Crystal Ball by John Waterhouse

As I go through Butterfly Journal: Monthly Contemplations for Spiritual Metamorphosis, I will post the prompt for each month with the first posted entry for that given month (the journal may be begun at any time of the year). Since I am beginning this month, my first month is June. To read the Introduction for Butterfly Journal, click here. This is the prompt for the first month:

The start of the new year or a new growth cycle is a time of new beginnings, but before we can make resolutions and new starts, we have to spend some time self-reflecting. In order to self-reflect, we need to ground ourselves in the here and now and take a good look at ourselves: who we have been, who we are, and who we wish to become. For some of us this may mean resolving past issues and conflicts, either within ourselves or with others. This will also clear the way and make space for healing and new growth to take place.

For the first month, contemplate on the ways in which you wish to better yourself – physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. And then ask yourself: “why?” The “why’s” will show you where there is clutter in your life that can be cleaned out to create the space for growth, and where you already have clarity and growth taking place. 

When I decided to begin a new round of journeying and journaling with Butterfly Journal, and as I was putting together the intro post Butterfly Journal – Returning Into The Cocoon, a very clear message from Spirit came to me when I found the Neptune in Pisces picture that I used in that post. It had been tagged by some unknown source with: neptune-in-pisces-i-leave-the-fathers-home-and-turning-back-i-save. For those don’t know my journey of the past three years (see previous journal posts), I had returned to the family home, consciously to live somewhere warmer with much more sunshine and hence healing and re-vitalizing, and unconsciously (as I discovered over the course of the past few years) to travel deep, deep into the waters of my psyche and unconscious and hence healing from childhood wounds, ancestral wounds, and other/past life wounds.

Over these past few years, through intense nearly constant self-reflection, understanding, forgiveness, gratitude, and healing on so many levels, I endured the growing pains inside the cocoon, and have grown and transformed in amazing ways. In the past year my mother also passed away. My Western natal Moon in Pisces, the sign that is both my solar 8th house of transformation and all that is hidden/occult, and my IC, the lowest/deepest and most private/hidden point in the natal chart, indicates a psychic intertwining with mother. And for me this was not a pleasant thing. The release from that which for me was both a psychic siphoning and an experiencing or downloading of another’s wounds, freed my wings from the sticky threads of the cocoon. I had to learn what was me, what was the other, and how to create psychic boundaries to know the difference. Now I feel ready to take flight.

Echo and Narcissus by John Waterhouse

So why “return to the cocoon?” you might ask. I reflected and thought about this quite a bit as Pisces Moons do. My answer is that even though I am ready and looking to leave the father’s home, I need to turn back, that is reflect back, upon my experience here for there is more to be learned and understood and more from my own experience that I can use to help others on their journeys. Neptune, the ruler of Pisces in Western Astrology, has also recently turned retrograde, so what better time to take a fresh dive into the deep end and see all the amazing and beautiful things I didn’t see before when I was distracted by the darkness.

The last journey through the depths of the ocean and through Butterfly Journal was strongly guided my the messages of Spirit, spirit guides, and animal spirits, and by the messages in my dreams. This time, this next stage in my personal journey, though I know my guides are there giving messages and showing me affirmations, it is a conscious decision to explore, to look into the crystal ball of my own unconscious, and self-reflect upon the experiences, lessons, and beauty held deep in my psyche.

If you are interested in embarking on your own journey of transformation, you can purchase Butterfly Journal from Amazon (and international stores), or Barnes & Noble.

To learn more about Butterfly Journal, Click Here. Also check out the Full Color Photo Edition Here which is filled with my own butterfly photography.