Chrysalis – I am. Chrysalis – my home.
I am recalibrating.
An embodiment of transformation, pain, and awakening the wild within.
“Recalibration is the fearful caterpillar in the cocoon becoming the future butterfly.”
– Steve Ahnael Nobel, Personal Transitions (2022)
A little about the painting:
Its name is Chrysalis. It was born on my kitchen counter when I poured black acrylic ink on canvas. It formed a spiderweb-like image as I swirled the ink around. Then I painted a butterfly at its center. As the process continued, the butterfly disappeared, what emerged was Chrysalis — an embodiment of becoming. This piece is a raw and honest encounter with pain, fear, and rebirth. It invites us to sit with our shadows and awaken the wild within.
This painting carries the energy of becoming. It is a return – return to freedom. Yet, it does not free you. It opens the door to freedom. The day I started the painting, I opened my door to alchemical change. My transformation is not complete but my journey with the painting is.
Through the painting we meet our shadows, we transmute what is ready to be transmuted, we bring parts of the unconscious self to life. We start the process of becoming the butterfly – wild, beautiful, free, undefined, raw, and real.
Now the painting speaks:
My name is Chrysalis. I am at the end of an era and the beginning of what was always meant to be. This is one of the major turning points in my journey. What you see is my transformation from the exterior.
In the interior, I feel pain, fear, fire, and sadness. I sit with it. I accept all of it. Yes, this is my recalibration. Yes, it feels like the end. I hear me. I accept me. I am me. Thus, I become.
My story started on a stormy night, while the winds raged, the rain poured, and the space smelled of fresh mud. My mother had a dream. The little one inside her womb showed up as an offering of fruits on a platter, quarter empty. This dream always intrigued me. Questions swirled in my head – Why was the offering of fruits not a full platter? What did the quarter empty part signify? I was curious. I had no answers.
Now as it happens my birth was not unique. I came into this world as an embryo. I absorbed the family dynamics available to me in the womb. I also merged with the ancestral lines brought by my parents. Alongside, I packed into my subconscious learnings, experiences and skills that were necessary for my soul to make this life successful. Yes, I am using the word “successful” but with a nuance. This is not success as defined by culture nor society. Succeeding, as used here, would mean fulfilling the quest planned by my soul in this life. Now, since all of us come into existence with the common aim of fulfilling our life mission, no birth by itself is unique.
The uniqueness of every birth is around what we are meant to do in our lifetime. This is what decides when, where, how and what we are born to. We are always born into the perfect setting that will give us a headstart into our journey to complete the task we have planned for ourselves. The setting will involve people, places and stories that would need to play out in order to contribute to the experience, transformation, healing and growth the soul desires.
We are born and then we are named. I loved my name – Chrysalis. Today, the name Chrysalis carries a deeper meaning. Chrysalis is the mask I wore as I underwent transformation. It is still the mask I wear as I rest before rising again. Chrysalis meant home, meant rebirth, meant leaving home.
Looking back, my childhood was filled with comics, books, flowers and butterflies. I loved butterflies, especially the little blue and yellow ones that flew around pea plants and flowers. I thought butterflies would bring me luck so I tried to trap them by chasing them around the garden.
This little butterfly lover carried darkness within. What I am now, is the splitting of that darkness. The darkness I carried with me for most of my life was one of loneliness, helplessness, abandonment, betrayal and the hidden desire to be wanted for who I am. And, yet I did know who I was.
To overcome this darkness I wished for magic, magical people and magical lands. Magic never came. The trials continued.
Then came early adulthood. The ordeals transformed from seeking but grasping nothing to seeking and grasping. At first, ‘the grasping’ soothed the conscious mind. It also soothed the darkness that lived inside me. My little heart bounced with joy because it had something to hold. And thus started the journey of holding darkness and interacting with it. The exploration and interplay with my darkness showed up as self betrayal, non-existent boundaries, anxiety and finally complete breakdown. By now I feared butterflies. I had become the Chrysalis in exile from myself.
During my breakdown, I walked hand in hand with my darkness. Sometimes when the flame in me was about to extinguish angels showed up to hold our hand and lead us back to safety. This period was my first real walk with darkness and the toughest.
Three decades had passed. I was still Chrysalis. I was not moving. The lessons would repeat around in circles with small variances. They tended to repeat around my core wounds of self, belongingness, and security. With every rerun of the same chapter, I learned more about my life, my journey and what I was becoming.
At one point during these transformative phases, I turned to ash. As I lay conscious, surrounded by the burnt parts of me, I looked into my soul and said, “no more please.” The painful lessons halted. The shell that protected my lessons cracked. Healing energy swarmed in like a raging tornado. My senses shook. Magic flowed through my veins. This marked the end of intense lesson-based training and the start of recalibration. I resisted less and learnt more. The pain subsided.
A blue magical transformational light was now available to me to release what no longer served me. Life became easier. The darkness had transmuted and integrated in me. I learnt to understand what it was trying to teach me.
The darkness has long been my companion. They are the wounds around the self. These form core inner child wounds created during the birthing and childhood stage. These wounds later manifest in various relationships and situations and become the ground where our soul plays out issues related to abandonment, unworthiness, betrayal, test our boundaries and transform the self. Life keeps reigniting the original wound till we understand and transform.
In my journey through the dark, the winter had lasted long. However, I can now say I am nearing the spring of my life.
I retain all the experiences. The painful moments do not hurt any more. The happy moments bring me joy. I am coherently able to decipher situations without losing myself. If I do lose myself for a short while, I am now able to comprehend what happened. This makes the release and integration easier. The soul and I are grateful for the varied experiences that shaped and are shaping me to who I am to become for the final journey of this lifetime.
Is there anywhere that one can look to understand core wounds one brings at birth. Yes, of course. For example, astrological placement.
Let’s look at this small detail. The fourth house in one’s birth chart is the channel through which the inner child, its roles and the roles of those around it can be understood. While it does not tell the whole story, it does tell a part of the story. I, Chrysalis, was born with Neptune in Sagittarius in my fourth house. What does this mean?
I always thought home was somewhere outside of me. I also looked for someone else to build my self worth, peace and happiness. I had placed all that I desired on the outside but who was I on the inside? The answer was darkness. I was dark on the inside. No, I had not put all my light outside, but I was born with the darkness within. All that was happening was leading me to find the light within the darkness. I had to really see to recognise the light within, but to really see I had to walk through the mirage that my soul had created on the inside. Today, I understand my self worth, I found peace in me and that led me to realise that home was around me, for I am Chrysalis. I am not a person bound by place or time. This is not my story. My story is to be in exile and yet at home for I am home. This was what Neptune in Sagittarius in my fourth house meant. As I walk through the illusion my home emerges, a home free of grounding and yet grounded in the self.
The Neptune was what showed that I, Chrysalis, would leave every physical home I ever found. I would be displaced whenever I sought steady ground. This to and fro of having and yet not having finally broke the disillusionment around the ideas of belonging and acceptance. I was never meant to find home in the conventional sense of home and hearth and this is my journey. I was meant to go through transformations and energetic clearings before I recognised that what I was looking for is me. The free Sagittarius in the house of home told the story of the seeker for whom home will only be found through freedom and the path to freedom was through the self. Till then I live in exile, in silence and finally in acceptance.
Isn’t life magical? I looked for magic when magic was happening in me.
I am a nomad free yet tortured by the desire for home. I had built castles of air and I called them home. A longing for belongingness. I unmasked and yet I am unmasking. As I unmask I enforce my boundaries and my self worth. I dare to dream again. This time I dream of spring for the winter has been long.
I have lost everything. The axe fell and cut the last straw. I could hold on to nothing. It will soon be time to move on.
For now, I, Chrysalis, am at home in my Chrysalis. I will leave soon for the butterfly in me awaits.
At the present moment I remain suspended in liminal space. I have been here for a while now. I am probably resting, or maybe I am still transforming. There is not much I can say about this space nor what is going on. I was what you cannot see no more for I have transformed; yet not completely. I see the doubtful glances when you look at me. What you see is the mask, for you will not witness my transformation in the version you are now. Transformation only makes sense when the mask falls, mine and yours. So whenever you look at me, I suggest that you do not resist the conflict, accept me as how your heart wants to. I will not be dimmed by your judgements and neither will you. Energy will continue to flow where it must flow. However, if you attempt to dim my light, energy will clear the way for me to continue flowing scintillatingly.
What I am is bright white light with swirls of blue.
I, Chrysalis, now stand at the dawn of my spring. There is one last clearing that needs to be done before the canvas wipes clean. After that all that will be left is the butterfly.
The transformation is the winter of one’s life. In my case it was a winter that spanned through decades.
At this point, I am not so afraid of butterflies anymore. I am ready to release my cocoon and continue to the next phase. Till then I am in seclusion, slowly returning to the self.
This is the life I choose. Once a journey culminates the next one begins but for the other to begin the old must end. When the Chrysalis ends, the home will end too. My time as a butterfly will be a new home amongst the flowers. The flowers await my arrival as I await the coming of my spring.
Butterfly – I will be. Freedom – my home.