To be real with you… I’ve been better. I’ll spare you the details.
People kept telling me all this challenge would be worthwhile. They said,

“You’re experiencing a spiritual initiation!”
or,
“You’re facing trials now so that you can emerge transformed.”
or,
“You’re a caterpillar almost ready to become a butterfly!”

Let’s all take a moment to collectively roll our eyes at this spiritual metaphor.

It didn’t stop there. This symbol kept coming to me through songs, oracle cards, and colorful insect visitors in my little garden space.

Always an overachiever, I kept thinking, “Okay. This sucks but I’m leveling up. How long will it be until I become a butterfly? How can I try harder so I can get there faster? And what siddhis or boons will I receive once I’m there?”

I meditated harder, practiced asana more fiercely and cleaned up my diet. I obtained more books and made more appointments with my energy worker mentor so I could absorb more information.

I was trying, trying, trying so hard to learn the lessons I was supposed to learn because I wanted my suffering to be over and I wanted to be enlightened already.

Each day, I clamored for spiritual success amidst my growing pile of failure.

I hated butterflies. I hated their stupid colors and their stupid little antennae and the stupid way they float through life. And I hated how everyone liked to shove these weightless creatures in my face while I was feeling so heavy.

I got so SICK of my cocoon. I also literally became sick, injured and physically unable to move. I couldn’t do anything else but sit in the present and meditate on my pain.

This is when I discovered the goddess Dhumavati. Dhumavati is the archetype of failure, disappointment and surrender. She is described as a wrinkled, ugly old woman with dirty, disheveled clothes and hair. She is widowed, which Indian culture believes is one of the most inauspicious life circumstances to experience. 

Basically, if you’re evaluating Dhumavati through society’s standards, she’s having the WORST time. She has nothing to her name, her beauty has left her, and she has been weathered irreversibly by life.

Here’s what makes her powerful; Dhumavati doesn’t give a damn about any of it. She knows life is hard, and no distractions will relieve her from the challenge of it all. She doesn’t care about success, wealth and worldly possessions, opinions or expectations because she has something more potent than any of that – peace.

Peer past the haggard exterior and her eyes reveal a spark not extinguished by hardship or ranked by importance. This soul is resilient, strong, beautiful and unchanged.

Dhumavati is akin to the crone, an old, disagreeable witch who lives alone and doesn’t care to be acknowledged. She has been around the block. She has stopped trying to acquire, accomplish, do or please. To her, these are fruitless endeavors. Her only truth is peace, and she never has to seek anything outside herself to find it.

When we collapse from exhaustion during prolonged periods of pain or hardship, after life has beaten us down so much we cannot possibly care what happens next, THIS is when we emerge from the chrysalis and Dhumavati is here to embrace us.

Birth, Life, Death.

Maiden, Mother, Crone.

Caterpillar, Cocoon, Butterfly.

Our wings begin to grow after we surrender the pointless weight of expectation and success. 

We realize that staying on the ground is our own self-limitation. 

We fly simply because there’s nothing left holding us down.