Sue Monk Kidd: Cocoons

“Our deepest struggles are in effect our greatest spiritual and creative assets and the doors to whatever creativity we might possess.”—David Whyte in The Heart Aroused ( Currency; Rev ed. Edition 1996). 62.

In When the Heart Waits, Spiritual Direction for Life’s Sacred Questions, speaker and writer Sue Monk Kidd shares her spiritual journey at mid-life. She compares this journey to being in a cocoon of darkness and finally emerging as a butterfly. Although this is more often an Easter image, it can also be an icon of our journey through Advent. In the cocoon, Kidd shares her experience of the false selves that keep us from being the person God created us to be, the defenses we use for survival that, like an addiction, eventually harm us. She reminds us to embrace these protective shields, kiss them, thank them for caring for us, but now it is time to see what is beneath the thick false cover-ups. She writes about the word crisis, which in Greek means separation, to leave death. A crisis or problem is a holy summons to cross a threshold. Our response to a crisis situation can be fighting it by looking for comfort or justice. However, we could also wait and use the time to be soul-making (the narrow gate). Instead of riding the crisis, she writes about attempting to understand and identify the feelings that develop in the situation, like sorting tangled ribbons. Next, we express these feelings primarily through symbols, such as a cocoon, which can come in writing or sharing our stories or dreams. We can identify with symbols, as we are part of a sacramental tradition, where everyday symbols such as water, bread, wine, and oil are used as an outward symbol of an inner grace.

Kidd talks about the difficulty of letting go by comparing it to the caterpillar’s resistance to change called “diapause.” We fear leaving this former life as if it is “all we have.” I experienced this “nothing left” as I heard a call to transition from my medical career. It also happens at retirement, or when we find an empty nest after our children leave, or after we experience the death of a loved one. Kidd quotes Rilke that as we resist, we should try loving the questions in our hearts like locked rooms or books written in a foreign language. We should live the questions in the darkness.

Jesus, of course, was the master of leading people to grow with more questions. Answers will later come as we begin to see resurrection. As Kidd moved from the cocoon of darkness to light, she began eastering or experiencing resurrection or rebirth. She experienced delight in life, found a feminine side of God, learned a love of creation, and made a connection with her body. She realized that when she showed disrespect for her body, she also showed disrespect for the earth.

She also wanted to live in the present, the now, here instead of the nowhere when we live in the past or future. When we live in the present, time becomes not a straight line, but a deep dot.

Kidd describes three stages of her contemplative awareness: first hearing the words but not the music, then hearing the words and the music, and finally being the music.

Our orchestra seats for the Arkansas Symphony in Little Rock were once almost on the front row. I think these seats were my unconscious icon to be the music. They perhaps were my attempt to become the music, as we live in the present listening to the music, and as Kidd also did, little by little, learning about our authentic self, the true self that God has made.

Joanna joannaseibert.com