On Wings of Transformation

During this Iowa spring-weather changeover, while driving to and from work lately, I’ve noticed that there are fewer eagles flying overhead and that the turkey buzzards have replaced them in their fly-zones. Not sure how that goes up in the skies—who decides to vacate when and who else instantly takes their place, but it seems well choreographed to not miss a beat sailing through the clouds.

From a more shamanic viewpoint, vulture or buzzard when considered as a power animal, can represent death and rebirth, purification, and intense transformation. They are not the most pleasant-looking flying fortresses that ride the air currents, but they are amazing aeronautical acrobats that can change directions with a simple dip of a wingtip. They make gliding in 30 mph winds look way too easy, and I can respect their presence in the skies and their deeper symbolism, even as I miss seeing the wintering eagles.

That being said, transformation as a personal process is a bit like having your mother tell you to eat that liver on your plate because it will make you grow up to be big and strong, while you are finding it pretty hard to believe that something so awful tasting can do what she claims that it can. You are just not buying it—no way, no how. But yet, …you do grow up to be that person she claimed you would be—big and strong, and one who still hates liver despite your present knowledge of its beneficial iron content.

Transformation also implies that an original state is in process of becoming something else: like the metamorphosis of caterpillar to butterfly. Did the slow-inching caterpillar ever dream that flying was even possible for it? Probably not. Change of that magnitude is hard to  consider possible in a dream-state, let alone in reality, …but yet, year by year, it frequently happens.

Again, I will state that I am not a psychologist, nor a clinical therapist—that’s not my function, but when clients come to me for some issue, much of what I do with REIKI or hypnosis involves helping the client to transform in some way, from what was, to what might be, and ultimately to what IS, in their lives. And much of that transformation is self-initiated, self-directed, and self-realized. So what is it that I do in their processes?

I think one of the most beneficial things I can do for clients is to show them what can be. I don’t have to point at liver and say to them, “See…this will make you big and strong.” But I can show them that caterpillars can magically become butterflies, even if they weren’t aware of the possibility existing for them. I can ask them to define a future more to their liking, and possibly through hypnosis, show them and help them feel what it would be like, to BE in that future possibility—to metaphorically fly like the butterfly.

Personal transformation doesn’t have to be a grueling, distasteful process, but it might require a little time in the change-cocoon before you wing your way to the upper air currents like the eagles and the buzzards.

The possibility for personal change always exists. It is simply up to each person to consider it, to desire it, and then to realize it.