Symbols - What does heaven look like
Butterfly and moth
A butterfly or moth is a fully enlightened person, one who is free of the Earth and is able to symbolically ‘fly’ in the Air [or higher]. The symbolism derives from a whole host of related aspects.
The first level of symbolism is based on the link to the caterpillar. The caterpillar looks like the spine and the spine is the source of the kundalini experience.
The next form of symbolism is also anatomical and is based on the close similarity the pelvic bone has to a butterfly.
The bony pelvis. 1. Sacrum |
In the kundalini experience the source of energy is the sacrum. As can be seen the entire structure looks like a butterfly with opened wings.
Even more important symbolically is that the spine when looked at in cross section has a butterfly central core which contains nerves and cerebrospinal fluid. Again this central core is the key source of the sensations of the kundalini experience.
The next form of symbolism is based on the close affinity moths in particular have for fire and flames.
There is also a link with reincarnation – because a caterpillar goes through a number of stages before it becomes a butterfly – first it is an egg [so there is a link with Egg symbolism]; then it becomes a soft creature – the caterpillar; then a chrysalis, a creature with a ‘shell’ – in effect the entrapped soul within the body where the shell has similar symbolism to ‘clay’ in this context; then finally the entrapped spirit breaks free and can fly up to heaven! It is at this stage it has merged with its Higher spirit. Thus the symbolism generally implies only the merge of the soul with the Higher spirit. Under certain circumstances, however, the butterfly can represent one who has achieved annihilation. Burnt by the flame.
The successive stages of the butterfly imply many lives before the freed spirit is ‘born’. Thus the symbolism incorporates the idea that one many have to go through many incarnations before the final stage is reached
In the two realms of light and darkness, the moth is the butterfly’s equivalent in the dark.
A butterfly is beautiful, as are all enlightened beings merged with their Higher spirits; it can flit all over the place; feeds on nectar from flowers ; it is relatively speaking short lived. A person who is enlightened does not live long in the scheme of things and all butterflies are embodied. It is fragile, easily crushed or killed, so vulnerable; and it is attracted to the Light, ……………
Observations
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- Alice in Wonderland - Ch 05 - 1 Advice from a Caterpillar
- Barker, Cicely Mary - The Michaelmas Daisy Fairy
- Black Elk - Native American Indians - Butterflies
- Castaneda, Carlos - A Separate Reality - The Aura
- Cirlot on butterflies
- Coleridge, Samuel Taylor - Psyche
- Concept - Korean mystic shamanism – Psychopomp
- Crowley, Aleister - Example Tarot cards
- Dali - Exploding clock
- Dickinson, Emily - A moth the hue of this Haunts candles in Brazil
- Dickinson, Emily - Cocoon above! Cocoon below, Stealthy cocoon, why hide you so
- Dickinson, Emily - The Winters are so short
- Ernst, Max - Und die Schmetterlinge beginnen zu singen
- Freddie Mercury and Queen - The Show Must Go On
- Frost, Robert - I found a dimpled spider, fat and white
- Frost, Robert - You make a labour of flight for one so airy
- Godwin, Joscelyn - On butterflies
- Goethe - Selected poems - Tell it to the wisest only, For the mob will mock such learning
- Gray, Thomas - Ode on the Spring
- Hafez of Shiraz - Thirty Poems - Love's fire
- Hobson, Dr Allan - The effects of a stroke 05 - Imaginary reptiles conjured up by his drug-soaked thalamus
- Hokusai - Peonies and a butterfly
- Khan, Hazrat Inayat - The Art of Being and Becoming - On the stages of the mystic
- Lilly, John - On LSD and butterflies
- Little three year old has his own permanent butterfly
- Millais, John Everett - the Blind girl
- Moody Blues - OM
- Mutwa, Vusamazulu Credo - On butterflies
- Mutwa, Vusamazulu Credo - And the jackal story
- Neruda, Pablo - Every day you play with the light of the universe
- Nietzsche - Thus spake Zarathustra - It is true we love life
- Qu'ran - The End of the World - Surah 101 & 102
- Redon, Odilon - Mystic series 4
- Reid, Christopher - One dog barks at hot air balloons
- Renoir - Clowns and Pierrots
- Rops, Felicien - l'initiation sentimentale
- Rossetti, Dante Gabriel - Dantis Amor
- Rossetti, Dante Gabriel - Lilith and Palmifera
- Rossetti, Dante Gabriel - Venus Verticordia
- Shelley, Percy Bysshe - I can not give what men call love
- The Human Butterfly - Biggest Crop Circle Ever
- Through the Looking Glass - Ch 03 - 3 The Gnat
- Tranströmer, Tomas - The Kingdom of Uncertainty
- W.Y. Evans-Wentz - The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries - The cocoon
- Yeats, W B - Collected poems - Though logic choppers rule the town