The Birth of a Monarch
The sun was filtering through leaves of green that were moving with the breeze. She circled and floated on the wind like a free spirited pixie made of tissue, looking for the bright bursts of flowers that would feed her before the long migration south to warmer weather.
The female Monarch butterfly first had to finish one of the last implanted messages that her Creator had programed into her genetic make up and that was to find a milkweed bush so she could lay her eggs. It had to be milkweed, the only plant the monarch caterpillars can eat. Instinctively she lays each egg with which seems to be premeditated and mindful planning. On each leaf of the milkweed plant, a single egg is placed. When she is done, she is lifted by a warm current of air and starts her migration south.
Three days have passed since the monarch laid the fragile white eggs, leaving them in God’s hands or the hands of fortune. The eggs stir and begin to hatch.
The caterpillar emerges so small it can barely be seen. Awakening from a dream state, the caterpillar remains small for a very short time. The voracious appetite of the caterpillar is unmatched by most of the other beings in the garden. Feeding on only milkweed, the little almost microscopic insect grows to two inches in about nine days. The caterpillar has eight pairs of legs; the first three pairs of legs become the legs of the Monarch Butterfly after the metamorphosis.
The caterpillar must endure the weather, spiders and the preying eyes of birds. During this miraculous growing cycle, the caterpillar sheds its skin like a snake when it has out grown its old skin.
This creature has spent its whole life on the same plant where its mother first deposited her eggs. Now that it is a full-grown, the caterpillar starts its own journey off of the only world it has known, much like when we leave home to start a new life in another state or country.
The caterpillar will trek some thirty to forty feet from the origin of its birth and begin the next phase of its life cycle. The crossing can be full of hazards, but there are no cognizant decisions to stay where it is. The caterpillar follows nature’s path that was created by some mystical force pulling like a magnet.
After finding a protected place, the caterpillar begins to build a mat made from silk-like webbing and attaches its last pair of legs to the mat and lets itself drop much like when a child has someone stand behind them and trusts him or her to catch them.The caterpillar has a faith to which no human can know except for a newborn or the dying.
A day passes and the creature remains alive and sheds for the last time passing from caterpillar stage to the chrysalis stage. A beautiful jade color of which paints would find hard to match will house the caterpillar until it emerges into a brilliant Monarch.
The transformation inside this chrysalis is nothing short of another miracle in this creature’s life. The mouth that once chewed the leave of the milkweed leaves turns into a straw like tongue that will sip the nectars of the flowers. The being that crawled from the egg will develop wings as light as tissue and as physically powerful as steel.
The metamorphosis is complete when the chrysalis cracks open revealing a defenseless wet winged Monarch butterfly. The blood of the butterfly fills the creature and the wings begin to unfurl and rise. For an hour or so, the butterfly must rely purely on providence, for though the beauty is evident, it cannot fly.
The breeze dries its wings and lifts the Monarch into the sky.
The sun was filtering through leaves of green that were moving with the breeze. She circled and floated on the wind like a free spirited pixie made of tissue, looking for the bright bursts of flowers that would feed her before the long migration south to warmer weather.
The cycle continues…