Your Ad Here


Web advertising works. Click here for more details.

July/August 2007 Alternative Health
Following the Gentle Flow of Butterfly Medicine

by Jan Gagnon

I met my first butterfly 12 years ago at a gas station, driving from Seattle to Missoula, Montana.

As I lifted the hood of my car, perched on the radiator grill was a monarch butterfly. Badly injured with jagged and torn wings, I lifted her to place on the ground, but through my heart I heard: No, take me with you.

I gently placed her in the cup holder and off we drove. I knew she was dying, yet she had chosen to share her transition with me. During the long drive, I began to feel the essence of butterfly: light and graceful, a spark of beauty traveling on the wind.

As a naturopathic physician, butterfly medicine added a whole new dimension to my work. Now we can understand where we are in the natural cycle of our lives and live in a flow - releasing, allowing, taking action and moving forward.

To use butterfly medicine in your life, notice where you are in the cycle. Are you resisting letting go of something - a job, a relationship, an old pattern of behavior? Allow yourself to release the old and begin again. Move into your next stage of growth and self-transformation. Do you need to begin a new idea or vision? Do you need to decide how you want to be, what you'll offer or take action? Go within and pull it all together. The cycle of self-transformation continues with endings and new beginnings. We get stuck when we resist our growth and transformation. Life begins to flow when we flow with it.

As we merged, I began to understand the contrast in heavy density and butterfly's lightness in terms of vibrational energy. Butterfly can fly above discord and choose its way in life. I'd been struggling with the move to Montana and concerns about adjusting to the harsh winters: I felt like I was trapped in mud.

I'd left behind a home in Seattle -- friends, work I loved, as well as television and radio spots and speaking engagements. In the butterfly cycle, I'd been living with my wings out, fully engaged. I missed my home and my life, yet my inner voice had said: Move to Montana. I knew there had to be a reason.

Later that day in my new home, I read about butterfly in the medicine cards. Butterfly teaches us to observe where we are in the cycle of transformation. At the egg stage: starting again. In the larva stage: making decisions on what you'd like to create next in the physical world. In the cocoon stage: going within, pulling it all together. The final stage of transformation: sharing your creation with the world, a rebirth with wings.

Butterfly kindly helped me understand where I was in my cycle: starting again. I was clinging to my old life with wings in Seattle. When I realized I'd been resisting moving on and starting again, and understood I'd always be in some stage of the cycle, I relaxed and began to flow with my new life. Butterflies began sharing wisdom with me from then on.

Slow Down

On my first hike in Glacier National Park on a beautiful sunny day, I noticed movement on the edge of the trail. Crouching down, I saw 20 tiny blue butterflies flying in a cluster no higher than four inches off the ground. I called my husband to come see, and while we both remained entranced by the beauty of the tiny blue butterflies, people hurried past. No one stopped to see. Hurrying to hike out to nature, they forgot to slow down and be with nature. Butterfly said: Slow down, you move too fast.

Jan Gagnon, N.D. offers butterfly healing meditations for emotional, physical and spiritual transformation, as well as classes in butterfly medicine. She can be reached at Your Health and Wellness Center at Portland Center Spa at 503-226-1672.