When A Remake Won’t Do

This economy has driven many people into dire straits. Some have nearly folded under the weight of adversity; others have reinvented themselves.

If you’re somewhere in the middle—struggling with becoming that cloying, self-help symbol of transformation, the butterfly, and can’t achieve enough lift-off to finish the job of changing your life—then I have an easier visualization technique for you caterpillars in stasis.

I have a dream.

That is, I had a dream about a species of butterfly that doesn’t progress beyond the caterpillar stage. Just when this caterpillar can no longer sustain life as it is, instead of cocooning her/himself, s/he latches on to whatever might serve as wings—leaves, fabric, plastic bags—and flies.

In my dream, the butterfly that arrested my attention was as big as a dinner plate and having trouble flying. Its movement was arduous and erratic. This was largely due, I think, to the butterfly’s choice of wings: a sunny-side-up egg and a golden waffle from someone’s al fresco breakfast plate. Yes, the desperate butterfly I saw chose items of different weights and viscosity that kept him off-balance and made flight awkward. Yet he persevered, even with syrup dripping here and there. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

Upon waking, this segment of my dreams seemed initially like a complete non sequitur. Yet the more I thought about it, the more I appreciated its appropriate symbolism.

I came to believe that the “breakfast-food butterfly” represented every person who’s ever been hobbled by something—be it financial woes, chronic illness, or emotional turbulence. Sometimes when you struggle against the odds, transformation isn’t in the cards. The most practical option is to make do with what’s at hand in order to get by, get on, get ahead.

Latch on to whatever propels you and rise. It may not be beautiful. It may be nothing you ever aspired to or even wanted, but it’s far better to make do than not do.

[Butterfly photographer unknown; graphic art from Skirt! magazine.]

Bad Past, Good Future: It’s In the Cards

“Boy, you must have done something really heinous in your last life. You’re probably gonna come back as a rock or a roach in your next life.”

My boss said that to me several years ago after the “adversities” first started. He said it was the only explanation for so many bad things to happen to such a good person. He was kidding, of course.


My Last Life
Then I told him about an astrologer I visited decades ago. There was a lot of buzz at the time about the psychic abilities of this woman, so I wanted to see for myself what all the fuss was about. Here’s the one thing from the session that I’ve never forgotten: She told me this was my last life. She described my previous lives—that I thought as part of a social consciousness, acted on the part of a social group structure—and she said the purpose of this final round for me was to become an individual.

“Wow!” said my boss. Then he periodically used this information to help me get what I wanted/needed at work. For instance, office supplies: “Hey! Get those red pens to her pronto. This is her last life, you know.” As if I were terminal.

I don’t believe many people go through this life shrugging off their foibles and failures because they think they’ll get the chance to improve during their next life. Even those who believe they’ll have another life try to make the best of the one they’re in now.


My Revelation
I don’t see the “adversities” that have pummeled my husband and me since 2005 as payback. Yet I’ve struggled to find the lessons the adversities might be conveying. Surely there’s purpose to this madness…isn’t there?

Last weekend it hit me. Maybe there isn’t a lesson. Maybe the adversities are just giving us a practice run right now. They’re preparing us for the really, truly, horrible NO-GOOD-AWFUL things yet to come.

Hmmm. Now I’m reminded of having my Tarot cards read. I’ve had this done three times over the course of many years: once by a recommended professional, once at a carnival, and once by some guy in front of a coffee shop who needed some extra money to get to NYC. Three very different types of individuals in three very different environments. But there was one consistency from reading to reading: “The Dark Man will save you.”

Huh?

I asked people who understood Tarot about the Dark Man card. No one knew anything about it; it hadn’t come up for anyone else. (There are only so many cards. When you start comparing your reading with someone else’s, similarities usually surface.)

Perfect. I couldn’t get a normal card reading. And how will I recognize Mr. Dark Man? What’s dark about him? His mood? His humor? His hair? His skin? His clothes?


My Positive Spin
Well, if indeed the bleak truth is that the worst is yet to come, my Ace-in-the-Hole is that the Dark Man—whoever he is—will rush to our rescue. Hope springs eternal.

[Second pic by Frédéric Bazille.]