Looking Closer: When Symbols Become Personal 🐛🦋

This morning, I wasn't looking for a sign or searching for symbolism.

I was simply outside filling the bird feeders.

That's when a large yellow-and-black butterfly caught my attention. My first thought was how beautiful it was, followed almost immediately by how big it was.

I hoped it would land long enough for me to get a picture.

It landed on the rose bush for a moment before flying away, then returned and settled near the tree line. It stayed for about a minute and even allowed me to get fairly close.

Later, I realized it was an Eastern tiger swallowtail.

Interestingly enough, I had initially thought it was something else.

I had to look closer.

And that seemed fitting for a reflection about symbolism.

What Does a Symbol Mean? 

We often want symbolism to work like a dictionary.

Butterfly means transformation.

Crow means higher intelligence.

Feather means Divine connection.

Traditional symbolism absolutely has value. Symbols have carried meaning across cultures, spiritual traditions, mythology, religion, and art for thousands of years. Exploring those meanings can help us understand how humans have connected with the natural and spiritual worlds throughout history.

Butterflies are just one of many beautiful examples.

Across different cultures and traditions, butterflies have been associated with transformation, the soul, death, rebirth, and renewal. In some Mesoamerican traditions, butterflies carried connections to death, regeneration, and the souls of those who had passed. In Mexico, the annual migration of monarch butterflies into central Mexico around Día de los Muertos has also become intertwined with remembrance of departed loved ones. Even in ancient Greek we find a beautiful connection between the butterfly and the soul through the word psyche. 

There is something fascinating to me about people across different times and cultures looking at the transformation of this small creature and finding something sacred within it.

These traditional and cultural meanings give us a beautiful place to begin when exploring symbolism. They connect us to stories and beliefs much older than ourselves and can sometimes help us understand why certain images seem to stir something within us.

However, much like my relationship with Tarot, I don't believe understanding a symbol ends with looking up its traditional meaning.

A book can tell us what a butterfly has represented throughout history.

It cannot tell us what a butterfly has come to represent through our own history.

Because symbols become personal.

A butterfly doesn't enter our awareness as an empty image waiting for someone else to tell us what it means.

We bring our own stories to it.

Our memories.

Our dreams.

Our relationships.

Our grief.

Our joy.

Our intuition.

Our experiences.

Over time, those things become part of the language through which we understand the symbols we encounter.

That is where symbolism becomes especially meaningful to me.

Along with asking:

“What does this symbol mean?”

We can also begin asking:

“What does this symbol mean for me?”

What Butterflies Mean to Me

For me, butterflies have always carried a connection to loved ones who have passed.

They make me think of my childhood friend Jay, my nephew, and especially my memaw, who loved butterflies.

She even had a tablecloth covered in yellow-and-black butterflies.

So when I see a butterfly, I'm not only seeing a traditional symbol of transformation.

I'm experiencing everything that butterfly has come to represent throughout my own life.

Today, though, something else stood out.

The size of the butterfly. 

It was one of the first things I noticed.

Two phrases immediately came to mind…

“Larger than life.”

And:

“Bigger than you can imagine.”

The yellow caught my attention too.

Yellow makes me think of sunshine, joy, friendship, warmth, and happiness.

I didn't need to look those things up.

They were simply what arose within me when I paid attention to what I was seeing and

feeling.

I think that's an important part of working with symbolism.

Traditional meanings can give us somewhere to begin.

Our own inner response can tell us where to look next.

Then I Found the Caterpillar

A little while after seeing the butterfly, I was pulling weeds in the flower garden.

I had gone outside carrying some frustration and thought working in the dirt might help

settle my mind and ground my energy. 

As I was pulling, something stopped me.

A caterpillar.

Again, my first reaction was almost comically similar to the butterfly…

Look how big he is!

Then another feeling immediately followed.

I need to protect him.

He was on a plant I was about to pull, so I left it alone.

I wanted him to have a chance to continue doing whatever he needed to do, to eat, grow, prepare, and eventually become whatever he was meant to become.

This is where symbolism becomes more that simply understanding what an image represents. When we allow ouselves to sit with a symbol, to notice what it reminds us of, what emotions it brings forward, and what is happening in our lives when we encounter it, it can become a mirror.

That is what happened to me today.

The longer I thought about the butterfly and the caterpillar together, the more I realized...

I feel like the caterpillar!

Caterpillars make me think of potential.

Growth.

Preparation.

Protection.

Transformation that takes time.

A caterpillar doesn't look anything like what it will eventually become.

And right now, that resonates deeply with me.

There was a time when I thought I knew exactly what I was becoming.

I worked toward a certain life and career. I had an idea of what the path ahead would look

like.

Then seemingly out of nowhere the direction changed.

So…

I moved back home and began building something new.

Through all of it, there has been an enormous amount of internal and spiritual growth

happening beneath the surface.

Yet if you asked me exactly what I'm becoming?

I don't completely know anymore.

Strangely, I think I'm becoming more comfortable with that.

Maybe I'm in my caterpillar season.

Preparing.

Learning.

Growing.

Nourishing something I can't fully see yet.

The caterpillar doesn't need to look like the butterfly to contain the potential for one.

And neither do we.

The Butterfly Came First

There's something else about this morning that I can't stop thinking about.

I saw the butterfly before I found the caterpillar.

Nature's process happens in the opposite order.

Caterpillar.

Transformation.

Butterfly.

However, my morning showed me the butterfly first.

The beautiful result.

Then it showed me the becoming.

I don't need to decide whether that was a spiritual message, meaningful synchronicity,

coincidence, or simply something nature gave me an opportunity to reflect upon.

The reflection itself is enough.

Because it made me wonder:

What if we could see who we're becoming before we had to go through everything

required to become them?

Would we trust the process more?

Would we stop believing we're lost simply because we don't recognize ourselves?

Would we be gentler with the seasons when nothing seems to be happening except

preparation?

Maybe we don't get to see the butterfly first in life.

Maybe sometimes we simply have to trust the caterpillar.

Give It a Chance to Become

Maybe the part that touched me most happened before I understood any of this.

When I saw that caterpillar, my instinct was to protect it.

I didn't need to know exactly what species it was.

I didn't need proof of what it would become.

I didn't need it to transform in front of me.

I simply saw something still growing and thought...

Leave this one alone. Give it a chance.

How easily we can offer that kind of patience to something else.

And how difficult it can be to offer it to ourselves.

We become frustrated because we're not where we thought we'd be.

We compare the life we have with the life we imagined.

We mistake uncertainty for failure.

We look at ourselves in the middle of transformation and wonder why we don't resemble the

finished version yet.

Maybe we're asking the caterpillar why it isn't already a butterfly.

Maybe the person we're becoming needs something different from us.

Not pressure.

Not certainty.

Not another timeline.

Maybe she needs protection.

Patience.

Nourishment.

Space.

The faith to keep becoming.

A Gentle Reflection

Think about the season of life you're in right now.

Maybe you already feel like a butterfly, finally able to look back and recognize how much

you've transformed.

Or perhaps, like me, you feel a little more like the caterpillar.

Still preparing.

Still changing.

Still uncertain exactly what all of this is becoming.

If you find you are here, ask yourself:

What if you offered the person you're becoming the same protection, patience, and

faith you would instinctively offer that caterpillar?

What would you stop rushing?

What would you nourish?

What would you protect?

What would you allow to unfold in its own time?

Because sometimes we recognize potential in something else long before we're willing to

recognize it within ourselves.

Maybe today is an invitation to look again.

You may not recognize the butterfly yet.

But that doesn't mean she isn't already becoming.

And just maybe what you're becoming is bigger than you can imagine.

Remember the wisdom within. ✨

Rachel