I sit watching a monarch caterpillar molt. The fourth instar. It is exciting and magical to me. My family thinks I've lost it. I sit and watch. They fascinate me, Frida and Guadalupe-the two that remain. (Petunia went to live with my friend, so her little ones could see the miracle too.)
I worry about Guadalupe. I've read that some caterpillars have incomplete molts which result in the old skin becoming too tight for the growing caterpillar. Some break free. Yet some don't make it, they die. Some struggle for hours and manage to shed the old skin. My caterpillar is struggling right now. Lupe is thrashing around on a milkweed leaf desperate to shed the last ring of skin around her little body. It would ordinarily be a tendency of mine to reach in, gently pick up the caterpillar and help it out. Still sadly enough I realize that I cannot do this. If I do that then I interfere with nature's plan, and I mustn't mess with nature so I helplessly sit and watch-whispering words of encouragment to her to give it all she has got. Kind of like an unseen and unheard angel may cheer you or I on.
So you know me, here I go projecting again. And the little caterpillar becomes a microcosm of my own world reflected back at me. I'm breaking loose from the old restrictive beliefs, attitudes and ways I've crafted over the years-the same way Lupe is breaking out of her old restrictive exoskeleton. I'm transforming myself into the person I truly wish to be. {For you see it is my deepest wish to manifest the greatest me I can manifest, and there is a grand plan at work in my life right now for me to do just that.} And I see all of this in the struggles of a tiny sweet caterpillar.
This evening in dreamland I'll drift off with a wish and a prayer, that when I wake tomorrow Lupe is free of her old skin. (I'll wish and pray for myself too, why not?)
Keep your fingers crossed for little Lupe. Would you mind? One day she could fly all the way to Mexico.
xo
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