I have long been a butterfly in the making. It has been dark inside that cocoon of guilt and shame. What kept me there so long? What can free me except the light of awareness?

I was told the world was a beautiful place and that love was everywhere. I was not blinded by the light but by the darkness. I found no wiggle room inside my self-constraint.

Inside the cocoon of my mind I wrestled with my negativities, finding no where to turn but down. I was a bad person, someone that no one loved or wanted.

All of these feelings were embedded in the cocoon. I sighed a lot, feeling that life was impossible and obstacles were impassable.

And then I met a shaman that peeled away the cocoon. That was a year and a half ago. Since then I have been naked but not afraid. Well, not as much as I used to be.

Recently I got a glimpse of what a butterfly wing looks like. Wow. It looks like colorful angel equipment I can use.

I just glimpsed it over one of my shoulders. I am shedding shoulds and oughts like they are going out of style. I am a two-year-old toddler in an old body. Whee. It’s me!

I still get blue on occasion. Still get anxious and filled with dread. But it is all happening in the light now. The cocoon has fallen away. And my writing, well, it is just getting more and more to the point.

The only point in it I can see is to express the inexpressible as best I can. And I don’t need no damned cocoon to do that.

Vicki Woodyard