Is whimsical always bad? Let us explore
Nature has so many diverse and beautiful manifestations. One of its most whimsical expressions is the butterfly. Almost every child must have experienced the amazement of this colourful creature suddenly changing direction in patterns sometimes difficult to grasp.
A young girl I know call them flower-fly instead of butterfly.
Flower-fly
Imagine the plant stretching itself up through evolution, taking its first hold on land, learning to transport water within itself, developing leaves and then flowers with coarse sepals to culminate with silky soft colourful petals that take off and fly as a flower-fly. It is not difficult to imagine, lying their in the summer field with summing bees and cumulus clouds with all kinds of shapes that the butterflies are flowers flying.
Evolutionary speaking the butterfly can be seen as the flowers of the insects. Insects where stuck on the ground before some developed the ability to fly. Of all the flying insects the butterfly represents the latest stage of evolution with its beauty and colour variations not to speak about the silky soft wings reminding of flying flowers.
Metamorphosis
The butterfly is also a beautiful expression of transformation; the egg turning into a larvae or caterpillars that then pupate in a chrysalis. When completely metamorphosed the butterfly comes out expands and dries its wings and flies off.
The egg can be compared to Carl Gustav Jungs first stage of human development, The Athlete Stage. Here we just look at what is inside the egg, we just look at how we look like, our body and how we dress up. The mirror and selfie are our best friends, we do not see outside the wall of the egg of our ego.
The next stage Jung calls The Warrior Stage, here we can compare it with the larvae or caterpillar working its way through the fields conquering life. At this stage humans try to do the best, get the best, compete for possession and position.
The third stage is The Statement Stage and we will compere it with the chrysalis. You realize that the external things did not make you happy you are not satisfied or fulfilled. You now want to take from inside yourself and give to the world to make the world a better place. You know it is not about the external values. You have become a grown up soul that want to guide the younger souls in the right direction. It all is a question of what you have cultivated inside yourself that can be given to others.
In the final stage of Jung, The Stage of Spirit, you transcend the body and the physical reality and you realize your true spiritual nature. You experience being a spiritual being in the physical world rather than a physical being with spiritual experiences. This is the stage of the butterfly with the spirit free flowing in the sea of light in a state of truth.
Being a butterfly
Homeopathy has explored substances from all kingdoms and so many parts of nature. A homeopathic scientific proving reveals the inner nature of things through its effects on the human mind. The last three decades also the butterflies have been investigated telling us a bit about how it would be to be a butterfly, or which human personalities that can improve and realize their potential from getting a butterfly remedy.
A state of being whimsical, light, careless and gay is absolutely present in the butterfly. Looking at it deeper it is a conflict between; going with the flow, what gives joy, ones intuition or desire for freedom as opposed to duty, convention and rules. Butterflies let you learn to surrender and let go of control.
This learning experience can be described as seeing things from another level, letting the metamorphosis take place stage by stage. Solutions are there and have always been there you just needed to perceive things from a higher level or a more spiritual plane.
What seemed fragmented, erratic or whimsical belongs to a higher level of order, law and care. What seemed to be a loosing of direction or track turn into a deep trust and assurance of being on the right path. A state nicely portrayed in the Tarot card The Fool or the film Being There with Peter Sellers and Shirley MacLaine.
Archetypical whimsical
Let us look at the planetary archetypes of whimsical as we can see in typology, astrology, and mythology.
Whimsical can be out of lack of direction or lack of grounding or anchoring.
The lack of direction is just a step of evolution where you are still young and need to experience things again and again to start to see patterns and eventually the bigger picture. Young children and teenagers have this as a natural step in their evolution. Just think about a little child learning to walk about, going here and there, suddenly doing something different and then again and again. This is exploring, learning and training by repetition.
This is the archetype of Mercury slowly approaching and uniting with Jupiter. The young lightly fanciful searching Mercury is stretching towards the overview of the bigger picture in Jupiter. “Should I go here or there, to get to everywhere?”
The other aspect is the lack of grounding making it capricious or over reactive. That can be out of lots of stress or chaotic circumstances getting towards neurotic or hysterical reactions. Here there has not been enough grounding or calming experiences and activities. The emphasis is too strong on the exterior world and there is a huge need to turn inwards. They need to create inner pictures rather than pictures fed from a screen as well as perceiving and dwelling with your own inner state rather than being a victim of exterior impressions.
Both of these represent challenges with the early stages in the life cycle, a kind of immaturity and something that need to grow and be developed. Both represent a lack of either direction or substance.
There is also a whimsical variation that comes from excess. When the emotional waters are running and overflowing or turn into fog then they make the objective structure misted and unclear. People in such states can easily appear whimsical. This aspect is not so erratic, but appears more confused. Here the archetypes of Moon and Neptune are manifesting. This whimsical person is more distant, like in a dream or fantasy world or under the influence of drugs.
The last archetypical aspect of whimsical we will address is a strong Uranus that with its active mind get sudden abrupt impulses and ideas. Here the balance is to be able to stay centred and not become a victim to all intuitive or genius glimpses and insights that comes to mind. Also to be able to meet the others where they are at in their own journey in life and adjust to their needs and not overload them with ones own cacophony of cosmic insights is an important lesson.
The solution to whimsical will depend on the kind. The young Mercury needs to explore and experience to get the bigger picture. The un-rooted need to cultivate the Moon and a feeling of inner peace. The foggy Moon/Neptune needs to dry out with intellectual wind or spiritual heat or purity and Uranus needs to find the balance between ego-centre and periphery.
At the other end of the cycle
The zodiac or circle of signs progressing through the year can be seen as a sequence for any cycle or project. Early astrological signs representing early stages of cycles in life as Aries or Gemini can be seen as whimsical, but so can also the last two; Aquarius and Pisces. As the young inexperienced can be whimsical so can old people, particularly women appear whimsical. With old woman it is also a lack of the anchoring forces in life, the yin or contact with the inner spiritual nature. As woman grow older it is important to connect with the inner life as their anchor. (Read here; Woman evapourate and men burn out ).
But also the highly evolved soul in contact with the higher realms can appear whimsical. You sit with a master asking him questions and realize he is reading your thoughts. He suddenly say; “do not worry about that” addressing your last though. This will abrupt you and could appear whimsical. But here the last polarity of Uranus of being centred is manifesting itself as acting out of an awareness of the present moment and the actual thought present here and now. For the observer it seems sudden, abrupt and erratic for the master it is a single bull eye statement as an act of least intrusion.
Also a soul living with the flow or being in deep connection with the collective unconscious or spiritual realms seeing through the veil of illusions in this world could appear whimsical for the person that is not connected to the higher realms.
Both these cases represent the qualities in the last two signs of the zodiac.
Lao Tzu in Dao Te Ching;
Can you coax your mind from its wandering
and keep to the original oneness?
Can you let your body become
supple as a newborn child’s?
Can you cleanse your inner vision
until you see nothing but the light?
Can you love people and lead them
without imposing your will?
Can you deal with the most vital matters
by letting events take their course?
Can you step back from your own mind
and thus understand all things?
Giving birth and nourishing,
having without possessing,
acting with no expectations,
leading and not trying to control:
this is the supreme virtue.
