Finding your Cremaster

How do you begin this cocoon business?  You have to find your Spiritual Cremaster.

What in the world is that? It’s the place you start. It’s your anchor. 

I’ll just let Sue tell you:

“When the caterpillar begins to spin its chrysalis, it forms a spiny little protuberance at the end of its abdomen called the cremaster. The cremaster is like a button or patch of Velcro that fastens the pupa in the cocoon and holds it in place.  It’s the anchor point, the place from which the caterpillar hangs “

The still point is our cremaster. Without it, there’s no dance of transformation. It’s the place where all cocoon making starts.  We need to find the point in our soul where we go neither forward nor backward but are fastened in our waiting. We need to discover the “protuberance” from which our lives can silently hang and become new.

What IS this still point?  It represents the Center, the quiet core where God’s Spirit dwells in us.  “Do you not know that…God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (1 Cor. 3:16)”

To lay hold of this spot, we quiet our minds, guard the door to our inner world, get alone and SLOW ourselves down and we STILL our breath.  After that, it looks different for each of us. Some gravitate to stillness. Some to vigorous exercise, some to a walk outside, some get out an easel…some to yoga. 

It takes constant practice.  God wanted to BE with Adam in the garden. I was made aware of the insight recently that God took the 7^th day of creation "off"  to be at rest with Adam in the garden. Consider though that a garden requires constant attention, being in God’s presence, being “in the garden” takes constant attention and a million “begin agains”.

There is this anchoring into who God says you are, who God says he is, and the promises that define our living and moving and breathing.

The cremaster is a place.

It’s a practice.

It’s a way of life.

It’s a coming home.

It’s our center of gravity.

It’s our reference point.

It’s the stiller of our water.

It’s our stronghold during the storm.

It’s the place we trust to curl up around and wait for the transformation to happen.

When we see the look in Jesus’s face and hear the tone in his voice, when we lock eyes with the One who loves our soul deeply, when we feel him knelt down in the mess with us cupping our face…we have found our cremaster.