Caterpillar Soup, 1.15.20

One year ago I melted. Not literally, maybe not even really figuratively. But parts of me that I had hardened and guarded and protected suddenly became very soft and flimsy, and I eventually felt like nothing but goo. 

Vulnerable. 

Lifeless. 

Formless. 

Goo. 

The thought of being solid again was unreal. 

Caterpillars do this. They liquify, mostly. Just like I did, but not. It is how they take their fattened, gorged, caterpillar selves and transform into a butterfly or moth. Eric Carle left out that little tidbit in our favorite children’s story. He tells us about how “One Sunday morning the warm sun came up and - pop! - out of the egg came a tiny and very hungry caterpillar” and then takes us on the visual delight of everything the Very Hungry Caterpillar eats that week, starting with one apple on Monday and ending with a smorgasbord of not caterpillar friendly foods on Saturday. It is no surprise that by Saturday evening the Very Hungry Caterpillar is sick from all the junk he consumes. Just like me. I consumed all the junk. The bullshit people told me, people who held little to no merit in my life. People who I trusted with too much and expected too little from. But there I was, years of consumption later, an ego-fattened-self-doubting caterpillar of a person. And then, then I melted.

But let’s pick up where Eric left off on Saturday night. The caterpillar is fat and happy(?) and suffering a bit of indigestion and enters into the next stage of its lifecycle, the chrysalis/cocoon. This is where things get messy, and maybe not toddler friendly. Caterpillars digest themselves, literally. WHAT!? THEY LIQUIFY AND DIGEST THEMSELVES! Cutting open a chrysalis at just the right time will render you caterpillar soup. This soup contains the gooey mess of most of the former caterpillar and only very specific cell groupings. These groupings, imaginal discs, are the basis for the butterfly or moth that is yet to form. The groupings were always present in the caterpillar and require caterpillar soup to feed on for the cell division needed to change into wings, complex eyes, antenna- you get it.

CATERPILLARS LIQUIFY! 

They are Vulnerable!

They are Lifeless!

They are Formless!

They are Goo! 

And then this goo does the unthinkable. It aids in the rapid transformation of the butterfly, the moth; and after a short emergence struggle, goes on to live its new purpose. What a bunch of tiny, hungry, badasses.

It is not that easy for people though. It certainly was not that easy for me. To be goo for a bit and rapidly change back into a person, it’s messy and dirty and if you don’t coach yourself daily to brush your teeth and shower well you probably won’t do either, I didn’t.

Was pre-cocoon life fulfilling? Do I embrace my imaginal discs? Do I even recognize them?

How come caterpillar soup knows what to do next but people soup does not? 

For me, pre-cocoon life had highlights but was lacking depth. My imaginal discs, while hidden for the last 10 or so years quickly became obvious once I started melting. And then I fed them. And fed them. And fed them. And just like the Very Hungry Caterpillar my instinctual cell groupings grew rapidly.

What are your imaginal discs? What are you doing with them? What needs to liquify in order to grow? Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar is about change and hope and while his story skips over the immense difficulties of change I encourage you to embrace the soupy part. Without it, we are just a bunch of fat and groggy caterpillars.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/caterpillar-butterfly-metamorphosis-explainer/