Creativity and the Butterfly Life Cycle

Creativity and the Butterfly Life Cycle  by Margot Cioccio 

Thanks to Unsplash photographers: Nathan Dumlao, Yoal Desurmont and Boudewijn Huysmans.

I dreamed about a beautiful butterfly. It was like a family pet that followed us around. One day it became weak and was no longer thriving. I decided to released it in the yard and hoped that nature would revive it, and it would not stepped on or eaten by a dog. 

Most often we think of butterflies in their adult glory as they grace the fields and flowers with their marvelous beauty. I generally think of butterflies as a representation of transformation taking place in the lives of people. The well known story of how the ordinary, even ugly caterpillar eats and eats and one day becomes creates a cocoon from which it eventually emerges as the delicate beautiful butterfly. We celebrate the butterfly for emerging from the mundane. The mundane process is all to soon forgotten and rarely celebrated. 

The butterfly can represent freedom. Having made it to the 4th stage of its life, its purpose at this point is to find a mate and reproduce. We so often celebrate the glory in our lives or in the lives of others but forget that it is just the last of the four stages of an on going cycle. The average life span of a butterfly is only about a month.The four stages are the egg, the larva, what we generally call the caterpillar. Then the Pupa or the Chrysalis stage and finally the  graceful butterfly. 

There are goals at each stage that must be met. If they are not met the generational future of butterflies are in danger. Thankfully that future is not left to one individual butterfly. The Monarch will lay 500 eggs, one egg at a time on the underside of many leafs. She must lay those eggs on the kind of leaves that the new baby caterpillar can immediately eat. Food must be readily available for that tiny baby. It is too small and vulnerable at first to travel to find food. 

I’d like to look at butterflies as creative ideas. The life cycle of a butterfly is filled with obstacles. In the egg and caterpillar stage a hungry bird might eat you. I suppose there is wisdom in not putting all your eggs in the same basket or on the same leaf if you are a butterfly. 

As I go about my day what ideas am I laying into the lives of others. Perhaps my ideas will simply be food for others to help them grow. I don’t know when an idea may spark something or what eggs may hatch and become hungry caterpillars that might one day become butterflies that help to encourage and inspire others. 

I have always struggled with what I want to be when I grow up because I have so many avenues of interest. It has always been hard to choose. While in art school my professors advised that I pick one medium and work to develop it as my artistic expression. I seem to be like that butterfly I go through cycles where I gobble up a subject, experiment, turn it over and over in my mind and then finally create something beautiful. Then I move on to a new idea. 

If you were to look at my desk you might wonder how I get anything done. I have stacks of papers and books and stuff all about. I realized that I am more creative with in a slightly messy environment. When I look at nature I don’t see tidy rows, I see randomness, an organic messy kind of beauty. When my desk is too neat its like that blank canvas or white piece of paper. It leads to instant creative block. If it is all clean and tidy I don’t want to mess it up. There is something comforting and inspiring about my slightly messy desk.  It represents a multitude of ideas and projects.  Some mundane like bills and taxes and others creative like journals, song snippets and drawing ideas. In some ways my bits of paper and clutter are like the multitude of leaves the adult butterfly has laid a huge variety of ideas upon.

Some of those ideas may one day become something. Others are just part of the creative process. They needed written down to make room for creative space within my brain for other ideas to grow and develop. When I am working on big projects my brain is constantly churning. The creative process is almost like being pregnant. Then giving it birth and raising it up so that others may be inspired by it. 

I generally don’t like the time that is in between creative projects. I feel like that Chrysalis just hanging around that is seemingly doing nothing. I have noticed for myself anyway, that I need some people time but I also need quiet alone time. If I can keep a healthy balance than I continue to be creative. The Caterpillar represents the social out in the world eating up stimulus and ideas. The Chrysalis in many ways represents that quiet time that I need to process all that I have consumed. I have come to terms with my feelings of having to always be producing to be of value. I had to get past my mindset that said I needed to be good enough to earn the attention or favor of others or even God. I have had to accept that my creativity goes through cyclic seasons. I have had to learn to guard the secret quiet space of my mind and heart. To not get so busy that there is no time to process or create. Resting and processing is part of the creative life cycle of an idea as well. 

The pet butterfly in my dream shows me what happens to an idea if I keep it to myself and don’t allow it to be free to soar. It dies and does not get the chance to inspire others and to reproduce. 

When I first create something there is a tendency to want to keep it to myself. To look at it over and over again. It represents a part of me. I have to decide if I will share that part of myself with others. It is easy to become critical as a creative person. To say to a creative thing, “I’m sorry you are just not good enough”. I have to push past the fear of exposing myself to the critique of others. It takes courage to release a creative endeavor and allow it to soar. I have to leave it in the hands of God. I have to let go of control at that point and realize it is part of His story written though me that now must take on a life of its own.  For the creative cycle to continue to be birthed in myself and in others I have to be willing to share my creation even with what I see as its flaws. Those very flaws are like foot prints others are able to follow. Its ok if its not totally perfect it is totally real and raw expression of my journey. As I bid it farewell, I am grateful for what I have learned and experienced along the way that I will carry on into future projects. I am thankful that my Abba Father is creative and I have been made in His image as a creative person to express His love to I release yet another idea into the winds of His Spirit. 

“I pray with great faith for you, because I’m fully convinced that the One who began this glorious work in you will faithfully continue the process of maturing you and will put his finishing touches to it until the unveiling of our Lord Jesus Christ!”                                   Philippians 1:6 (TPT)

Oh The Thoughts In My Head

A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

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Psalm 119:105 
Your word is a lamp to my feet 
and a light for my path.

Today I could write 10 devotionals there are so many thoughts running through my head. I don't know if I will be able to capture them all or not. Inspiration is like that for me. I can go through long seasons of dryness and suddenly the rains come. When the rains of inspiration come I am glad that I did not give up and by faith went ahead and plowed my fields and planted my seeds. I am glad that during the dryness I never stopped believing that God would provide in His time. 

I had a wonderful revelation while driving home just now. I was thinking about something that someone said about dreaming about the future. They said if you are going to dream about the future be sure you take Jesus with you. I realized the it is also true that if you are going to traverse the past it is a good idea to take the Lord along with you. On our own we really are not equipped to make sense of either the future or the past without Him. 

Its funny to me how one thought springboards me on to the next. I found myself thinking about what the future might look like. I had this revelation in that moment that it really was not all that different than today. I would still be walking with the Lord, I would still surround myself with people I love and who love me, there would be new challenges, and problems and new victories. I thought in that moment, if the future I am looking for is one with out lifes challenges then what I am looking for is heaven. For the day that those things come to an end is the day that I will stand face to face with the King of Glory and all that is left of my life journey will be to hear him say "Well done".  Even in that I realize the end of one journey is to begin another. It reminds me of the last pages of the Narnia series in a chapter called Farewell to the Shadow-Lands. They find themselves in a Narnia that is more real and more beautiful than the Narnia they had known before. The Faun tells Lucy "The further up and the further in you go, the bigger every thing gets. The inside is larger than the outside. I love the final page that says "And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the begining of the real story. All thier life in this world and all thier adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before."

I think about the journey of the Beloved project. It is done now and it captures a moment in time,  a snap shot of a moment in time. It is a final chapter and beginning of brand new adventure story.
It was a journey to see, to understand, to feel and to know that project. It was a journey with bright spots of inspiration and long hours of laying glass. Its done now, for me it depicts the end of one journey and the beginning of another.  I realize that life is much the same type of journey there are bright spots of great revelation or excitement or wonder and then there are days of walking through deserts and trying to fix problems and put out fires.  There are times when it feels like we have lost our way, and perhaps we have wandered from the path into places that were never intended for us. There are times when I was stuck and had to stop until something changed that allowed me to move along again on that journey. Even the stuck spots are not so bad.  There are times when we need to stop, rest and regroup.

Jesus stands ready to take your hand and to journey with you. Where is he taking you? What will the future hold? I have decided that whatever it is - I will be ok in it.  I am determined to go there with Jesus and I know that He will be with me then as He is now. I think that each day is an opportunity to know Him more. So today I choose to focus on Him and not the obstacles that seem to block my way to someday. I am confident that I will never exhaust the magnitude of His thoughts, or the wonder His creation. There is always a little deeper and a little more of Him to know. The splendor of the King and the lover of my soul, in Him I find a new place of peace today. I realize that there will always be some part of my heart that is in need of repair. Whatever part He happens to be working on will seem like a big deal to me at that time. He will tells me then as he has told me time and again in the past, I'm here with you, you will be ok. I love you just as you are in this moment and I will love you just as you are in the next. The same will be true in the future. It is not my perfection that He desires it is my presence. He simply loves to be with me. Not because I'm so great, but because I am His. I am His Beloved and He is mine. In this moment that is more than enough for me.

Life is about taking the next step to follow Jesus. There will always be something ahead that is around the bend that I just can't see till I get there. In the show Dr. Who where they are traveling back in forth in time. They call those things in the future that we wish we could see "spoilers". It spoils the wonder of that moment if you know how it will work out in advance.  The question to me is will I trust the hand that guides me? Will you?

Prayer:
Dear Lord,
You know the plans you have for us. You can see around the next bend. You are the light that illuminates our darkness and shows the way before us a few steps at a time. Help us each to find a new level of peace in your presence regarding both the future and the past. Help us to not miss this moment in time because we are worring about the future or still somehow chained up in the past. Come be with us in this momement and in the next and the next for however long this life journey may be. Thank you for the people who will grace this day. For words of encouragement and the little bits kindness both given and recieved.  Thank you for your tender mercies and that they are new every morning. Thank you for today and for sharing it with me.

From Here To There

The Beloved Project a mosaic by Margot

From Here To There
A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

Isaiah 42:16 NIV

I will lead the blind by ways 
they have not known, 
along unfamiliar paths I will guide them;
I will turn the darkness into light before them 
and make the rough places smooth.
These are the things I will do; 
I will not forsake them.

Life is an unfamiliar path, every step, every day. I am often blind to what God is doing in the trials and triumphs and the ordinariness of each day. Yet God promises to guide us. There are so many times that I have looked ahead and the way seemed dark, impossible, and far beyond my ability.  There have been things that I have wanted to do that often start with a spark of inspiration. In that instant I can see for a brief time the end of a project. I try to capture those ideas in a journal or a sketch.

How to get from here to there can seem at times like a vast canyon, far to big to walk around and to deep to walk across. How does one even begin such a journey?  I thought today I would share a bit of how I have gotten from here to there.

I trust God to order my steps. I trust that He will turn darkness into light, that He will make rough places smooth.  I don't let go of that wisp of inspiration I hold it in my heart. I do the things I need to do today. I take the steps that I can take today and I trust that as I move day by day in faith, that God is working as I believe and trust and look to him to help me figure it out. I don't just sit around moping about how it is impossible.

Beloved Sketch

Take for example the Beloved Project in the photo above. Three years ago it was a wisp of an inspiration that came to me during a church service. I don't recall if it was from something said in the message or if I was listening beyond the message to what the Spirit was saying. In that moment I sketched what I saw. I pinned to my bulletin board. About a year later I was motivated to draw it on a big board. Then we moved and lots of life happened and it sat for a long time as a board in my studio. Life was busy and I was working on lots of smaller mosaic projects. It was never forgotten, it waited for me to be ready to start to work on it. Another year passed and it began to prod at me to take the next steps of committing it to glass. It may have been something someone said to me, or things in my life helped me to better see, understand and feel the piece. I don't always know what it is that flips the switch and causes the light bulbs to turn on for me. I just know that if God has shown me something, He will help me to turn the darkness into light.  I have seen it happen over and over in my art and in my life. Suddenly what was dark becomes light, what was rough becomes smooth, and I can see the next steps to take.  I take them one after another until I find myself to have traveled from "here to there." When the way seems dark, I hold on to what I have seen and I actively watch and wait. In that time I am seeking God for wisdom and insight and inspiration. I often see things far off that I don't know how to get to. I am confident that if God has shown it to me He will also in His time show me the way.  Journeys of faith begin when you catch a glimpse of a vision and decide to take the first steps into the impossible and the unknown.

Prayer:
Dear Lord,
You know the things you have shown us and put in each heart. You love it when we trust you and take steps of faith to go from here to there. Help us take the steps that we need to take today. They may not even seem related at this point. Take my hand and lead me, I don't know the way but I know you do.