What I'd Tell You From The Cocoon

trusting the safety of the darkness

Hello friends,

Someone asked me the other day what it felt like to write my most recent, soon-to-be-released book, Everything Is A Story.

I told him that I felt like I’d written it in an oddly safe bubble, an incubator of sorts, and that surprised me. Every book shows up differently; they become their own beings at some point, maybe a third of the way through the writing process, and this book was all about having a safe space to go to in a reeling world.

I know it’s not been this way for everyone, but this winter has really felt very cocoon-like for me, another sort of incubation period in which I’m doing a lot of necessary, difficult, beautiful healing.

I think sometimes we need the cocoon.

And I think sometimes we resist the cocoon because it’s dark in there, and we will likely be turned to goo somewhere along the way.

But the thing about transformation is there is really no way around it. Only through, my friends. Only through.

Photo by Francisco J. Villena on Unsplash

I woke up this morning thinking (and feeling) about the sense of panic and urgency we already feel as a nation with Trump in power, and being on social media only ramps up all of it. To be clear, he is dangerous, his policies will destroy lives, and he’s a colonial narcissist who cares only for his own circles of money and power.

But I can’t live every day on high alert, and you can’t either. This is why the cocoon is necessary, why we have to have moments to go into the dark, safe places and let ourselves be nurtured.

Poet r.h. Sin has a deck of cards that I use, and yesterday’s card read

I am at peace,
even at the center of chaos.
I will find silence
in the noise of
everyday life.

In the noise of everyday life, in the chaos, we find our centering, our soul, our tender spaces, and tend to them. We make room for them, because we need them right now.

In the cocoon, the caterpillar goes from their own form into, basically, a puddle of goo, into cells that are necessary to transform into the butterfly. Growing up I remember learning about this, and it was sort of this story that the caterpillar is the ugly “before” and the butterfly, wonderfully transformed, is the beautiful one, the one that has finally arrived.

But I don’t think of it that way, the way I was taught to see it. Caterpillars are incredible creatures, and their transformation matters.

Who we are “before” and “after” matters, and I’d argue that even if they are different, they are still the same. The cells that form us, that make up our souls, stays there, tethered and tending to us in the darkness as we try to hold space in a very heavy world.

So, I’m going to stay close to my cocoon over the next several months, and I hope you’ll stay close to yours, too. We need this space.

Photo by Fleur on Unsplash

So here are my cocoon questions for all of us:

It’s okay not to know who you’re going to become, so can you trust yourself along the way?

Being a puddle of goo is necessary for transformation, so how are you embracing the liminal space of now but not yet?

In a painful and scary world, how can you use the quiet darkness to propel you toward peace?

What does the cocoon teach you about how you show up for others?

I want to point out something beautiful and important about this process, and that is the imaginal cells that begin doing their work after the caterpillar is broken down, the cells that make transformation possible.

The imaginal cells show up to ask what’s next. They are the workers of liminality, who make things happen in the sacred darkness.

Let’s remember this, the imaginal space, what we give birth to from the dark cocoon that holds us steady.

Below is a poem for you, for all of us in our own cocoons, holding ourselves tenderly in a really difficult (but also always beautiful) world.

What I’d tell you from the cocoon

is that this will not last forever,
and the darkness is a gift,
and your liminal state is precious,
and we can move through not around,
and transformation is sacred,
and we are meant to evolve,
and our pain means our growth,
and we don’t have to know who we will one day 
become to become ourselves. 

From the cocoon I’d tell you that
who you are, were just moments ago,
and are tenderly yet fiercely becoming
are all born from the same magic
that carried you gently to this
dark womb in the first place. 

---

Spring’s Miracles Out for Pre-order Now!

For Anishinaabe people, spring is the start of the new year—the time to tap maple trees for syrup and celebrate everything waking up after a long winter. A new spring. A new year. A new way of seeing.

I am so honored that the book received a wonderful review from Kirkus Reviews, an incredible honor. You can read it all here, but this highlight was really touching:

To welcome the beginning of mnokme (spring), Dani and her family plan a trip to the mountains. They’ll camp out, go rock climbing, build a fire, and enjoy a feast. Their outing is a happy one but marked occasionally by Dani’s moments of nervousness, from strange noises outside the tent and the dizzying heights of a cliff. But when she’s afraid, Dani finds solace in her family, the land, and her cultural knowledge. She reminds herself that “Grandfather Sun rises every day, no matter what is going on in the sky,” and she takes four deep breaths, counting in Potawatomi. Doing so helps her remember that “even when she is scared, she can still do great things.”

You can pre-order Spring’s Miracles wherever books are sold, but I encourage you to order it from Indigenous booksellers like this one.

More news to come! Thank you friends for all your support!