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Butterfly elixir inspires us to see the wonder in life. With a light touch and ability to quickly shift gears, Butterfly helps us to simply 'land on' an issue - give it attention, see it, nourish oneself, and then move on to the next flower. It dissolves any tendencies we may have to fixate or get hung up in the details, particularly when it comes to the aspects of our own unfolding that need a soft touch. It allows for transformation from the inside out, with our inner-knowingness as our guide. Read more here!
When do you catch yourself perseverating, thinking about an issue for too long, or get looped in trying to figure things out? Place your awareness there and remind yourself of the spaciousness that surrounds you.
By being intentional when taking our flower essences, we remind ourselves, our guides and the universe what it is we want to embody. Choose one of the phrases below that most resonates, or make up your own! Every time you take your elixir, close your eyes and set your intention:
Transformation is joyful
I am light and free.
My inner wisdom is everything I need.
Life is full of wonder + joy.
To take it one step further, as you take your elixir and set your intention, visualize everyone else in this program, all around the world, feeling light and free. By connecting with others in our group, we exponentially multiply the benefit + ripple effect!
What makes you feel light + joyful?
What parts of you are ripe for transformation?
When do you have a tendency to fixate on details, and what usually pops you out of it?
What are your beliefs around what transformation entails/looks like? Is it heavy, hard and painful, or can it be light, effortless and joyful?
Prefer to have a printed sheet with the writing prompts, exquisite practices + a calendar to track your month?
Download the Butterfly Support Guide here.
When you find yourself getting hung up on details, wanting to ‘get to the bottom of things,’ or otherwise fixating, simply take note and see if you can embrace the Butterfly’s teaching: a light touch.
Go outside and enjoy the wind. Close your eyes, and as you experience the breeze, imagine the lightness of being a butterfly. See if you can allow the lightness of the breeze to uplift and refresh your body.
Consider the transparency of butterfly wings - they are inherently empty of color, and yet produce the most amazing displays of color. In what ways are we simply reflective/refractive of the environment we put ourselves in? In what ways can we utilize our own transparent ability to infuse joy and wonder into everyday life?
Bullet out five challenges you are proud to have overcome. What is a common theme among them? (Check out this story about the necessary struggle to become a butterfly.)
(USE FOR 15% OFF YOUR PURCHASE SITE-WIDE ALL THROUGH OCTOBER!)
I will help you:
Use me when you feel:
Welcome to the month of the Butterfly. This is our very first creature elixir. As we've emphasized before, no creatures have been harmed in the making of this elixir. I actually made it at the Botanical Garden here in Phoenix where I live, when they opened up a new butterfly garden, and I requested special permission to get in early, so I could come in before anyone came in to disturb the butterflies.
It's one of those exhibits where it's just.. It's teaming with butterflies. They land on your shoulders and your shirt and your head, and they're everywhere. All different types of Monarchs and Queens and different kinds that I don't remember the names of. I put out a bowl of water and they landed in the water, and drank from the water and fluttered around the water. So it was like quite a flurry.
So that's how the Butterfly Elixir was made. And this month is ... I mean, butterfly already when you look at it and kind of like makes you feel a sense of joy. But what I find most interesting is the way that they move. And, similar to other pollinators, how they are able to just sort of dart in and dart out, and land on one flower and land on another flower.
Rather than zooming around, like bees and hummingbirds, they're kind of like fluttering on the air currents, and their movements are so beautiful, and so light and so gentle. That's really the theme - one of the themes actually, for this month, is how light can we be. It's really light touch in and out, and especially if... I mean, there are so many elements to butterfly that we'll talk about later: such as how they transform and go into the cocoon, and what happens to them.
But just initially getting a bird's eye view of the butterfly, and how it darts in and darts out, and that will be the lesson that we'll want to embody is this ability to catch ourselves. If you listen to the awareness anchor – to catch ourselves when we are kind of like deeply entrenched and trying to figure something out or solve the problem or understand why something is happening, or figure out why something is disturbing us.
Rather than kind of go into the spiral of overthinking, and swirling down into trying to figure something out, it's retraining ourselves to really just have a light touch. And sometimes all that's necessary is to just ask a question that's kind of like zoom in, ask a question ... Like even just like asking yourself a question like, "I wonder why this is like this. I'm really curious." And then zooming back out.
Rather than, for example, if I were to do, let's say, transformation as self inquiry in a really heavy-handed way. So the opposite of Butterfly is: why is this pattern coming up in my life? Why am I like this, and why is this happening? And there's like a little bit of self-blame, and why is this happening again, and let me try to figure this out.
So rather than doing that, it's just sort of being curious and lightly jumping in or fluttering in like, "I wonder why this is like this." And then kind of fluttering back out. And Just creating space so that the answers can arise at their own pace and their own timing.
You might be having a shower in the morning and suddenly you're like, "Oh my God, I know the answer to that question." And that's like one of the loveliest ways to access our own wisdom and our own knowingness, when things are like 100% coming from knowingness, they usually have that way of just sort of flittering to the surface really quickly like that. Like the flash of insight.
So light touch, come in and come out, and noticing what it feels like to just sort of put something on the shelf. If you have an issue arise or something that throws you off kilter, or something that throws you off balance, or is somehow slightly disturbing to you; rather than jump to any conclusions, just sort of put it on the shelf and just kind of see how it marinates or ferments. Marinates or ferments.
Also, because I looked at the astrology for the month of October, I recorded the Moonshine episode – if you listened to the Flowerlounge podcast and dang, October is like one of those months, and I'm not sure. We'll see, right? We'll see how it plays out. But either it was the words that Kristina chose or we're just kind of like ...This month is going to be ... Looking at it it's like "Wow, I can see why you would want to take Butterfly this month." Because everything just kind of feels really heavy, like heavy, heavy, heavy.
So now I can see Butterfly, Joy Juice; Butterfly, Joy Juice; Butterfly, Joy Juice; Butterfly, Joy Juice, and just kind of keep coming back to really light touch, and light touch with yourself. Light touch with others, not getting too deep into things; light touch, light touch, and even if that means not having conversations that hash things out, just kind of lightly in and lightly out.
Noticing what it feels like to allow yourself the luxury of having a light touch and not having to dwell on things, and not having to figure things out. So that is the focus of this month, and of this first week. And question for this week would be, what does it feel like in your body when you envision yourself responding to something that really challenges or disturbs you?
What does it feel like in your body to imagine a light touch that you can sort of go in and go out, and you don't have to figure everything out. You can land, drink the nectar, get up, and go. And then when you're ready, you can drink the nectar of your own wisdom, and then get up and go. What does that feel like in your body, to have a really light touch, and not have to hash things out, or understand why something's happening?
I hope this resonates with you. If it does, let me know. If it doesn't, let me know. Email us, post on Facebook. This is kind of an interesting month, so any feedback you have, we'd love it.
This week, I would really like to talk about movement, and movement as a really helpful practice for popping you out of the heavy mode. Again, like I'm just beating us all over the head with butterfly wings here and joy juice. That if this month is heavy, we are going to want to have a light touch. One of the ways to do that is to move, is to actually move your body. So I'm curious, if you were to move, what would that look like to you?
It could be as simple as going for an extra walk. If you live in a big city where you already walk a lot, maybe you take a different route that's a little longer and look at what you see or what you discover on the way. Or if you are home and you want to crank up some music and just ... Oddly something I've been doing is when I have a little time or inclination, I will just do some leg lifts, some stomach crunches, which is something I probably haven't done since I was 18, and it's nice.
It just warms up all the muscles and gets the blood flowing, and it feels good. If I have resistance to doing it, I'll pair up with my 11-year-old niece who also has resistance against practicing her violin. So she'll play her violin and I'll do my little exercises, and it's just nice to get the blood flowing and to move. But it should be enjoyable.
It could be dancing. I was just thinking as I was doing my little exercises to the violin the other day, that what would it be like if I just sort of moved in a way that my body itself wants to move? What does that feel like? What does it actually want? "Oh, it wants to go like side to side in this interesting motion and engaging the hips like this. Oh, that's interesting. I'll do that for a while and see what happens. And what would be another movement that would feel really good? Oh, this would feel really good."
So you can also do that, as just completely give your body radical freedom on what it wants to do and how it wants to move. That's probably one of the most beneficial things, because you innately will likely move in a way that will activate the organ systems or do the inner chi development, or massage what needs to be massaged on the inside, just innately by what feels good to you. Maybe you love dancing like I do, or maybe you just want to turn on one song in the morning and dance your heart out.
Or maybe you like to do what's called 'shaking', which is a practice that Robin has taught at the retreat in Costa Rica where you sort of bounce on your feet. You see kids doing it a lot, naturally kind of just bouncing up and down. Or if it's getting some oil and giving yourself a little foot massage before you go to sleep, or some stretches.
What is a way to do a little bit of extra movement that feels fun and joyful, like a little warm up to you and a little treat? A little yumminess, that you made time for yourself and also it helps get you out of your mind, into your body. It gets you out of the heavy trying to figure things out into the, yeah, just moving, moving and being a creature of light. It's like being like a butterfly. You're moving. Butterflies are like ... unless they're cocooning, they're kind of constantly moving.
So question for this week is, if you were to give yourself a treat of movement, a movement treat each day ... literally, I'm talking like thirty seconds, sixty seconds, one minute, three minutes, five minutes, ten-minute walk. Whatever sounds magical and easy and juicy and effortless, and like, "Oh yeah, I could do that in my sleep." Like easy peasy peasy. If you could give yourself a movement treat every day this week, what would that look like? Try it. What does that feel like?
This week I want to talk about the transformative qualities of the butterfly. Everybody knows that the butterfly starts out as a caterpillar, and then goes into a cocoon and emerges as this beautiful butterfly. What also a lot of people know is that in that transformative process while in the cocoon, the caterpillar literally liquefies itself. It like literally in some ways dies, like from one form to the next. I mean, it's just like mind blowing to me. I cannot even imagine how this like huge, cute, striped, well that's if it’s a Monarch, but huge, cute caterpillar creates a cocoon around itself, and then literally liquefies it's body into like crystalline liquid so that transparent, iridescent wings can form from that crystalline liquid.I mean, it's absolutely mind blowing and it's insane when you think about it.
And so, I wanted to talk a little bit this week about if you were to go through that process, what would you need for your conditions, for your own conditions? I think it's interesting that when a butterfly goes through that huge transformative process, that it cocoons and there's no one else in there with it. It's not like holding hands with another caterpillar, hey let's go in and liquefy. It's a really solitary process and cocoon, I mean just by the nature of that beautiful work cocoon, it's like it's not just isolating yourself, it's like cocoon. It's almost like creating a womb for yourself.
I wanted to explore this week, like if you were going to create a cocoon for yourself, if you were going to create this sort of womb for rebirth or re-emerging or allowing yourself to become free of something, or allow a natural process to have it's way with you, for example. What would be the conditions that you would need? Like I'm sure butterflies choose areas where they're not going to be trampled by a lot of animals or something. They probably seek out this kind of private little space and then they wrap all of the leaves and material around them so that they're totally safe and protected, so they can do their thing.
So like what's your version of that? How do you encourage yourself to feel protected, to feel safe, to feel like you can go in and do inner work? That in other words you could be curious and ask questions of yourself, so that if you wanted to look at parts of yourself that were previously scary to you, that you could do that and be okay? So, what makes you feel protected and safe? What makes you feel cocooned to where you could say spend time alone but feel very like you're giving yourself the luxury of time, retreat.
And then in more just sort of like physical terms, are there other conditions that would help you in your own process of transformation? Like how last week I talked about movement or like joyful movement, practicing meditation or mindful awareness practices or other rituals that you may have. What kind of foods do you need? What really nourishes you, what types of teas or herbs and spices really deeply nourish you, so that it creates the best conditions for you to do the work of transformation?
For some people it may be like: I need to take extra iron because I just don't have enough energy. For others it could be: I need to take Chinese herbs in order to balance out my body. It could be I need to get enough sleep or take a bath and give myself a little self-care or make sure I'm spending enough time with my kids and my pets and my family.
For everyone it's different, but for you what are the conditions that you require or that you would like or that create the best scenario or environment for you to cocoon, to do self-exploration, to do self-inquiry, to look at whatever wants to arise, to be able to see things fall apart internally, externally? If you were going to create your perfect retreat, for example, this is kind of a nice way to think of it too, because rather than kind of like trying to fit it in your everyday life, you can allow yourself the imagination, freedom to say like if I were going to create my own perfect retreat, like a DIY retreat, like totally for myself, and it would have all the perfect elements, what would that be?
That will give you an idea then of things that feel really juicy and like a treat, so that then you can think about like oh, which of these things can I sort of work back into my daily life or on the weekend or when you have time for you. If you were going to design your perfect retreat, like your perfect cocoon time so that something totally mysterious could emerge. You don't even have to know what it is or what can happen, but if you were going to create your perfect retreat or cocoon for some mystery to emerge, what would that look like?
Last week we talked about butterfly in terms of what are the perfect conditions for you to experience transformation. What are the conditions to create this sort of perfect cocoon or retreat, whether that's more metaphorical or something you actually do or can weave somehow into your daily practice or on the weekend when you have extra time for something mysterious to emerge.
And today I want to talk a little bit about going into your own body and imagining that your own body is symbolic for the cocoon, in a sense. And that inside your heart or inside the cells of your body, right?
Oh my goodness, I was talking to Lisa the founder of Wei of Chocolate, last night, and she was telling me that, I can't remember his name, Rob, somebody, who she listens to for astrology. And he has these great, inspiring, encouraging words. And hers was about how much space there is in the body. And that, oh, what did she say? It's like, the actual amount of dense matter in each cell is like a pea compared to the ocean or something.
So literally like you're made of nothing. So even though we feel like we have these bodies that are heavy or tired or energized or stiff in the morning, or whatever we associate with our bodily form, inside each one of our cells there's actually vast amounts of space.
And so quite literally, if you were to speak to somebody like a quantum physics scientist, they'd say that your body is actually made up of vastly more space than actual dense material.
So, imagine your body like that, that it's essentially made of space. And then imagine that your body is the cocoon for this mystery to emerge. Or your body is something that can be surrendered into. Like this notion or concept of liquefying the caterpillar body into the cocoon.
Can you surrender into your own physical form as if it is a cocoon, as if it's totally protecting you and keeping you safe, so that whatever wants to arise can arise – whether that's past life memories, or emotions about something, or confusion about something, or clarity about something, or some wonderful new idea or vision that wants to emerge.
What does it feel like if your body is not only made of space, but it's also the container that holds you inside of it? So, it creates the conditions, you being embodied creates the conditions for your own transformation and evolution.
So literally as you're listening, become aware of your body in this moment. You can scan your body if you want to. Like starting at the top of your head. What your hair feels like? Noticing the muscles in your forehead. And around your eyebrows and your eye sockets. Noticing all those tiny little muscles that surround your ears. Your cheek muscles, all your facial muscles, around your nose and your lips, your jaw line. Down to your throat, the back of your neck? Oh, where the spine connects to your skull. And then your clavicle, the front, as well as all your shoulder blades and the back, and your shoulders and all of those muscles that love to carry all the tension.
And then scanning down your arms to your elbows, to your forearms, to your hands, your fingertips. The back up to where your arms meet your torso, becoming aware of your heart space, your chest. All the way down your ribs, down to that space in between your ribs, your diaphragm, your whole belly area, all the muscles in your belly and all the fascia that encases your organs. And then on the back side, following down your spine, underneath your shoulders blades, all the way down your middle and your lower back. All the way down to your coccyx, and where your pelvis circles around to the sides and connects to your hips.
Then where your hips have the rotators, where they connect to your thighs. Follow your thighs down to your knees, your shins, your calves, your ankles. The tops of your feet and the bottoms of your feet. And the toes and all way down to the tippy-tippy part of your toes, and your heels.
Just becoming aware of and acknowledging each and every piece of your body. You can see if there's an area that wants a little extra attention. Giving that area a little extra attention and awareness.
And then you can imagine as you take a deep breath in, and then as you exhale, imagine that you're just sinking into your own body. In your own body as the safe cocoon. You're safe and protected inside your own body. In which there exists a tremendous amount of space, because we are made of space. So we’re contained in our human form, but then when we sink more deeply into our human form, you kind of have this sensation that we're like swimming in space inside of our skin, inside of our form.
That anytime we need to we can just take a moment and breathe and exhale and sink into the cocoon of our own bodies. And if we don't feel well, if we feel in any way disturbed, we can just sink into our bodies and notice what that feels like. If our hearts are beating harder, thumping away, temperature is changing in our body, hot, cold, where we notice sensations. And you can even use this as a practice if something disturbs you or something arises that takes you off your balance. Is just closing your eyes, taking a few deep breaths, and sinking into the cocoon that is your human form.
Noticing what your body feels like. And that you are this container of space that has enough space that allows everything and anything to be there, to arise. Good, bad, ugly, uncomfortable, irritable, joyful, calm, sleepy. Everything can all fit in this spacious and vast container that is your human form – cocoon.
So the question for this week is, what does it feel like when you are able to sink into the refuge that is your own body?
I collected the Butterfly Elixir in the Butterfly Garden at the Phoenix Botanical Gardens during springtime. They gave me entry to the garden before opening, so I had the entire place to myself. I put out a bowl of purified water and watched as myriad butterflies would land upon the water, then continue on their flight.
(No butterflies were harmed in the making!)
Butterflies date all the way back to the Paleocene era, which was approximately 56 million years ago. Once in their adult stage, butterflies live anywhere from a month to a year, depending on the species. Their life cycle is well known - after hatching from eggs, they start out as caterpillars, then are instinctually called to spin themselves into a cocoon or chrysalis and finally emerge as a resplendent butterfly.
What is not as well known, is that the caterpillar must completely dissolve itself within the chrysalis before it becomes a butterfly. Can you imagine? It liquefies itself before emerging as a butterfly.
As an adult, butterflies primarily feed on flower nectar, although some get nourishment from pollen, sap, rotting fruit, dung + dissolved minerals in wet sand. Though they cannot carry as much pollen as bees, they are important pollinators for many plant species due to their ability to move pollen over vast distances.
Their sense of taste resides in their feet (of which they have six), and are used to determine whether a leaf will be suitable for their eggs to feed on. A female butterfly would rather refrain from laying her eggs over laying them on the wrong plant.
Although often admired for their colorful show, butterfly wings are actually transparent! Covered in thousands of microscopic scales, each scale has multiple layers that are separated by air. The more layers the wings have for light to pass through, the more times the light is reflected, thereby creating the intense colors seen in various species (also known as iridescence).
Butterflies are cross-culturally associated with resurrection, transformation, and the new beginnings afforded by intense change.
If you are attracted to Butterfly, it is likely you are on the precipice of great change. You may or may not know what that change looks like, but you can feel that the time is ripe for transformation.
Yet it is possible you are getting stuck in the details of what needs to be done, and therefore cannot move forward into your greater vision. Oftentimes we are determined to ‘get to the bottom of things,’ and ‘figure things out’. We believe that a challenge cannot be overcome nor a problem solved unless we know every. single.angle. In actuality, the best remedy is to give the situation our attention lightly, and then move on, perhaps circling back later - with a light touch.
Alternatively, you may experience your own inner transformation as a cumbersome duty, rather than a joyous expansion.
Butterfly reminds us of the importance of a light touch, not only when it comes to challenges and problems, but especially when it comes to our relationship to ourselves.
It magnifies unbridled joy and freedom, as well as the ability to swiftly shift gears when we caught in tunnel-vision, digging too deep, or getting stuck trying to ‘understand’ something. Butterfly helps us to simply ‘land on’ an issue - give it attention, see it, nourish oneself, and then move on to the next layer - much like the butterfly lands and then moves on to the next flower.
With this light touch, we invite clarity and our own inner wisdom to arise, resulting in lightness, joy + freedom. We are aware of the constriction a heavy hand creates, both in our interactions with others and our relationship with oneself.
Butterfly also teaches us about the utilization of our internal resources. Just like the caterpillar dissolves itself to become a butterfly, we discover that we already have within us everything we need to become all of who we are. There’s just a little rearranging required. ; )
Butterfly gently encourages us to see the necessity of inner work, as well as our own abilities to transform into who we want to be - without getting hung up in the details or stuck in the proverbial mud. Through diligence, a light touch and trust in our own abilities, Butterfly helps us become who we truly are.
{Magnifies}: Ethereal. Fluidity. Transformation. Levity. Unbridled joy. Freedom.
{Dissolves}: Heaviness. One-track mind. Getting stuck in details. Over-reliance on logic.
