Leaping into Pupation

Evening, 

Its less common for me to put out a missive between the Chinese New Year and the Hot Cross Buns of Easter’s Good Friday but this year requires it as it is a LEAP year… and the 29^th of February is a special moment of irregularity – if you have a hundred birthdays you will only have twenty-five 29th’s of February, a few of which you would not have noticed. Yet this rarity is almost never accorded much respect. Sure there’s the oddity that they’re known as the day on which the ladies are allowed to ask a man for his hand in marriage… How quaint… As if any self-respecting feminist (and I count myself amongst them) would settle for such old world tosh. So please accept this invitation to make something special out of the ordinary! It's a great day to think about the bizarre species we are and marvel at the wonders of this life.  

And here's a little something I wrote in partial relation to leap year in 2008... 

Now - are you a caterpillar or a butterfly? Do you know how to tell the difference?

One way is ask yourself just how hungry you are? Another might be to note how thinly spread you are. Where is your level of satisfaction and what is your level of delight? Interpret all of that, as you will… 

I’ve certainly been munching on the buffet of life for my two score and more years on this wonderful nearly round world and have always felt I was a caterpillar even though I’ve had more than a fair share of flitting about. 

Stripe
A caterpillar I truly loved in the Big Apple

But I have felt a yearning for metamorphosis, that it was time to shift from what I am to what I will be so that what I become will be entirely different from what I was. Well over a year ago I was offered the opportunity to work on Tim Burton’s next film, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children and jumped at the chance despite it meaning moving back to London from New York City. I did and London welcomed me back like an old friend treating me like the prince it always has.

I arbitrarily concluded that the duration of this film shall be the period of my pupation and being whimsically prone to dramatic gestures I assigned the Leap Year day as my ‘due’ date for emergence into my new existence. Of course such plans mean nothing to the gods… and so with great luck, for this film experience is proving to be even more fun and extraordinary than I imagined it would be, I remain gainfully employed on it for several months still to come, well past this 'incubation date' and right now I can’t see any dramatic change occurring on the 29th… I’m guessing I’m going to be an overdue cocoon-baby.

Click on this image to reveal the creeping horror of Pupation Time!

It’s quite a challenge trying not to plan for this future as a butterfly, moth, fly or whatever it is I’m becoming… One simply wants to plan. But can a grub or caterpillar ever dream big enough to do grace to what she shall be when first she unfurls her wings and blinks her new beads to the sun’s cheering light after sleeping for what was going to be eternity? I remind myself gently just to rest easy, enjoy the comfort of the chrysalis* while it lasts… for to be sure it has not been as simple and restful as expected, it has been buffeted by many a gust, even surviving the storm known in Nordic parts as Mama Rabbit but that I call Love-monster Wronski… not the peace and calm required for simple transmogrification… but an excitement previously unknown. The intensity available after such a short period speaks volumes of connection as well as commitment to the cause of Adventure… tis true that Safety is Third… Love and Adventure being well ahead of it… Yet I do wonder if my pupation is something being cast aside, am I cut out from the cocoon too early or is it yet ongoing and consequently just the date of my metamorphosis postponed… or am I growing into an even stranger thing - larger perhaps than previously thought?

Which brings me to just remind you all the beauty in this phrase: “Just as the caterpillar thinks his whole life is coming to an end he turns into a butterfly"

And the delightful HP Lovecraft “That is not dead which can eternal lie and with strange eons even Death may die."

Much love and leap year mirth

Doctor Lobster

* I know there are differences but pupa, chrysalis, cocoon… they’re all the same to a white privileged mammal trying to impress his friends with a funny tale. 

Ps –Total Solar Eclipse in Indonesia 9 March… Sulawesi… just saying…

Monkeying About

Phew friends, I don’t know about you but for me the last months of The Goat have seen some Herculean trials. Not the least of which was head butting up the slopes of Mount Relationship. But even though the way has been hard and steep, if Love beckons, you follow...* So it’s with great relief we welcome some light simian guile into our lives on Monday 8^th Feb as the New Moon heralds in the Year of the Monkey...

However the respite is slightly leftfield as this year is that of the FIRE Monkey which rewards bold curiosity rather than indecisive caution even more than usual.

It is in adversity we will find our victories so go further than the normal expectation and risk failure. For Success is a shallow teacher providing but part of the lesson… rather boldly fail where you haven't failed before… it’s there you’ll grow the most… in short, fail up… challenge your edges… test your mettle… for this year is indeed a test… 

Jackie the Baboon

Space Monkey

Donate to Save the Chimps

But its a test designed for you to pass… the only real failure comes in not attempting… to sullenly sit, refusing to play will serve neither you nor the troop. Rather swing your way though the canopy of life, trusting instinct and knowing that failure is most likely just landing on your arse… everyone does… and everyone laughs… after all, do you mind when your fellow friendly fuzzies are a little foolish… hell no… whoop de woo you’ll show them how its done until just like them you too crash on your bum. And they’ll laugh and delight just as you did with them. And another and another will follow attempting the same providing further mirth. So learn to laugh with and at yourself. It’s such a gentle and mature thing to do and takes great care of the part of pride that knows only to hurt itself.

Conquer Monkey

This year the thing you seek is not the thing you will find. What you find instead will lead you back to where you were when you wanted to be where you are now and that might be a place you’d prefer to be... either way like the epic journeys of legend that end back in the hero’s village you will be wiser. Most positive change felt painful in the beginning… and most courage is found unexpectedly. So don’t shy from the challenge rather shy a coconut at the baldhead of Seriousness and laugh while you scamper back to the jungle of Joy your life can be. 

And if you ever hear someone say ‘There’s nothing there’ about a place, be certain to go because then you have the chance to see something ‘that-isn’t-there’ and learn what can only be taught through a strange experience.

Much love 

Doctor Lobster (aka Hal Couzens)

* Apologies to Kahlil Gibran

The Gibbon of Providence