The surprising mess I discovered in my son’s ‘grow your own butterfly kit’ and how it relates to our own transformations.
My son’s 4th birthday ‘grow your own butterfly kit’ was made up of a container lined with a half inch layer of caterpillar food the colour of cement and texture of peanut butter, 5 little caterpillars sitting on top of the food no bigger than maggots, a pop up mesh habitat, a sugar packet to make up butterfly nectar, a feeding pipette and a chrysalis station.
For 10 days all we had to do was keep the caterpillar container in safe place away from sunlight and wait.
Although of course, the waiting was not a passive process.
We watched in fascination as the caterpillars ate the food and spun webs of silk. The silk became harnesses and like contortionists, the caterpillars suspended themselves within the webbing. After ten days they had grown to 10 times their original size and were now plump recognisable caterpillars.
One morning, we woke up to find that the caterpillars were no longer enmeshed in the silk, but instead were hanging upside down on the lid of the containers like baby bats. They would stay in this protective position through out the cocoon phase.
As humans, we forget we are animals too. We forget our natures. And that we also have periods of intense transformation.
When internal shifts are in motion, as humans, we can feel equally vulnerable and protective of the change taking place within us.
Society has given us the false expectation that a transformation is as quick and painless as walking through a revolving door in one state and emerging the other side transformed.
It’s so much more messy than this - just as it turns out it is when a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly.
As each of our butterflies emerged from their cocoons and shed their old skin…. there was…... red gunk.
It looked like blood. It turns out it was meconium.
Waste.
I was shocked, because it wasn’t something I’d ever come across in the countless books I’d grown up on about caterpillars becoming butterflies…
…this was messy and not very pretty at all.
And here’s another thing; the butterflies that emerged didn’t have the strength to fly at first. The wings were folded and crinkled and they had to begin the process of expanding and drying their wings before flight was even possible.
So for a few days the butterflies fed on sweet nectar, old banana and melon as they gathered themselves to take flight.
My son didn’t want to let them go at first. They were so precious and so contained.
But he did also want to watch them take flight.
We carried their little habitats to the garden and opened them. They took a while to realise they were free. But when they did… they soared. Fluttering dots of colour against the overcast sky.
Transformations are messy. They take time. There can be loss and pain.
And it may take a while before we’re really flying.
This is ok, more than ok, this is nature.
We can forget that this is also human nature… exactly how it’s supposed to be.
