How did it get to be Monday so soon??? Gosh, the weekend
just flew by! The weather was spectacular this weekend here in northern
Michigan; a true taste of Indian summer with temps in the mid to high 70’s and absolutely
clear, blue skies by day and a soft gentle rain on Saturday night. Really,
perfect weather, but likely the beginning of the end of the warm, summer
weather as we transition into autumn and winter.
My pool is officially emptied and down and just waiting to
dry completely before being put away for the winter. It’s only an 16 foot round
pool that is about 3.5 deep, but it sure provides me with a tremendous amount
of joy each summer. It’s kind of sad to see the empty spot where it once stood
and know that it won’t be much longer and snow will cover that spot. But…spring
will come again and in the meantime, the trees are just bursting forth with
radiant color! Not peaked yet, but the
reds and oranges of the maples are spectacular right now. Hopefully, I’ll get to
go on a color-tour drive next weekend. The next few weekends will involve
getting the perennial gardens ready for bed and storing the patio furniture for
the winter. It sure is good to be able
to do those things again, even if it means winter is knocking on the door.
While working outside this weekend, I noticed an abundance
of fuzzy caterpillars all over the yard. I’m guessing there may be a slight
increase in their numbers this year due to all the additional gardens I planted
all summer to provide food for the butterflies and moths, but I’m also
surmising that I’m just noticing them now that I’m physically able to be ‘out
and about’ in the yard. In any case,
they are very cool. It’s ironic that our
group member Becca posted the picture to the site earlier today showing the
caterpillar and butterfly image because I’ve been thinking about that concept
for the past couple of days now.
The majority of the caterpillars I found were the brown and orange
fuzzy ones. They don’t turn into a butterfly, but rather the Isabella wooly
moth. Many of the others turn into butterflies, but nonetheless, the whole
process of metamorphosis is quite an amazing one. We could learn much from the
life-cycle of a moth/butterfly to apply to our day-to-day journey of
change. When I was teaching youngsters
many years ago, I often told the story of the boy who found a caterpillar and
put it in the jar. He took care of it and watched it spin into a cocoon. One
day, he noticed that the butterfly was trying to come of the cocoon, but it was
struggling so much that the boy cut a hole in the cocoon to help the butterfly
escape. It was easier for the butterfly to get out, but it died shortly
afterward because its body was wet and swollen and it couldn’t fly. The moral
of the story is that the butterfly NEEDED to struggle and work through the
process, because that struggle and difficult period of change, forced the fluid
out of the butterfly, enabling it to fly.
Here is a link to the whole story if you’d like more of the details: http://instructor.mstc.edu/instructor/swallerm/Struggle%20-%20Butterfly.htm
On this journey that we call life, we often go from flying
like a buttefly/moth to crawling for a period like a caterpillar to intense periods
of “isolation, dormancy, emptiness, darkness where we seem to be just ‘standing
still’ or even worst…lifeless (not physically dead, but
emotionally/mentally/spiritually” only to work/struggle through that so that we
can “fly and be free” again. Unlike the moths/butterflies in nature, we don’t
go through this just once and then die, but rather over and over and over
again. Sometimes the periods of
flight/freedom/happiness last longer than the “aloneness/difficulties/trials”;
sometimes the struggle to find our way out of the darkness/pain are harder than
others; sometimes we never ever have the courage to TRY to fly because we might
fail or think we don’t deserve it, so we just stay ‘confined to our own cocoon”
because it’s safer there and we “know how to live that way”. Sometimes we just “die”
there….because we are too afraid to make the necessary changes and leave the
past behind. Wherever we are……whatever our journey…..whatever our struggles…..it’s
important to realize that none of those stages are ever “permanent” and we
must, at times, go through the ups and downs of life. BUT…..we get stronger each time we go through
those changes and if we make truly life-altering changes, the periods of
caterpillar/cocoon don’t last very long…BECAUSE WE KNOW HOW to fly and we can
get back to that stage quicker.
Unless you are a science major, most of us don’t know what
type of butterfly/moth will emerge from any caterpillar of cocoon we might come
across, but we know that if all the elements are right, it will one day fly.
The same is true for us; most of the time we don’t know what “good” will come
out of those crawling/isolation/struggling times we encounter, but if we have
faith, we know that WE WILL come out of it and WE WILL one day fly, either for
the first time or AGAIN! We can…and WE
WILL….change OUR OWN LIVES….just like those silly caterpillars will change
theirs. It’s just a process. Just don’t give up! Ask yourself: how bad to you want to fly? Are you willing to go through the changes? I AM!
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