The Reluctant Caterpillar
Like Maria Popova, I love children’s books as a form to explore simple truths. Though my sons have outgrown the picture book stage, I find these tales keep coming as I stumble through all this. Maybe this fable—ancient and new—will emerge in full illustrated form some day (as River did). But for now it lives here. Thank you for sharing this great bewildering story with me.
**
Once there was a caterpillar who dreamed only of the sky.
He loved his days crawling among the damp moss, eating rich green leaves, and wriggling deep into his home within a crumbling log.
But every evening as the sun faded from the sky, he would sit at the edge of his log and look up.
There would be a flash of color and mesmerizing patterns—orange upon blue upon black—as a butterfly flew past, circled him once, and then disappeared again.
He had heard in the whispers that crept along the forest floor that those majestic creatures had once been like him.
How could that be? he wondered.
Each time he caught himself hoping that the whispers might be true, he would feel a jolt like cold lightning run through his body and he would laugh quietly at himself and ask: “Where would you be in those wings, those colors, that courage to soar among the trees?
Months passed and his dreams grew until they ached like an old scar. Now he spent his days with his eyes fixed on the sky, hoping for another glimpse of a butterfly, hoping beyond hope for a hint of what he might become.
One day, his hunger grew so great that he left the familiar moss of his home and sought those who must know.
First, he came to the most productive caterpillar in the forest, her creations piled high around her. “Why would you want to be a butterfly?” she asked hurriedly. “There is so much to do to here, and you can always create other ways to fly.” She pointed high above where a silver jet streaked between the clouds.
Next, he came to the wealthiest caterpillar in the forest, basking in the sun on a mound of dandelion leaves. “Why would you want to be a butterfly?” she asked with a smile. “They don’t walk our rich earth or feast on our delicious leaves.”
Last, he came to the smartest caterpillar in the forest pacing the branch of a great tree and studying the ground far below. “Why would you want to be a butterfly?” she asked. “They just fade away like everything else.” And he pointed to where an orange-blue wing lay half-buried in the moss.
They are right, he thought as he trudged home. I love my moss, my leaves, my home. Where would my loves be among those colors and wings?
He vowed to think of the sky no more and went about his days with his eyes fixed on the bounty of the earth. Dreams of soaring blue and orange still invaded his nights, but he was strong and locked them away as soon as the sun rose.
Winter came and the forest grew quiet and dark and hungry. Deep within his log the caterpillar shivered and ached. “Be strong,” he whispered to his body. “Green leaves and warm earth will return.”
When at last spring’s buds emerged, he emerged from his log to find the sky full of butterflies, their wings a grand mosaic dancing beneath the sun. Cold lightning again rushed through him. He ignored it and feasted on the bright new leaves flooding the world.
But no matter how much he ate, his body still shivered and ached. Confused, he set out to ask those who must know. They were gone. He was alone on the ground.
No, not alone. As he reached his home, there was a sharp hiss and Snake, her belly aching from the long winter, darted through the moss. The caterpillar crawled back into his log just in time.
“Come out and feast upon the spring, little one,” Snake called sweetly from atop the log.
“I am never coming out again,” the caterpillar replied.
“Why do you hide alone?” Snake hissed. “What are you waiting for?”
“I love my moss, I love the earth. I don’t want to leave them,” the caterpillar whispered. And yet I ache so much, he thought to himself.
“Then you must hold more tightly,” Snake cried. “Protect yourself as sister snail does as she crawls this earth you love. You know how to weave your own shell.”
“I do?” the caterpillar asked. And as he opened his mouth, he found he did know. He took the sticky gossamer thread that emerged and wound it around his tail.
He paused as the milky casing tightened against his skin. “Will I be safe?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,” Snake replied just outside the hole, tongue glistening. “In fact, it’s the only way.”
Round and round the caterpillar wove the thread until all but his head and front feet were encased. His aches faded as he worked, but that cold lightning grew and grew.
“That is enough,” the caterpillar whispered. “I can carry my home now like sister snail.”
But the threads kept pouring forth from his mouth, winding now around his neck.
He tried to kick himself free from the tight container. Nothing moved.
“Where are my beautiful feet?" the caterpillar asked. Nobody answered.
The threads now wrapped around his nose. He tried to push free with his muscular midsection. Nothing moved.
“Where is my beautiful body?” the caterpillar asked. Nobody answered.
The final thread closed across his eyes and he sank into darkness.
“Where am I?” the caterpillar asked, his hope melting with the rest of him.
A shape danced in the darkness, faint at first, then brighter and brighter—a butterfly more majestic than any he had seen. “Where you have always been,” she replied softly.
The cold lightning flashed one final time through the void. “Where will I be in your wings, in your colors?” the caterpillar asked, though he had no mouth.
“Where you have always been,” came the reply as the colors and darkness faded.
Winter came again. And again. And again.
At last, as the buds of the third spring pushed through the snow, something stirred deep within the hollow log. White thread fell like old skin and new color burst into the darkness.
Awkwardly at first, then with an effortless grace, a butterfly rose toward the sun, its stained glass wings gleaming. He spun through the chill air then landed on a flowering jasmine vine.
I love the sky, I love the flowers, he thought as he drank their nectar. Then a familiar ache echoed through him and he looked down at the world below. And I love the earth, the moss, the leaves.
A wind swept through the branches. He spread his wings and let it carry him out towards the endless blue.
And Snake? She had grown tired waiting and went in search of a faster meal.
**
This is our life. None of us want to dissolve. And we long to dissolve, to transcend our little shell and rise to something greater. Between that fear and that longing, our life ebbs and flows.
Some of our transformations are small: beloved jobs and homes and friends melting into memory and new ones bursting forth. Some are so big we barely recognize the caterpillar we once were. The cycle will continue until we crawl into that final chrysalis and melt away from this world.
This is the Vampire Problem, the Ship of Theseus, the paradox of all transformation. We fear the truth—that “I” will not exist as we have in that new form—so pour energy into fighting the metamorphosis, clinging to tired identities and control strategies.
This tale embodies many of my questions. Would the caterpillar have transformed if you removed the ache of longing or the lightning of fear? Would he ever have entered the chrysalis without Snake’s desperate (and fruitless) trick? Were the three knowing caterpillars transformed despite their dismissiveness? If so, if the process was inevitable, did the caterpillar have to go through all the seeking and resistance? Or would he have been devoured if he had emerged faster?
As always, I sense the answer to all those questions is yes and no.
I’ve spent so much time wishing this was all easier and clearer. But in many traditions, every part of this cycle is sacred: the resistance, the confusion, the longing, the fear, the doubt, the rejection, and the inequality as much as the surrender and transformation.
Its maddening. But it is. It’s the gift we are given in its wholeness. We can either choose to accept it all or turn away from life.
May we all weave the next chrysalis we are called into. May we all melt within its embrace. And may we all emerge again in the full splendor of our next form.