Caterpillar to a Butterfly

August 29, 2021

As we walked along a nearby street in our neighborhood, the familiar face of a homeowner, Tara, whose assortment of flowering plants I have long admired, stopped me with a sort of urgent question, “Do you like butterflies?!!” I replied, “Yes!! Of course I do!!” She replied, “Come here and see them come out!”

Excitedly, I appoached her boyfriend, AJ, coffee in his hand, sitting in the driveway looking towards a box with a netted frame over it. Hanging from the metal netting I just saw some pretty colorful butterflies, and so I commented like I got it, “Aww, they’re beautiful!” I continued to peer intently trying to become amazed as I think I should be, pulling at Bustey’s leash so he too can see the little critters, Mom forgotten, probably half way down the block with her rollator by now! Thankfully, Tara checked on Mom as I continued to figure out the little mystery before me.

Well, about five minutes later, I GOT IT!!

If you understand the stages involved in becoming a butterfly, and/or at least watched the video I inserted above, then you’ve GOT IT too! Tara has taken it a step further though. She retrieves the Chrysalis from the leaves in her garden and secures each of them with a piece of thread, hanging them on the metal netting so that they can make it successfully to the butterfly stage! She says, otherwise, they get eaten by bees in the garden. So, initially, I wasn’t actually amazed, because lost on me were what the tiny black and green oblong shaped ‘doohickeys’ were hanging inconspicuously on the netting!! And, as Tara patiently pointed out to me the various stages that her butterflies were in, stating, “This one should come out any minute now, that one should come out in about 20 minutes,” I was in amazement of the miracle of life that was displayed right in front of me!!

For a few minutes, we watched the black Chrysalis just hanging there like it was a piece of blob that had dried and become nonviable, when in fact a METAMORPHOSIS was occurring within, that would soon produce a much loved creature of unique beauty; a creature with the ability to soar across gardens and neighborhoods, drawing ‘oooos and awwws’ from the young and old alike. I was so impressed. And even more impressed at the thoughtfulness of Tara who was assisting in their success!

Got me to thinking! Isn’t that just like the way mentors assist their proteges to get from a place where they’re full of potential (the Pupa stage of the butterfly) to the Chrysalis stage. Behind the scenes they’re being coached and guided, undergoing their own individual metamorphosis, as they come into their own full potential, unfolding and blooming in their careers! Nature often has a way of helping me understand many of the intricacies of human life. Must be why I love losing myself walking amongst nature’s many offerings.

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More to come…