Soul-making: Am I Worm, or a Butterfly?

     The view of "soul-making" that I hold is probably different than many who believe we humans come into this world as perfect little God-souls who become defiled and corrupted by race consciousness manifesting as family and other forms of socio-political conditioning. Many in the New Age Movement tend to think that we are tainted by this dark world and merely returning to our original light form. Possibly, but I don't think so. 

     I increasingly tend to see each of us as very imperfect yet amazing little sparks of God--each of us is a little soul-larva, a distinct juvenile form that many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Over time these little human ego-eggs morph into gray ego-worms--curious, self-serving, lost, confused, and mostly oblivious unconscious human infants, children and young adults--and even well into adulthood. And in my view, our selfishness, unconsciousness, confusion and oblivion are divine archetypal patterns that launch each gray worm into the school of soul-making. Each human soul is born into a matrix of creative chaos, an archetypal void, a living mess--and only gradually may we transform, unless we do not. 

     This human condition seems to me to be a nursery filled with screaming little brats, punctuated with a few rare mature souls. We have the opportunity to grow up. Yet strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to an adult soul-life. Or as Scott Peck calls it, "The Road Less Traveled".

     My my, isn't this a negative view of human nature? Or is it? And are not "negative" and "positive" poles necessary for a continuous current that creates energy and light? Must not a magnet attract and repel--revealing a universe that requires both the law of attraction and the law of repulsion? To ignore or exclude the blatant phenomena of tragedy, trauma and suffering is--in my view--a negative approach to life. Without the suffocating liquification process of the chrysalis, the worm remains a mere caterpillar.

     Over time--as we journey through this world/school--we encounter and experience many other patterns of consciousness through relationships with individual people, socio-political situations, geography, challenging ideas, various emotions, dreams, fantasies, material objects and circumstances that bring each of us ecstasy and grief---countless experiences. 

     It is through these variegated ups and downs that we delightfully little ignorant soul-sparks (gray worms) gradually become more colorful and conscious. And as I acquire color and consciousness through these archetypal interactions, I am able to engage this didactic soul-making process consciously and intentionally. I cease to be a victim of a world out to get me. I become more aware of a larger archetypal reality, more self-reflective, more creative and more compassionate toward others. The divinely selfish little brat that I am may actually transform through my myriad joys and pains, especially the pains.

     It is in my current life process then that makes me conscious and uniquely colorful. This is God growing from worm to butterfly, and it is happening in each one of us--each of us becoming a unique image of God that has never been before----part dragonfly and part butterfly. Or as CS Lewis suggests in Til We Have Faces, "Each of us is 'godding' in order to become 'godlings' (paraphrase). Or as Jesus said after the outraged Jewish political party was trying to impeach him, "We are not stoning you for any good works you might be accomplishing, but for blasphemy, because you, who are a mere human, declare yourself to be God.” Jesus replied, “Is it not written in your scriptures:  ‘I have said you are gods ?' If God called humans gods, then the Scripture cannot be broken..."  (Gospel of John 10:33-35)

Is any of this true? Who knows? I am still mostly a screaming little brat. But I have--in some tiny areas--grown up, I think.