The Caterpillar & The Moth

A Meditation on Transformation

Photo by Anya Chernik on Unsplash

I was listening to a radio program the other day that described the life of a caterpillar and its transformation into a butterfly or moth. Essentially, the caterpillar snuffles along its lumpy way eating its fill, extending itself little by little bit. Because, well, because it is a caterpillar’s nature to rumple the world and to be rumpled by it. But eventually, when it has snuffled and eaten and enjoyed being a caterpillar enough for one caterpillar life, it wraps itself into a solitary womb called the cocoon or chrysalis. As soon as it is settled into it’s secret place, it immediately breaks down into its gooey elements. Really. I’m not kidding. I guess always imaged the caterpillar’s transformational process as similar to the B-movie version of a human turning into werewolf, with the parts of the moth erupting and elongating from the body - just more slow growing and not as violent.   But the truth is even stranger than B-movie fiction. Between the life of the roly-poly  caterpillar and the elegant butterfly there is a middle time, a time when the caterpillar becomes a middle thing that is unrecognizable as critter or even critterish.  The caterpillar actually breaks down into its essential cellular elements.  From dust (or goo) it came and to dust (or goo) it returns. Then, and only then, when it has let go of everything wonderful and fine and hard and toilsome about its rumpled caterpillar days, it grows into its new self, rearranging all those liquid elements into the paper thin wings, delicate antennae, with the long graceful butterfly legs.”

But wait, there’s more miracles and magic.  Scientists have determined that the moth or butterfly, that entirely new creation, remembers what it was before its transformation. A moth or butterfly will react to significant experiences remembered from its earthbound former life. The scientists described exposing a caterpillar to an unpleasant smell, which it consistently reacted to adversely whenever encountered. The scientists then reintroduced the unpleasant smell to the newly transformed on-the-other-side-of-goo butterfly— and it reacted. Yes, the memories, events, and experiences of that caterpillar’s days somehow carried forward through all the changes. Something of the caterpillar’s first self survived through the middle unformed, elemental, unrecognizable-as-a-critter phase. But wait, there’s still more. Science folk have also found that if you look carefully through a microscope into the body of a caterpillar, there are teeny tiny elemental bits of the foreshadowed wings and butterfly body parts. Somehow, when the caterpillar becomes goo, those precious bits are safely tucked aside through all the melting and breaking down and brought back into the process when reassembling and reforming.

So here’s the thing that has been following me since hearing that podcast.  I find it wondrous  there is something of the future butterfly or moth patiently waiting in the caterpillar’s deepest secret places that is carried like a promise, like a question, ok…like a soul. And at the same time there is also something of the caterpillar’s knowledge, wisdom, and rumpled caterpillar life that is carried forward into its new and transformed moth or butterfly self.

The persistence of the caterpillar’s memory after its breakdown and reforming, and the small secret presence of the moth or butterfly’s foreshadowed wings within the body of the caterpillar, leads me to ponder. 

• What wisdom or image of my future self do I carry right now within my secret heart? 

• When I transform, (and I will transform throughout my life) what experiences of my former self will carry through, and how do I honor these experiences for the wisdom gathered there?

• Are the experiences that have broken me down to my barest self an end, or were they actually the means to a new becoming?

• Perhaps the caterpillar and the moth are not either/or creations, but overlapping and one in the same, and that the caterpillar is just as beautiful and valuable as the winged creature it becomes?

• Could it be that our wings are always, always within us, patiently waiting until we are ready to fly?

Excerpt and updated version of “The Caterpillar and the Moth” From A Permeable Life: Poems & Essays by Carrie Newcomer

---

Practice

Meditate on the process of the caterpillar into moth or butterfly. Imagine the tiniest of wings carried within the caterpillar. Imagine all the experience and wisdom of the caterpillar carried aloft in the body of the butterfly or moth.

Question

Now - Write a three line haiku about transformation…either about the butterfly, or your own transformation from child to adult, from adult to senior, from whatever you were into who you are now. Remember to thank the caterpillar self for keeping safe within it the promise and the realization of wings.

---

Music

Here is a song that I wrote about endings and beginnings called “The Point of Arrival”

---

One Inch Photos

A Luna Moth that I discovered on my back porch door this week