Signs of the Emerging "Cultural Butterfly"

Introduction to “Signs of the Emerging Cultural Butterfly"

What I call a “butterfly culture” is one that is regenerative and life-affirming, in "right relationship" and harmonious abundance with...

Jan 25, 20191 min read

Pulling back the veil on our illusions, delusions, and other enchantments.

I’ve had my personal version of a life-changing, deep disillusionment. We’re in the chrysalis, in a VERY challenging and transformative passage, with real life and aliveness possible on the other side. I’ve walked, and continue to walk, that journey and know that territory personally. The cultural paradigm I grew up in was very traditional, competitive, judgmental, right-wrong, external-authority, masculine/patriarchy-based. Growing up, I didn’t question it. I just took

Apr 43 min read

Our new life-centered culture is showing up

Here is evidence of coherence in spite of all the contrary appearances. Our paradigms are shifting. This is progress, because what got us here can’t get us “there” (where we want to go ). Have you heard this phrase? “TINA: There Is No Alternative .” If you haven’t heard it explicitly, do you know it’s the underlying foundational belief that runs our current culture and systems ? It was popularized by Margaret Thatcher and reinforced through the Reagan era. It express

Mar 194 min read

Our cultural unraveling is autophagy for us.

Autophagy is normal , natural , necessary , beneficial , and can be very uncomfortable. " Autophagy (“ah-TAH-fah-gee”) is your body’s process of reusing old and damaged cell parts. Each cell contains multiple parts that keep it functioning. Over time, these parts can become defective or stop working. They become litter, or junk, inside an otherwise healthy cell. “Autophagy is your body’s cellular recycling system. It allows a cell to disassemble its junk parts and re

Mar 82 min read

Our convenient cultural fictions have ruptured.

We’re at a threshold. It might be different than you think. “We delight in the beauty of the butterfly but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” — Maya Angelou Our trust in our convenient cultural fictions, as well as our institutions, has ruptured and is going, going, gone. Current events keep exposing that increasing rupture. On Jan. 20 th Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney gave a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos. He said we’

Jan 242 min read

Reframing New Year’s and 2026

Finding coherence and aliveness by honoring what’s real I’m increasingly being drawn by coherence for more aliveness. This description fits with what I experience: “Wholeness, coherence [is] a sense of all parts of yourself being connected and pulling together. You can tell when it’s present, either in yourself or others. There’s a profound sense of inner peace, an all-rightness with whatever is going on. When you’re in the presence of wholeness, you don’t need to strive to b

Jan 14 min read

Here comes our new world! Part 3

Signs of our new world birthing and emerging with new life. Context: This is the same context I wrote in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series. If you read this in one of those posts, you could skip to the new examples below. When I was pregnant, my water broke and initiated my labor process. My pregnancy was “breaking down” and was definitely ending . From another viewpoint, I was breaking open because new life — my son — was entering this world , and IT WAS TIME! As I see it,

Dec 12, 20255 min read

Here comes our new world! Part 2

Signs of our new world birthing and emerging with new life. In Part 1 of this series, I wrote that when I was pregnant, my water broke and initiated my labor process. My pregnancy was “breaking down” and was definitely ending . From another view, I was breaking open because new life — my son — was entering this world , and IT WAS TIME! As I see it, collectively and culturally we’re in a similar process. We’re pregnant , and we’re breaking down and breaking open becau

Dec 8, 20254 min read

Here comes our new world! Part 1

Signs of our new world birthing and emerging with new life. When I was pregnant, my water broke and initiated my labor process. My pregnancy was “breaking down” and was definitely ending . From another view, I was breaking open because new life — my son — was entering this world , and IT WAS TIME! As I see it, collectively and culturally we’re in a similar process. We’re pregnant , and we’re breaking down and breaking open because we’re birthing and our new world is e

Dec 6, 20256 min read

We’re laboring to birth a new life-giving cultural narrative

The ‘60’s & ‘70’s countercultural revolution had a life-giving narrative and a compelling “soundtrack” that carried it. We’re missing those now. I’m a Boomer, and the events we’re living through in the U.S. today feel very familiar to me, similar to the countercultural revolution of the 60’s & 70’s. Here are a couple of important differences: 1. The revolution of the 60’s & 70’s had a compelling, powerful narrative that we’re missing today, and 2. That narrative was

Nov 18, 20258 min read

This (poly)crisis is our chrysalis

We’re being called to create a new world. Here are signs we’re doing it. This post focuses on the metalevel, the big picture of our current interwoven crises and the paradigm shift that’s happening in our whole system because of that. The specific examples I detailed in my ebook Hiding In Plain Sight: Evidence of Our Life-Aligned, Regenerative Culture Emerging and my previous blogposts are like the trees that make up a forest. This is a beginning look at the “forest” t

Nov 8, 20253 min read