I found this dried carcass of a caterpillar near my front porch this morning. I was just held captive by wanting to know what had kept it from growing into a chrysalis and completing it’s metamorphoses to a butterfly. Had it gotten scared of change (I can relate), did it fall victim to the sudden cold?

I also harbored some guilt in the “if” that the pesticides we had used to rid our home of roaches, somehow contribute to his demise. I found it a little paradoxical feeling guilty of possibly having stopped his morph into a butterfly when I throw up all kinds of roadblocks to my own change.

I just finished reading Sue Monk Kidd’s fine read When the Heart Waits.  I was very moved by the book and at long last feel in close proximity to “soulmaking.”

On my way to my studio to make an obit photo of the caterpillar, I came across a Monarch  butterfly working the Lantana to nourish his southerly trek. I almost breezed past the moral of the story. As I slowed and truly looked at this Monarch, he was one war torn warrior.

I know that butterflies are not a real man thing, but this old fellow was for sure a man’s butterfly. I was reminded of the old saying:

Life is not a journey to the grave

With the intention of

Arriving safely in a pretty

And well preserved body,

But rather to skid in broadside,

Thoroughly used up,
Totally worn out,

And loudly proclaiming,

WOW !!!! What a ride!

This butterfly wore the look of WOW!!! What a ride.

So which do you choose, dying a fat worm who never became what God intended or would you rather skid in as the creature that lived life to the full and became all that Abba planned?