Butterfly Lessons

Video Version Here

One day when our children were very young, I found a colorful caterpillar munching on a fennel plant that I had recently placed in our garden. Instead of getting angry at the very hungry caterpillar, I decided we would have a family science lesson. So I brought her into the house and created an environment for her in a mason jar, setting it on a shelf near our family’s table. I planned to feed her from the fennel that I found her on, and we would just watch to see what happened.

The caterpillar ate and ate the fresh fennel that I continued place in her jar, getting fatter and fatter. My children were fascinated by the poop that she excreted and the shedding of her skins as she grew out of her old ones.

One morning at breakfast, a few weeks after I brought her in, I noticed that she was not moving at all, seemingly tethered at her head and at her feet. I wondered if she had died.

A few minutes later, I noticed that she was twitching and moving, almost violently. I called the family to come see, and, over a ten minute period, we watched as our caterpillar gradually transformed into a chrysalis. Squirming the whole time, we first noticed a patch of light green on the back of her head that then spread over her entire body, engulfing her. A minute or two later, the process was complete, and the chrysalis was immobile.

I was surprised by this process. I wasn’t sure, but I thought that maybe a caterpillar formed a shell, excreting it somehow. I didn’t realize that the caterpillar BECAME a chrysalis. And I was surprised that it looked as if she was struggling against the transformation.

I wanted to reassure her by saying, “It’s OK, little caterpillar! I know you don’t understand what’s happening to you right now, but if you just relax and let this happen, you’ll soon emerge as something wonderful and beautiful!”

(I later learned that the squirming was a way to wriggle out of the last of the caterpillar’s skins. The light green patch that appeared was the chrysalis breaking open the old skin that was eventually shed. We didn’t have a computer or YouTube at the time, but we do now. To see a video of this transformation, click here.

Two weeks later, again at breakfast, I noticed a crack in the now dull brown chrysalis, with a few little black legs emerging from it. Now our family watched as a crumpled wad of a brand-new butterfly emerged, clinging to the spent shell by her spindly legs. I took her jar outdoors and gently shook her out onto the railing of our front porch which was bathed in sunshine. As we continued to watch, this gorgeous creature slowly began to unfurl her wrinkled wings. She began to move them, pumping her blood throughout her black and blue colored wings so that they stiffened and became rigid enough for flight.

And fly our black swallowtail butterfly did! My heart soared as she took off. What a miracle it was, and a miracle that we got to witness such a transformation.

It’s still a mystery HOW the chrysalis transforms into a butterfly. Scientists say that the creature inside turns to mush, a soup of proteins and genetic material, that then rearranges itself to create a butterfly. Sounds like a miracle to me.

Butterflies have long been a Christian symbol of resurrection and rebirth—changing from one type of creature into another. But what strikes me now is the struggle that the caterpillar seemed to put up as she become a chrysalis. When we know that we need to change, we often fight it, putting up our defenses, using the techniques our egos have successfully used in the past. If change is inevitable, though, we should learn to let go, give into it, and let it happen.

I believe that we are called, in different times in our lives, to put ourselves into the loving arms of the divine, to rest in protection, as the work of transformation takes place. Our former self gives way to a new self. It’s hard to let go of the known and trust that transformation will be good for us, that we will emerge from it a new creature.

But it’s never just a rest. There is work we need to do ourselves, shedding our old skin, and while in the chrysalis, rearranging our old selves to become a new self.

Maybe my question from last week, “What’s next?” requires me to trust and surrender to the chrysalis of divine love. I don’t know what I will emerge as, but when I do, I know that I will need to bathe in the sunshine of the same divine love so that I can fly.