Our friends invited us to look at their newly hatched monarch butterfly.
For two weeks after finding the chrysalis, they checked it everyday, missing the hatching process, which only takes seconds.
When they noticed it hatched, they called us and moved it into the sun to watch it dry off and fly away.
It was so new and so wet, it was dripping with the fluid that softened the chrysalis.
The drying and hardening of the wings took more than an hour. We got tired of watching it. We didn't see it fly away.
But it was interesting to see such a brand new little changed creature.
Moral of the story:
I read that if you open a chrysalis at the wrong time, you get caterpillar soup. The caterpillar digests itself. Special genetic material known as 'imaginal discs' that were dormant in the caterpillar emerge from the digested broken down tissues.
The caterpillar has an imaginal disc for every body part the butterfly will need. Using the broken down tissues for strength and nourishment, the imaginal discs rapidly grow and fuse into the functional part they were meant to be; a wing, an eye or a leg.
It is a miracle! The process of breaking down allows a new formation to emerge, more beautiful and free than before.
It was imagined and hoped for before it happened.
It was a precarious mess during the process.
But surely, out of chaos came beauty.
WE can turn our lives into something beautiful.