When was the last time you stopped to think about your favorite things in life? If it has been a while, pause now and see what top five things come to mind. I recently made a quick list myself. My family was at the top.
Three of the other four were nature related: flowers, rainbows and butterflies. If you’re wondering about the fifth item, it’s light houses. I know I’ve lived a privileged life, being able to spend so much time outdoors.
Right now, I’m sitting outside listening to the sound of crickets and birds. I’m thankful that the cicadas are currently blessedly quiet. As I was typing that last sentence a fledgling cardinal hopped down from the tree in our front yard.
What a pleasant surprise on this quiet evening. I’ve learned a lot about life from studying butterflies. Not in the cheesy make-a-bookmark-out-of-it way, but in a lasting, thoughtful way.
The life of a butterfly has four stages. The process of the lifecycle from egg through the larva and pupa stages until it becomes an adult butterfly is called metamorphosis and can last from as little as 30 days to as many as 200, depending on the species of butterfly. People are like that too.
How long it takes us to grow and change from one season of life to another varies widely. Without giving ourselves, and others, sufficient time to grow, we risk getting stuck in a part of our life cycle where we were never meant to stay. A butterfly larva is called a caterpillar.
How often might we have squished a caterpillar that would have turned into a beautiful butterfly because we didn’t recognize the beauty that was growing in that stage? How often have we unintentionally shut down someone else’s ideas that were half-formed because we did not take the time to listen to them about where the process would end up going? The caterpillar of a monarch butterfly looks nothing like the beauty that will one day emerge from the chrysalis (pupa) stage. Blue Morpho butterflies are my most favorite species, yet their caterpillars look almost horrifying at first glance. After it has eaten enough leaves, a caterpillar spins a cocoon or molts into a chrysalis where their entire body becomes goo.
This process of transformation reminds me that often when life looks the worst it’s usually when the most good is happening. Change is hard, yet so much beauty can come from it. Adult butterflies are ephemeral and ethereal, yet their beauty cannot be denied.
You cannot rush the transformative process. Even after the adult butterfly emerges, it must pump the fluid from its abdomen to its wings and then allow them to dry or it will not be able to fly. Relationships also need time to grow through each stage.
A deep and abiding friendship cannot be rushed. Yet look at the beauty that can emerge with enough time. Remember the butterflies, and give both yourself and your friends time to grow.
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