It’s amazing what can turn up indoors. This morning I found two of these caterpillars (could even have been these very two!), on separate occasions, inside my house. One had made it through the conservatory and almost into the dining room, the other I found later, crawling up the inside of the wire door to the conservatory somehow. I have to ask myself, what are these beautiful looking creatures so desperate to teach me that they’d come indoors, risking everything away from plant goodness (unless they had plans to get up into my bedroom and eat my plants there, that is)?

As you probably know, caterpillars create a chrysalis at some point, shoring themselves up for a while, and later hatch out completely transformed, as a butterfly or moth. So then, they are strong symbols of transformation, and particularly with the beginnings of transformation, the early stages where we have such fear of losing our identity if we were to become something new and different.

The beginnings of big change can be subtle, so as not to be seen for what they are. And in the end, who knows what experiences or moments will have the lasting impact, or will nudge us in a new direction? For me, it is a great pleasure to consider that I am beginning a new journey, even if I do not know where it will lead. It helps to be less anxious about getting there if you can keep it in perspective, and realize that the journey takes time - there is no hurry.

But, if you’re not at the wonderful beginning of the journey, but somewhere in the middle, feeling stuck and stagnant, do not fear. Remember, to the outside world the caterpillar appears to be doing nothing inside that chrysalis, but a whole universe of change is going on behind the scenes.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 23rd, 2006 at 1:21 pm and is filed under Nature's Lessons, Photos, abarefootman. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.