Introduction

Since yesterday was Easter Sunday, I felt compelled to explore resurrection as rebirth—a profound spiritual transformation that transcends religious tradition. I got an epiphany yesterday while in an email to someone I greatly admire. 

I’m sure that most people know the Christian story of Easter and the Resurrection by now. Whether you adhere to this tenet, if it’s a true story or it’s an allegory, is another story of course.

In my post ‘Too Afraid to Dream,’ I shared how I could barely imagine a better life for one minute without fear crashing in. But Easter taught me something new: resurrection isn’t just about daring to imagine—it’s about being reborn into action

What I want to talk about today is what Easter Sunday and Resurrection means to me from a metaphysical point of view. It goes beyond orthodox Christianity and has meaning for our lives as we are on this prime material plane and our eventual spiritual evolution.

The Double Rainbow: A Promise of Resurrection and Rebirth

I’d like to tell you a story.  One day, my husband Rick and I were takijg a walk around the block.  It wasn’t an exensive walk, and we were in the parking lot near a funeral home which happened to be next door to where we lived. It was summer, and I was wearing shorts.  My husband pointed out a double rainbow, saying, “Look at that” and pointing. No sooner did I see it, when I just started crying and just fell to my knees.  On the pavement, looking at that double rainbow and  weeping as if my heart was broken. But it wasn’t broken. I was in complete shock and total awe of the beauty of those two rainbows.  I dimly felt my knees sting, but it was irrelevant in that moment. It didn’t matter. I didn’t care. All I cared about was what I saw. What was important was those two rainbows. i felt like i was on the precipice of something.  Not yet, but soon.  Like a promise.of something to come. What, I didn’t know, but I knew in my heart and soul, though not in my conscious mind, that there was some kind of promise. A promise to me.  Like the world itself was vibraring and shuddering.  

And that wasn’t the only thing. I felt something or rather Someone. Just out of sight, I couldn’t see anyone, but I felt this…Presence. just out of reach, out of sight, beyond my perception,, but I felt Someone was there. But I was distracted by the rainbow, but still Someone there. Waiting till I was ready, but witnessing and even orchestrating my miracle. Putting all the pieces in place. What I didn’t know at the time was that it was my dear friend, Apollo from the time I was in my teens. I didn’t know or realize at the time that he was making me a promise. A promise of resurrection from my old way of life and rebirth into a new life of possibliities. That a new life was possible. A heroine’s journey was possible.  It wasn’t something to fear, but the only the beginning, but that would be years in my future, when I was ready to hear and accept His call. Right now, The double rainbow was just a promise, that I could be reborn and to no longer be stuck.

What I needed to do that I didn’t  know at that time, was to leave the old life behind, to die, and have an experience of metamorphosis, resurrection and rebirth. To break free of the cocoon that had the illusion of safety, but was really becoming a prision, and learn to fly.  To have a resurrection and a rebirth to a new purpose. Of serving Him  As his Oracle. But not just an average Oracle. As His Musical Oracle!

What does this have to do with, what people know as the modern Christian’s version of the Passion, Good Friday, Crucifixion, death, ressurection and rebirth or paganism’s shift from winter to spring, with flowers blooming, or even the metaphor of the butterfly? Well, ressurrection and rebirth always start with a promise. It may not appear as a promise at the time or we may not be aware of it, but it always starts with a promise. No exceptions..  There is the promise that our lives are not “flies in amber”, but potential. The possibility that our lives can have meaning. But we have to change, we have to stop, rest, surrender, and rise like the phoenix.  That we have to give up the old ways of living in order to rise to a new life. To learn to fly!

Resurrection as Rebirth: Easter’s Deeper Meaning

Easter transcendes the traditional Resurrection narrative. Ancient pagan celebrations honored this season as resurrection as rebirth-the death of Old Man Winter giving wayto Fertile spring, scarcity transformed into abundandce. This metamorphosis mirrors our own capacity to to release outworn patterns and awaken to new ways of being and seeing. 

Persephone, the Goddess of Spring would start her journey from the land of the dead to the land of the living, and plants would once again start to grow, life would start anew. Some say that her “totem” animal is the rabbit or hare, as there are many births in the animal kingdom, and as we know rabbits are very fertile.

People took this time to plant crops and see to the fertility of their animals and their tribe as well, assuming they weren’t already pregnant, of course. And people rejoiced to see spring return, and the end, for a while at least, to winter, scarcity and hunger. It was the time for rebirth for the whole tribe. 

 

Resurrection as Rebirth: Beyond Rising from the Dead

 

I came upon the realization that there are many ways to have a form of resurrection. We can live a certain way, keep the same habits, the same beliefs, the same viewpoint, but there comes a time when we can no longer be in the same place we have been. We have to change. We have to go from the “doldrums of winter/death” to a new life with new vistas, new ideas new ways that work better for us than the way we were doing things.

We have to keep moving forward, we have to burst out of the cocoon we were living in, were asleep in and sleepwalking through life. But it isn’t easy. You have to fight your way free or you won’t be able to fly free.

When caterpillars spin a cocoon, and attach it, it’s a struggle; a life and death struggle. Failure isn’t an option as a failure to do one or the other means life of death for that caterpillar, and metamorphosis is not possible. Like the caterpillar in its cocoon, which literally dissolves into primordial soup during metamorphosis before reorganizing as a butterfly, we have to take some time to evaluate and analyze our life, to meditate and “pause and consider”. That is, we have to spin our web of isolation, our cocoon, and attach a grounding so that we can meditate. We have to prepare our minds. We have to sleep for healing our hurts, what things mean to us, if we need to change our mindsets.

In some ways, we are going on Joseph Campell’s extensively written cyle about “myth” of the death and rebirth known as the “Hero’s or Heroine’s Journey” but that means that we have to, or rather are responsible for bringing back what we find to others, our families (if they are willing to listen), friends, followers, or the world at large. Learn more about my Heroine’s Journey in spiritual practice. 

But then comes the waking up. It isn’t easy to come out of that cocoon. We have to have the same life or death struggle to come out of our cocoon. And that’s hard.

For most of my life, I’ve always done things the same, and I kept getting the same results. I had to force myself to slow down, to wait, to pause and consider, but then it was so safe in my cocoon, and I wasn’t making any progress. I had to take the step in accepting my mission, to find out what it even was. And that for me was scary. But I had to accept that I had to accept the mission. I couldn’t stay in my cocoon. It’s been a life and death struggle to even find out what I wanted, let along what I needed to tell the world. “I exist!” But that meant I could no longer be dead, but had to come into a new life.

Resurrection is metamorphosis from what we were to what we can be

Life isn’t being caught in amber like a fly or other insect. We don’t stay the way we were, don’t stay in one place. We don’t know what we could be until we take the first steps toward a new way of life no matter how tough it is, no matter how hard we have to struggle.

For me, I want to move from a life of winter. A life of privation and want to a comfortable life. I won’t stay there, because I think I have something to share with the world. I want to study photography, I want to write, but I have to fight my way out of that cocoon. My first action was to say “No!” to what other people wanted me to be. I want to be the one to decide who I want to be, where I want to go. I have to break free of the old life, the life of death to the life of the living.

We can be resurrected from fear to act to an impulse to act

How many times have you wanted to do something but were afraid of what it would take, or afraid that no one wanted to hear you?”. You become afraid to move. here’s a saying—I don’t remember who said it—’Hate is not the opposite of love. Fear is. With love or hate, you move ahead for good or ill. But when you’re afraid, you become paralyzed into inaction—frozen on the side of the road, unable to move forward or back—until you are too afraid to stay still.  But the good news of resurrection is that you can change. You can become inspired to act. It might take a shock or an epiphany, but on a particular day, you realize you HAVE to move.. Away from that fear, or accepting it and moving in a direction. Any direction. Movement is better than none at all. We don’t have to stay on “the side of the road” waiting anymore. Movement frees you from fear.

I was writing a letter to my mentor, Connie Ragen Green—someone I deeply admire—and I realized that resurrection wasn’t just about rising from the dead.. It was resurrection from fear, from immobility, and Easter can be that for not just me, but for you too. For me, that realization was so blinding and I can’t believe I didn’t see it before, but I guess I wasn’t ready. I feel like a person reborn!

Conclusion

I’m not there yet. I’m just starting my journey and taking the first steps, but I’m starting to realize I can move away from my cocoon of safety; that just because it’s safe, doesn’t mean that it’s safe for my integrity, at least to myself, that it’s safe for my peace of mind, that it’s safe for who and what I want to evolve into. That I don’t have to sacrifice my soul to be what other people want me to be. I can take the first steps and then another, then another. I can resurrect from fear to action. And the first thing I want to do is write and write a lot. I can get out of my cocoon. I believe I’m past the first cocoon. Resurrection as rebirth isn’t a destination—it’s a journey of continuous transformation.