This presentation was delivered in 2009 at the Bay Center for Spiritual Development in Kilmarnock, VA.

Opening Remarks

The idea of metamorphosis as a metaphor for our changing culture arose within my meditations.  I share this idea with you because it has helped me and my family stay focused on a positive future during difficult and otherwise confusing times.

The butterfly, a.k.a. the Imago, is the final phase of metamorphosis through which Lepidoptera are sequentially transformed.  Although humans do not physiologically metamorphose, we do similarly progress through phases of development before reaching our ultimate expression of maturity.  The fourth phase of our development may be called Imago Dei because it fulfills our divine potential, demonstrates our spiritual transcendence, and expresses our highest purpose.

The 38-minute-long program is broken into three parts, for ease of uploading.  As soon as one part wraps up, you may exit it and click on the next part to continue.

Part One compares the pattern expressed by the four phases of a metamorphosing Lepidopteran with the four phases of human life — both as individuals mature, and as they fill hierarchical roles in the collective society.

Part Two applies a tool of logic to help us understand the motivations and behaviors that align with each of the four phases of development.

Part Three addresses the simultaneous break-downs of many previously respected institutions.  In light of the four-phase evolutionary process, we may see this as a sign that a gluttonous era is nearing its end.

We are collectively entering a phase of reevaluation, re-prioritization and reorganization.  This is not for us to fear or resist, for it is a necessary phase in our evolutionary progress, similar to the pupation of Lepidoptera.  Breaking-through requires mastery over our lesser nature and a willful shedding of its fears, excesses and inefficiencies.

As fully realized humans, we enact the Imago Dei, gloriously expressing our love, generosity, cooperation, resilience, diversity, creativity, humor, compassion, and integrity with all that is.

Comments:

• I think we are like the caterpillar right now, so our trip from here is upwardbound.

  Because information never decreases, the upward or return trip takes us back to an enhanced source, moving along a trajectory more like a spiral than a circle.

  I think we come from Oneness and return to it. Now, this is not to say that we are ever out of Oneness, we just fractionate within it. It is from the fractionated that we become whole again.

  Things come into the world and go from the world, as breaths come and go inside of breathing. The breaths do not cause breathing; it is the other way around—breathing causes breaths. When the breath has completed, it resources the capacity for continual breathing.

  For the most part, as humans, we are experiencing excruciating multiplicity. The existential dissatisfaction we come to that drives us to explore the possibility of spiritual evolution is that which helps us shed our edges and the hungers associated with them. We are readying ourselves for pupation.

  As to purpose, I think we play a role in a far grander scheme than we could comprehend with our personal perspective. Our individual purpose is to fulfill the role for which we are uniquely suited. When we shed the personal perspective and complete our circuit, we would be available for another (enhanced) journey.

  The Tao becomes the ten thousand things, only to have the experiences the ten thousand things have of each other. We can only experience while being fractionated. We do this for a while, and if we are fortunate enough, we come to realize that fractionation of the whole does not mean that the fractionated pieces are distinct or separate from the whole which fractionated. We are all pieces of Oneness. The fractionation does not make us ‘other than’ the Oneness, any more than ice crystals are ‘other than’ water or a wave is ‘other than’ the sea.

  You and I are not ‘other than’ the Tao in which the gender-opposites awaken, dance their spiral creation of the uni-verse (one song/Word) and then return to rest.