The term metamorphosis is defined by dictionary.com as “a profound change in form from one stage to the next in the life history of an organism, as from the caterpillar to the pupa and from the pupa to the adult butterfly”.
If you are not familiar with the metamorphosis of a caterpillar to a butterfly then let me give you a crash course. A butterfly lays one egg, and since it’s very picky as to what it eats, it selects a plant that it knows the offspring will like.
The caterpillar is born in a skin that is too small for it, so as it grows the new skin forms on the inside and the older skin sheds off. After eating and crawling for most of its life the caterpillar reaches a point of adulthood where somehow it senses the need to transform. At that point the definition of life it grew to accept begins to change.
To bring on this change the caterpillar stops moving and finds a safe shelter in its chrysalis. There the caterpillar slowly transforms its body, grows wings, develops antennas and a slew of other things. This process takes about 10 to 14 days, and varies by species.
When the process is done the caterpillar transforms into a butterfly and emerges into the same world as a changed being. While life around may seem the same, the butterfly is not, and its past reality is replaced by a new one. Yet, even in this time, the butterfly is not done transforming. It needs to dry off its wings and build up flight muscles before it can fly.
Interestingly, if you ask a caterpillar about the future it imagines for itself it won’t be able to tell you that one day it will fly. And the buttery doesn’t remember its past to tell you where it came from, yet its the same organism.
Our lives are just like the caterpillar’s. We can’t predict the future and so we don’t know what treasures await us. We know that change is natural, but yet we fight it. And if we keep fighting off change then how will we ever transform into what we were born to become?
As another year comes closer to its end, we as creatures have no clue of what 2016 has in store, and truth be told, there is no need for guessing either. Our only task is to accept that whatever we define as our ‘life’ for the time being is subject to change. And we simply need to give ourselves the space and time to realize and transform into a new version of ourselves.
Day by day I’m learning to not fight the future but accept it as it comes.
So I’m always growing, always changing.
Happy transformation friends!
Hokuma
Say No To Food Waste 