The caterpiller

The caterpillar awakes and starts to eat. Pretty much anything tastes good. Eating all the nutrients for growth. Equipped for the journey bright days ahead. Sometimes the munching becomes indiscriminate and the growing becomes distorted and will take some time on good food to become restored.

Then slowly the softness hardens, things that were certain become vague. What was important becomes questionable. What dreams of growth become a realisation that the cost is too high.

Forward momentum slows and the soft easy movements stop.

No movement. Stuck on a thread with one view, vulnerable and alone. The hard crust tightens and the wait and the confusion of the held place starts.

The chrysalis closes over, no light to see or watch the secret place of transformation. It is the most hidden place. It is the end of the caterpillar, death of self, death to the first part of life.

Death with the hope of transformation, but was that just a whisper, folklore, something to give death some meaning? Does the narrow path lead through the darkness to brighter light. Death for life. An end for a beginning, A seed buried in the dark hoping to break through into new life.

But for now the dark. The tomb. The wait.

Everything is stripped; dreams, achievements, failures, significance, reputation, disappointments, expectations, vision, pride, insecurities baggage and status. All that is left in the darkness is hope and the wait..

There is silence and there is activity.

The old is crumbling and disintegrating or if needed it is remodelled to become part of the new.

A slow and painful process of letting go of what has been the norm, the cost and the value. To grieve and release and allow the transformation.

To come out early, by choice or force, would create a metamorphosis with a mixture of old and new. A muddle of a transition neither able to fly freely into new experience of life with wings or eat the green leaves all day in the sunshine. Unable to go backwards because the shape is torn.

To wait in the dark, wait for the full transformation wait and hope.

And then a shard of light. Hope breathes and stretches. There is a push and a wriggle slowly out of confinement. The brightness of the day fills the body and inspires and encourages.

The hard shell falls and with a deep breath of clean fresh air the butterfly fills their lungs and spreads out their wings.

Emerging wings fill with blood and it is time to fly. The beautiful butterfly shows it’s true colours, shining in the sunlight.
Life to embrace and a story to tell of hope holding through the darkness.