From pupa to butterfly

It's astounding what one can achieve by having an open dialogue with a child, for their words can often lead to wonder, truths and hints at things long forgotten.

Be it that I had jotted down the relevant convo while still fresh in my mind! But, why do such, when I can struggle later on to give a fractually imprecise account and quote echoes of what was said?

Still, here goes: so it stands that at the end of a specific day, an hour in which my seven year old daugther may or may not ask me some randomly deep questions, she begins with: "What will happen to us when the Earth is destroyed?"

It became clear that she did not mean by our own callous hands pushing atomic triggers or polluting mother nature, but by the process of the Sun supposedly eventually engulfing the Earth, which I then recalled we'd spoken of before, somehow.

So, I explained that we'd be long gone, at which she retorted: "What about our spirits, will we be with God?"

Oh yes says I: our spirits will long be free of our body, and be able to do all sorts of things, potentially: we may be able to dance with the stars! Explore the cosmos!

She asked for details of what she'll look like as a spirit, and I reminded her that it will be a completely new, unknown way of being: we just cannot compare it to what we are now. Maybe, we won't even have eyes or ears, and will feel in a totally new way!

"What about when the universe ends, what will happen to our spirits?"

I've got ye covered pardner: The Big Crunch! Thusly, when the time comes, we will all get pulled back into the eye of it all, every single spirit that was, is and will be, from every planet and entity, to give each other the most awesome hugh imaginable, and we will be the fuel to birth the spirit of a new universe, to then return into when our time comes -for all we know, this has already happened untold times!

"Oh wow, I can't wait to be a spirit!"

Woaaah there Nelly, slow down: you see, er...we shouldn't rush towards being spirits because...because we need to feed them, yes! Our time as physical entities is ever so small, and living a long life gives our spirit food.

Like...like a butterfly! Our experiences, our lifeforce, feeds our spirit, and the longer we live, the more it's fed: and when we've given everything we have to our spirit, it can fly out to God, and tell God about all our wondreous experiences -yes, omniscient and all that, but God loves to hear our stories first hand.

So, our spirit is like a butterfly, emerging from a chrysalis.

"Goodnight daddy: one more day closer to being a spirit!"

Oh man, these kids, they're just too umbelievably prescious: do not reward their innocent inquisitiveness with fear and obtusion, tell them the truth! But, tell it to them beautifully: and then, without realising it, a beautiful notion will be born.

Because, why not? Why can't we be the pupa from which our spirits will rise into something else, be it God or whatever it may be?

Then, let us not fear the Reaper, yet let us not hurry the Reaper, and when the time comes, let us embrace the Reaper, and soar towards a new phase in our existence.

Your well emosh hoper,

Stefano Ronchi