The Butterfly Cycle

August, 2026

Continuum is a powerful interspecies practice.

The journey through the archetypal butterfly cycle is filled with surprises.

From Egg to Caterpillar

Emerging gradually, coming to life, taking shape within a yolk-like world: this is the beginning of a vivid encounter with the animal nature we share with the caterpillar. Along the way, one senses a profound insatiability—the hunger that is life itself—expressing itself across species.
Yet this cycle offers more than insight into life. It opens mysterious portals.

One reveals how time shapes the spiralling rhythm of existence: from birth to death, from death to birth. Another is the realization that, like the caterpillar, we must shed our skin—sometimes even consume it—before entering the Great Metamorphosis. It recalls Emilie Conrad's question: "How many times have you died?" Here it becomes: "How many skins have you shed in preparation for this metamorphosis?"

From Chrysalis to Butterfly

A third powerful portal appears in the liquefaction of the caterpillar. How can such a transformation take place? What disappears? What dies? And what encoded message remains to guide the emergence of the butterfly?
Then comes the moving moment of birth, as the butterfly emerges from its chrysalis into a world perceived through entirely new senses. It awakens within a new environment and a new Umwelt—a new perceived world.

The Butterfly's Life and Death

As we acquire our new abilities—to fly and to perceive colours previously unknown—we begin to feel, simultaneously through both legs, the movement of the flower and its taste. In that moment, we witness and inhabit the butterfly's first meeting with the flower, taking part in the Earth's Permanent Metamorphosis: one part of the living world becoming butterfly, another becoming flower, each growing towards the other.

Finally comes death, accompanied by the knowledge that although many eggs are laid, only a few among hundreds allow life to continue, carrying its code into the future. Within them endures life's mysterious impulse to persist, to transform, and to renew itself.

Some beings—like the butterfly—live only briefly. Their lives are luminous and beautiful, inviting us to consider a different rhythm of time. I offer them my gratitude for the moments they so generously share with us

The 3 Butterfly Dives

Please consider that each dive takes time: Do them separately first. I suggest to not do them all in a row the first time.

I - From egg to caterpillar

1/The Egg

Starting position:
Lying on your side, hands and feet together, your jaw leaning on your sternum.
Sound:
"ZEPHYR BREATH" As if you are blowing out a candle, fill your mouth with breath, and then let it go out through your mouth slowly.
Exploration:
* Apply "ZEPHYR" Breath and imagine forming the rings of the caterpillar, from head to feet in spirals.
* Feel your lips with your tongue to evoke a sensation of softness and sweetness.
* Begin retracting and moving movements in a closed, slippery space.
Open attention:
On your belly.

2/The Caterpillar

Starting position:
On your belly.
Sounds:
"MIAM" It’s the sound we make when we eat in a greedily and juicy way (but not in a polite one :-) ).
"BLUR" Imagining that the caterpillar has eaten too much, feel free to open your mouth and let go out air as when you belch.
Exploration:
* With your head tilted toward your sternum, begin applying the sound "MIAM" with the intention of eating everything around you, starting with the membrane of the egg. Once you've found a feeling of satiety, take a short break.
* Apply the sound "BLUR" and begin small movements of the body to expand and contract, letting go of the skin that's now too small for you.
* Repeat the process as many times as necessary.
Open attention:
On your back

Il - From Chrysalis to Butterfly

3/The Chrysalis

Starting position:
On your back,
Crossed feet, arms crossed over your chest, hands around your neck.
Sound:
"THETA" BREATH - Exhale air through the two sides of your tongue posed gently behind the front teeth.
Exploration:
* From head to toe, wrap yourself in "THETAS" until you create a cocoon.
* Stay there dissolving and reforming.
Open attention:
On your back.

4/The Emergence of the Butterfly

Starting position:
On your belly, keeping your arms crossed under your body.
Sound:
"PRIMORDIAL" Breath- Exhale with your tongue resting on the middle of your palate while changing the shape of your mouth.
Exploration:
* As new movements begin, lie on your stomach, keeping your arms crossed under your body.
* Begin to make the "PRIMORDIAL" Breath, gradually removing your head, antennae, new mouth and legs from the cocoon.
* Finish on your knees with your arms out to the sides and back.
Open attention:
On your knees with your arms out to the sides and back.

III – The Butterfly's Life and Death

5/ Flying, Landing, Sensing, Eating, and Mating

Starting position:
On your knees with your arms out to the sides and back.
Sound: "SUICHI" Spell out the sound of each letter of the word SSS-OOOO-EEE-TCH-EEE slowly, emphasizing a different letter each time.

Exploration:
* Apply the "SUICHI" sound to your entire body and then to the three butterflies in your body (hips, shoulder girdle, and sphenoid bone), setting your intention to go from kneeling to standing.
* Connect the butterflies two by two.
* Land occasionally, paying attention to the fact that our legs are gustatory sensors and that the flowers we land on sway.
Open attention:
On your back

6/ Preparing the new cycle:

Starting position:
On your back.
Hands on your abdomen.
Sound:
Pulsed “HUM” Humming briefly with a closed mouth as when you find something good.
Exploration:
Apply the "HUM" sound in small impulses with your attention on the pelvic floor.
Final open attention:
On your back.