Hello, fellow caterpillar!

photo by mvy

On a bright green parsley leaf is a dark smudge. Dirt, maybe?

But look closer, and you’ll see a newly-hatched caterpillar. It is barely the length of the leaf, sort of a black-brown color, full of lumps and bumps. There’s a white splotch across its middle, called a saddle.

It’s hard to tell which end is which, and it’s really hard to believe that this tiny critter will one day be an Eastern Black Swallowtail butterfly, dancing on the wind as a flying flower.

Before it can be that gorgeous butterfly, it has to survive its childhood, and go through a couple transformations that include becoming a gooey mess.

Surviving its childhood is a huge challenge for these caterpillars. Actually, being born is a huge challenge. Only a small percentage of the eggs hatch. The new caterpillars are tasty treats for birds and other predators. Then there’s a small matter of humans who might not welcome these hungry critters on their vegetable plants.

It also has to grow from a small black smudge to a beautiful striped-with-yellow-dots caterpillar that is even more visible to predators, before shedding its first layer of skin and forming a chrysalis.

photo by mvy

Once its in the chrysalis, it will dissolve into that gooey mess I mentioned before, and re-form to its adult shape for its short life as a butterfly.

That gooey mess, or as I like to call it, caterpillar soup, is really nothing more than a chrysalis full of slime. But inside that slime are the building blocks of the butterfly the caterpillar was meant to be.

You and I are caterpillars, waiting to become butterflies. We were created to reflect love and beauty to the world around us.

If your life is a hot mess right now, be patient with yourself. Remind yourself that the caterpillar has to live through the gooey mess to become the butterfly. No matter what, don’t give up.