Chrysalis
Every so often God lovingly summons me to spin myself a figurative chrysalis, a timeout from the rhythms of normal life.
“In soul-making we can’t bypass the cocoon,” author Sue Monk Kidd says. “There’s always the husk of waiting somewhere in the corner.”
In other words, we’re invited to both embrace and endure a season of claustrophobic dark where transformation occurs — sometimes atom by atom.
To weather being set apart “involves weaving an environment of prayer,” Kidd adds. “It’s not about talking and doing and thinking. It’s about postures of the Spirit . . . turning oneself upside down so that everything is emptied out and God can flow in.”
Some will equate this process with conversion. Others believe it’s a recurring experience meant to enhance a new stage of faith, not a onetime event.
Me? I’m a serial cocoon-ist.
Regardless of where you land, here are a few secrets I find heartening.
For instance, the physical anchoring point of the butterfly pupa to the twig is a tiny, built-in hook. It’s called the “cremaster.” The creature relies on this attachment to survive the cold as well as the winter winds.
I’m thinking spiritual velcro.
CHRYSALIS PRAYER . . . IS WAITING PRAYER — aka dis-assemble-ment. Nobody’s favorite.
But how awesome that grace, at every turn, meets our expectant, if feeble, vigilance. And how sobering that this same grace may reduce us to goo.
God reconfigures us while we wait . . . in the dark . . . often clueless.
Waiting prayer is a thorny yet sacred wonder: wrenching as that ambush of tears we can’t explain; alarming as finding ourselves in fetal position; raw as our candid “Who cares? I’m outta here.”
THESE, TOO, ARE PRAYERS.
Still, don’t we fear that those we love may turn away, dismayed by how changed we are?
“Where there’s no risk, there’s no becoming. And where there’s no becoming, there’s no real life.
So we give people time, accept their resistance by listening to their fears, speak honestly of our path, and go on quietly finding our new wingspan.” —Sue Monk Kidd
Saying Yes multiple times to a life newly curtailed? This is courage, resolutely embodied.
I’m thinking of Jesus . . .
“Afterward, taking his body, Joseph and Nicodemus wrapped it in strips of linen, then laid him in the garden tomb.
Sounds cocoon-ish to me.
“The third day, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene saw that the stone had been removed.”
At the right time the cremaster, or seal, gives way to resurrection energy.
“Who is it you are looking for?” Jesus asks Mary. For she does not recognize him. Resurrection is transformation.
“I have seen the Lord!” Mary tells the others.
Our Savior — “for the joy set before him” — embraced separation, transformation, and emergence. Now, he intercedes for us.
ARE WE BORN TO SOAR?
In Hope for the Flowers, by Tricia Paulus, a caterpillar tells its curious pal, “I’m making a cocoon. It looks like I’m hiding, I know, but a cocoon is no escape. It’s an in-between house where the change takes place . . . the becoming . . . takes time.”
But did you know some caterpillars resist the chrysalis? Preferring larval life, they suspend their development, cling to what is known and familiar. Scientists call this the “diapause.”
Sometimes I resist the urgent press of life within: I shrink back from the call. Distract or numb myself. Justify my inaction.
My friend Pamela suggests it helps to view dread as a unit of neutral energy. Which I can aim. Hopefully, toward growth.
“Every time we face the light, the shadows fall behind us,” Kidd says.
Separation.
Transformation.
Emergence.
“Behold,” God says, “I make all things new” (Rev. 21:5).
Friends, which stage are you in, or perhaps nearing, at present?
You might also enjoy Butterflies Worth Befriending, from the archives
Chrysalis: Photo by Ikhsan Fauzi on Unsplash
Butterfly on orange 
flower: Photo by Yuichi Kageyama on Unsplash
Beautiful words. I resonate so deeply with this as a fellow serial cocoon-ist. When the Heart Waits and Hope for the Flowers have been such encouraging reads over the years for me too.
Thinking of how “cremaster” could be considered a cord of sorts and how the Hebrew word for hope can mean both expectation or cord (Ps. 62:5, 71:5, Jer 29:11). How beautiful to imagine our hope, or expectation, in the Lord as a cord – a creamster – binding us securely to Him in our time of waiting and cocooning.
Hi dear Amber,
I love learning this about you, that you, too, are a serial cocoon-ist. Though I have to say, it’s not surprising, having been in your tranquil, joyous presence as well as in touch online over the years.
I am delighted by this new meaning of the Hebrew word, thank you! This is MARVELOUS to ponder. I am so glad you shared this and the references, too.
What stage are in, nearing, at present, you ask?
Learning these…
Time out.
Where transformation occurs.
God reconfigures us while we wait . . . in the dark . . . often clueless.
Where there’s no risk, there’s no becoming.
I guess I find myself, becoming.
Thankful He doesn’t leave well enough alone.
Thank you for wordsmithing.
Words for when
where you are
could be a poem
Perhaps
it is lonely,
at times,
this place
to “be”—
the next stage
of becoming,
drawn
via risk
from “well enough,”
into the holy
dark, alone,
yet with Him,
in time, yet
beyond Time,
not lonely
but more
wholly finding,
and being
found, thanking
and thankful.
Rick, does it ever feel kinda like this?
Whoa.
I just read this multiple times.
Yes.
It does.
Thank you.
You’re so welcome, my friend.
It did me good, too. I’ve not been able to write a new poem for a while now. It felt good. :>)
I love the phrase you coined, Laurie, ‘nano sabbaticals’ – which for some of us are meant to become more central macro ones in our lives: set apart times for praying, learning, hearing, healing, renewal and restoration. I resonate so much with your list of gerunds ending in ‘ing,’ Judy!
With all my heart, I believe that when we in concoon time above all, it is the prayers of others that can reach parts of our lives that our own cannot, and which vitally effect our ability to be and function well for the Lord. We feel the difference immediately don’t we – and the absence of His leading and presence if it is not forthcoming.
There are many reasons why we may find it difficult to ask for prayer, but Paul did not hesitaste to round it up and to urge people to pray for him, as well as for all that he was involved in, and it is grat habit to get into to keep people in the loop and informed. And because we can pray with the faith, love and objectivity that it is often hard to reach when praying for ourselves from within a cocoon – whether one that is primarily of God’s specific leading or simply a response to challenging circumstances – we, of course, can do as much in return for others.
As the husband of a midwife (what a lovely image to have alighted on Laurie!) I can certainly echo the oft-heard encouragement in maternity wards to PUSH! Or, in our terminology, to Pray Until Something Happens. But whilst it is comparatively easy for most of us, if we have an open approach to life, to ask friends to gather round to pray for something specific that we are engaged in – after all, everyone worth their salt can relate to something as obviously ‘spiritual’ as leading a Bible Study, most of us find it harder to admit to being in an uncertain place and state – and maybe not even knowing why or what that is; yet that may be precisely the time when we are most in need of such support, however humbling and wimpish it may sometimes feel to ask for it.
We will all be familiar with the African proverb, ‘It takes a village to raise a child.’ How at odds that is with our overly narrow and individualistic way of life, but how true it is too at a spiritual level. It has been heartening to see how honest many have been here in these comments that have been posted, as in the unposted but deeply-felt heart agreement that many others will undoubtedly share.
Honour our faithfulness in the darkness of the cocoon, Lord, just as You do when we are ‘flowing’ in the light. Thank You that You are always at work in our lives – and perhaps most especially of all when are in a withdrawn state, where Your truths and leadings penetrate deepest. Thank You that as CS Lewis so powerfully expressed it, the devil fears nothing so much as when we look around on a world from which – for whatever reason – every trace of You may appear to have dipped and vanished, and yet resolve to keep trusting, praying, believing – and PUSHing!
Bless every single of you who receive these precious writings – and bless especially our friend and scribe, Laurie Klein.
Dear Robert, THANK YOU for this beautifully persuasive admonition to ask others for prayer, especially when we are in-between and “all wound up” (in a cocoon, or not!).
So often I need to suspend my wish for privacy and my “loner” tendencies . . . and reach out, instead. I fear I am more eager to be part of someone else’s “village” than to summon my own.
This is such a timely reflection for me, my friend, and no doubt, for many who stop here. Thank you for your blessing and for praying for all who gather here!
May the energy of these richly renewing words you’ve shared with us also refresh you and yours (Pr.11:25). So grateful for you!
Oh, friend…. you know I’m in the waiting-in-between stage. So this post was perfectly timed, as God is wont to do.
Thank you.
Cocooning with you….
Yes. I do. And it can be a strain for those of us who thrive on making plans and staying connected and creatively busy. All good things in their season, though, yes?
So. These extended segues. I’ve started to think of them as nano-sabbaticals. Although sometimes they’ve been macro!
A set apart time for learning, healing, eventual inspiration, and renewal.
Dear friend, may the closer contours of this time apart be a blessing as you “wait with expectation” (that phrase from one of the psalms, I forget which one, but I’ve always liked those hope-drenched words). And that brings me to “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul” . . . and from there to the cremaster, anchoring the new-creature-(or calling)-in-progress . . . which makes me curious, which makes me feel alive, even in the most curtailed space. A surprising goodness.
Thank You for this lovely post, Laurie. I love the idea of you being a serious cocoonist!
One way or another, so much of our lives are spent in waiting. Sometimes with great expectation and hope that some particular event or friendship will live up to our immense expectations (and our great joy when it goes even better than we had hoped!) – or our great disappointment if it does not. But where for some even the desire to wait on the Lord has been bruised by repeated crushings and daunting obstacles that seem as though they will never shift, may the Lord work deeply, both in our hearts and in the external circumstances, to restore the resilience we are all in need of to endure the physical, emotional and spiritual challenges that times of waiting invariably require.
That indeed may be the time when we say, ‘Lord, take me into the cocoon where I truly can let go of what I was, and even what I hope to be and to do, and simply say, “I want only what You want Lord, and therefore I wait in hope, but with my spirit quiet because for now it is very dark. Your light is still there, for the darkness can never put it out, but for now, in this season, I cannot see it. Thank you for those who will hold the Christ-light for me and pray to keep me safe and trusting in this cocoon.”
Corrie Ten Boom used to say, ‘I am living under the shadow of His wing – and it is dark under His wing!’ Therefore we pray with David, ‘Lord, lead me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation – and for You I wait all the day long. (Ps. 25:5 ESV)
From somewhere deep within throbs and resonates the ultimate call and summons: ‘Wait on the Lord; be of good courage and wait in and for Him; He will not fail to come through for You in one way or another.’ And beyond our immediate predicaments, the Bridegroom will come, the darkness will part, and the waiting, yes even this like all other waitings too, will reach its appointed glorious God-sent Heaven-bound Kingdom end.
Dear Robert, thank you for these love-burnished, lived-into words of hope and resilience—no matter where we find ourselves, no matter what befalls us.
This observation about life in the cocoon especially arrests and heartens me this morning:
“…[Lord] your light is still there … but for now, in this season, I cannot see it. Thank you for those who will hold the Christ-light for me and pray to keep me safe and trusting in this cocoon.”
Thank you for reminding us that, as praying friends, we also hold those we love who are cloistered away for a season, our prayers for them a raised lamp (sometimes, a small, steady pilot light). When I wrote the post, I hadn’t considered the community gathered on behalf of one’s time in solitude or isolation. Perhaps those of us on the “outside” become a little like midwives-in-prayer?
I am in a “hold on tight place”..,a “listen up place”. Getting comfortable…
Dear Anne, I can’t help picturing the alertness and surrender you describe as a “held” place, as well. What fidelity and commitment! What grace!—to increasingly inhabit a profound depth of attention amid changing circumstance, which can, at times, feel exhausting. May comfort increase, dear friend, and may its goodness be contagious.
Love you!
Separation
Transformation
Emergence
I am certain I am in all three stages, at once. I have great thanks to you Laurie, and to each of you who have responded and shared your hearts. Your words help me disentangle my thoughts and embrace this “in between house, where change takes place”. And today, the cocoon is a safe place of protection and comfort, a good place to be.
Thank you Laurie and friends.
Dear Roberta, so often you broaden my mind for new possibilities that expand my understanding. I marvel over the ways God uniquely meets us. I am grinning as I type , picturing you tenderly held in safety, protection, and comfort today.
Dear Laurie – I don’t often comment, but I always read your posts and savour your beautiful words and your beautiful heart behind them. Thank you again for these words of inspiration. I am especially struck by this sentence: “But how awesome that grace, at every turn, meets our expectant, if feeble, vigilance.” Yes, how awesome–and the “but” reminds me that sometimes that grace seems to appear suddenly, a surprising and welcome interruption in the midst of life.
Dear April, as a fellow writer you’ll likely appreciate that I typed in the “But,” then took it out, then replaced it, took it out again, then finally knew it belonged there!
And, as a fellow writer, I thank you for highlighting that simple word that can carry so many different emotions.
Thank you for savoring the posts as they come, and seeing my heart. What a gift you are to me and to so many others!
Here’s to summer, and more grace-led interruptions!
I am in a separation period in the state of diapause. My retirement from teaching was easy. Sure, I missed it, but it was a good decision that allowed me to fully engage in my music and my work with the Symphony. I could see an “end date” from teaching. I never could picture an “end date” to performing with the Symphony. Thus, my state of diapause. I have no clue what God has in store for me and I am having a hard time letting go.
Dear Bryan, such sweeping changes——especially for a world-class teacher and performer as passionate, dedicated, and skilled as you are. I imagine a host of mingled thoughts and emotions . . . and at times, a lack thereof. A numbness.
Purpose will resurface, newly contoured. This I know.
A friend recently said she’d given herself a year to ease past and into and through all that accompanies retirement. Making space to grieve. Forgoing her natural haste to fill the emptiness.
Perhaps it’s more like walking the beach, step by step, only to look back in a while and notice that all this time your footprints have been gradually welling up with bits of sky, reflected in rising sea. I’m thinking the diapause can also be one’s gentle, incremental surrender to small shifts at a time . . .
You, dear friend, will be in our prayers. <3
Bah humbug on blog formatting. The poem indents in those areas where it would obscure the acrostic. Alas. But hopefully, you get the picture. Oh my. Just reread it; I’ve not read this in several years. I talk about imbalance! I don’t know if it were a premonition, but if so, then I can hold to the truth and hope that one day, I’ll soar!
Love you!
xo
L
Lynn, I get the picture, as well as the stirring vision and longing expressed. It’s tricky sometimes, transferring lines in seemingly hostile formats!
But no fear. Even interwoven, the capitals carry your intent and inherent music.
In thinking about your poem metaphorically, I’m struck by the emerging creature amid the needful preparing for flight . . . and yet this vital activity comes to full fruition via “the measured waiting and pulsèd stillness.”
(BTW: I love the poem’s resonant “p” and “w” sounds throughout.)
You say:
“I think I’m in diapause. I’ve thought a lot about that lately, too. It’s not meant to be permanent. Ugh. Granted, constant vertigo slows me, but it’s more. I need spiritual metamorphosis, I think.”
When I think of vertigo, my friend, it seems more crucible than chrysalis. You’ve endured much. For a very long time. I am trusting with you for equilibrium, and, in His time . . . take off!
Your comments are always attentive and encouraging, and I treasure them and you!! Thank you! These will go into my journal for contemplation and hope. You lavish such generous doses of hope at every turn. And honestly, yes, crucible. I think too once I wrote about a chrysalis crucible (but in the past for another trial). I’m clinging to Him and your vision for take-off! Whee!
I smiled over your coinage of “hostile formatting.” Only you! 🙂 You express the most pedestrian mechanics like the true poet you are. Ah, would that hostile formatting be the only thing hostile online! I think many of us, including me, could use a little spiritual “formatting” about now! I’m trying so hard to be good and not join in the hostile chorus clashing and crashing about in cyberspace. Thank you dear one for who you are and all that you so mellifluously and generously express!
xo
L
“doses of hope at every turn” . . .
Now there’s a phrase I’d like to live into more and more!—especially since my thoughts and attitudes, historically, have swung toward pessimism. (My inner Eeyore, having its bray.)
Thank you! I take this to heart.
ALSO? It could be a chapter title. Or a line in a poem or song. A prayer! That you can string those words together despite seasons of intense suffering imbues them with poignant inspiration.
A beautiful and encouraging way to look at life’s perplexing changes. Thank you for this.
Linda Jo, thank you!
And thank you for using the word “perplexing.”
Some days I suspect my restive search for answers in life is partly an occupational hazard! As wordsmiths we chase down meaning, cause, and catalyst. We eavesdrop on subtext . . . then escalate action—because how else on earth do we control an unfolding narrative we don’t yet understand?!
“Look to heaven,” I hear the still small voice murmur.
So interesting, this tandem journey of faith and art.
You’ve encouraged me so often through your blog. I’m deeply glad you found encouragement here.
This is really lovely, dear Laurie, as usual, and how I love butterflies, and the whole chrysalis-to-soaring transformation. I write about this in my book in the chapter called “Butterfly Blessings” (and also in a story about how Sheridan and I raised a butterfly, she named Sunrise). AND I love Kidd’s book and have read it a number of times. It has so many scribbled notes of mine, that I can barely decipher *her* writing anymore. And now? I think I’m in diapause. I’ve thought a lot about that lately, too. It’s not meant to be permanent. Ugh. Granted, constant vertigo slows me, but it’s more. I need spiritual metamorphosis, I think. And both the chrysalis and butterfly are tomb-to-resurrection symbols as you point out, long observed and revered in Christendom (even, I think etched in the catacombs). I love that nothing, not death itself could keep Jesus bound, and because of that, we too will be free from spiritual death, and our bodies will one day be metamorphosed to soar!
I took a journaling class once on transitions, and wrote this little acrostic poem I thought I’d share with you. You will see the words “new beginning,” vertically, shaping the acrostic and giving flesh to the poem. When I pen “alpha” poems, the acrostic is always “bolded” for easier recognition.
Your prose always soars with breathtaking beauty, but not with butterfly weightlessness. It’s always glory-drenched with the weight of wisdom.
Thank you!!
xo
Lynn
New Beginnings
by Lynn D. Morrissey
“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”—Is. 43:19
Now, as I
Emerge from my chrysalis,
Wings still wet and weighted, still needing to be primed and pumped and filled
with life and
Blood and strength, before I rise air-borne, I
Envision possibilities—what shape dried wings will take when lifted up with air,
what horizons eyes will see when searching high above the
Ground, high above outmoded patterns, ways of being.
I take time now to picture and plan, practice and prepare,
Not taking to the skies before my time,
Not aborting my flight through over-eagerness, imbalance. Only
In patience, in measured waiting and pulsèd stillness, my
New beginning will come—suddenly,
with a rush of wind, a whirl of wonder, in God’s own
Good and perfect time. And because I will be ready, I will
Soar!
Another beautiful post, Laurie–insightful and poetically written. Praise God, he “reconfigures us while we wait . . . in the dark . . . often clueless.” How amazing that even when our lives feel set on pause, He’s at work within us. We can rest in his faithfulness; wait time is never wasted. (I wish I’d known this when I was younger!)
Nancy, I like this so much: “Wait time is never wasted.”
This glimpse of God’s perspective . . . in five words . . . pulses with the potential to alter (and altar) my outlook. Temper my impatience.
So essential—and also catchy enough to lodge in the frontal files of my dodgy memory. :>)
Thank you! I want to remember this—LIVE this—next time I get antsy.
Hi Laurie,
I almost called my book Chrysalis. For several years of writing my story , that word resonated to my heart. And I found it very intriguing that chrysalis most refers to butterflies and cocoons to moths. (I googled the difference between the two- more of a thorough explanation for sure, but that’s my take away). I really appreciated reading your insights. Thank you for sharing- love reading your beautiful writings:)
Oh what’s the name of your book?? I wrote about the chrysalis (and yes, cocoon only applies to moths), and I write about this in my book as well. Butterflies speak my heart’s language, and apparently, yours too! All the best with your book, Georgia!
Lynn
Dear Georgia, I can see why you considered it! I am looking forward to the timely “emergence” of your book.
Thank you for clarifying the terminology! Now I better understand who’s living where when it’s time for a stint in “the next in-between house.” :>)
I’m so grateful for your comments and presence here. <3
You ask what stage of prayer…I’m afraid I must use a different metaphor. I am where I realize I am separate from my mother but was made in her womb. I am not my mother but oddly part of her is me. Prayer is like this for me but with God rather than my mother. God singing over me. There is that. But what I want to tell you about is how I am the child with my eyes locked on God, watching God’s eyes and lips, the expression on his face and in so doing I am learning what I need to know about many things but more so I am becoming like him. Babies mimic by nature. That kind of prayer.
This is not to say things are not hard or that I am not occasionally choking in prayer on impatient tears and stubborn refusals and the inevitable pity party. It is to say that the above is what I go back to. My internal compass is set to that north star.
“Eyes locked on God” feels utterly present tense and yet . . . oh, the time-travel image I’m getting. Your description floats me back to the early gaze of my daughters, studying my face as if to memorize it, serenely focused and seemingly rapt, absorbing more than I, even now, dare imagine.
THAT kind of honest, unguarded, depth of attention. Hungry to know.
What a gift to remember! Then apply, as led.
Thank you.
I love your writings, Laurie… You know that. Both the what you write and the how you write. But this particular writing, dear one… burrows particularly deeply into what I know as truth: the hooking, the clinging, the weaving, the cocooning, the waiting, the transforming, the unraveling, the expanding, the recognizing, the risking, the trusting…all those “ings” attach to the abode of abide; the name of my cocoon and the love story of my journey with Jesus.
Thank you for this blog post, dear sister sojourner, who continues to grow and know the deeper and deeper.
Long live the “ings!” What a glorious list to read. Verbs engaged in ongoing work (and play!)—jump-started by grace amid circumstance, accomplishing more than we could ever think or imagine . . .
I see you dancing your comment, my friend.
And? While I’m here: a few days ago I sampled Lesley’s first chapter, replete with your crystalline prompts. Talk about an interactive capstone. Brilliant!
Oh Laurie,
Your words are so poetic.
They often stick in my mind like a beloved 60s song.
“Me, I’m a serial cocoon-ist”
That’s a quote that will return to my delight.
Another that I think on often is, “picture elderly bumblebees”
From one cocoonist to another…I wish you sweet moments of loving change.
Dear Gail,
No wonder I feel an extra kinship with you:
sister in faith,
comrade in cocooning,
collector of words that chime and delight . . .
Thank you for that gently abounding wish!
And the same for you as well. <3