the imaginal Story

by Richard Good

founder of the imaginalCollective

Have you ever heard of a story called “The Very Hungry Caterpillar“? You may have read it to a child or enjoyed having it read to you. Loved all over the world by millions, this tale by Eric Carle is of a caterpillar who ’eats and eats and eats’ and then turns into a butterfly.

Every time I read it to my daughter, Jay, she would say ”again!”. And so I read it again and again, and again…

Soon she began to ask questions…

“Why is the grass green, daddy?”. Fortunately, I worked at the Eden Project in Cornwall and knew the answer…

“Well, grass is green because it holds a green pigment that absorbs light from the sun”.

“Why is the sky blue, daddy?”. Mmm …this wasn’t so easy …check the web!

“Sunlight is scattered in all directions and blue light is scattered more than all the colours because it travels as shorter, smaller waves”.

Then one beautiful spring evening, as we finished reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar for the umpteenth time, she asked, “What happens in the cocoon, daddy?”. Erm …check the web again!

“Imaginal Cells! Inside a caterpillar there are imaginal cells which are different from the rest of the caterpillar. During its life they are dormant, and separate, but when the cocoon is formed these isolated cells start to become active. As the rest of the caterpillar dissolves, the imaginal cells begin growing and communicating with each other, forming clusters which create the basic structures of the butterfly. The blueprint of the butterfly already existed within the caterpillar!”.

Of Course by this time my daughter was asleep, but I was transfixed.

This story stayed with me and led me to the extraordinary work of the Evolution Biologist, Dr Elizabeth Sahtouris (click here for her more scientific approach to this story). A good friend of the Gaia theorist, James Lovelock, she talks of the process of evolution and likens our time as one moving from competition to collaboration. Indeed she shares the idea that millions of us are like the ‘imaginal cells’ of the Earth and promotes the idea to seek out other imaginal cells as the biggest transformation in human history unfolds.

Click on the following links for introductory videos (by Dr Bruce Lipton and Deepak Chopra) on imaginal cells and how they can be seen as a metaphor for the evolution of human society and consciousness.

The imaginalCollective is a response to this call and to the potentially overwhelming reality of the unfolding Earth Changes.

continue your journey…

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