Fragility and Determination

I’ve always loved butterflies and their enchanting, ruffled beauty. I live in a community of houses with signs identifying certain front yards as “Monarch Way Stations” meaning they have gardens stocked with milkweed and nectar sources to support the butterflies breeding and migration. As a result, the neighborhood is full of butterflies basking in sunlight and riding the breezes, like tourists who descend on popular beach towns and fill the open hotel rooms with joyous summer seashore play.

But these ethereal creatures are also troopers, traveling hundreds of miles back and forth to Mexico in their yearly migration patterns: fragility and determination coexisting in their life story.

It is our human story as well, one echoed in the roots of the word “psychology” and “psychotherapy.” The root of the word “psychology” is from the Greek words psyche meaning soul or spirit, and logos meaning to study. “Psychotherapy” has a similar etymology with therapia meaning healing. So, the practice of psychology is concerned with addressing both the wounds and the dreams of the spirit and soul, as we feel compelled to follow our own migratory destinies.

Perhaps the Greeks understood this intimate connection, as they also used the word psyche to signify a butterfly. It was thought that butterflies may be the souls of humans—a belief shared by many other cultures who revere the butterfly and their mysterious transformation from earthly caterpillar to ethereal being. 

When I see a butterfly, I am reminded to honor the spirit and soul in our journey on this earth. Yes, we need to attend to our mind and all its malfunctions, our behavior and all its dysfunctions, but don’t forget the magical part of you that is built for transformation and flight.