The trials of transformation

I went to the poplar, who is now dead, and who said, "It's OK, I am transforming." And I asked if I had to die to transform and she said, "No, but you do need to go into the hollow places."

She said, "It's happening. And I know that for you it's not easy. But bear with it. This is the process. And it can hurt you humans. Like birth."

I went to the Goddess Oak and she said, "See me? I am transforming. Changing all the time." And I said, "But I can't see that." And she replied, "Oh it takes the time it takes. Centuries, perhaps." This was not encouraging, "I don't live that long and I can't pass the process of transformation on." "Well," she said, "I guess you'd better get a shift on."

I sat with Kairos and I said, "The poplar tells me I must go into the hollow places." And he said, "You are in the hollow places now. This is it. You are sitting with it. You are not running away." And I said, "But it takes no long! I'll never have transformed enough."

A butterfly landed next to me. He turned around and looked West. So did I. There was a squirrel. Running. We watched, the butterfly and I. I put out my hand and the butterfly climbed aboard. We sat there, me and this creature of transformation magic. A purple hairstreak, whose larvae feed on oak trees and who spend all their lives in the canopy so that you never see them, or seldom see them. But here this one was. We sat there.

And then the butterfly opened his wings. No glorious purple, he was faded and worn. His right wing was injured, so much so that I thought as he sat there that he was here with me to die. So much for transformation magic.

Then he took off, flew away.

Kairos said, "We all carry our wounds and bear our scars. We all have our limitations. Don't seek perfection. Perfection, perfectus, is finished and dead. Be imperfect, as you are, in your own ways. Imperfectus is the always and forever unfinished transformation, the always wounded wisdom that we all of us attain before the final transformation into perfect death."