening for a reason beyond our normal thinking mind. Our Warrior Spirit will see us through to the light of the natural mind of Spirit where freedom awaits. And we will create that butterfly.

An additional note:  It has just been discovered by biologists that the genetic code that is responsible for the wings of a butterfly is also the exact same gene code responsible for the beating of the human heart.