The Great Transformation of the clumsy caterpillar into a graceful butterfly is one of Nature’s miracles. The caterpillar spends its life crawling, eating the leaves of various plants and trees. When the time comes for it to transform, shell — called a chrysalis — forms around it. Inside its chrysalis, the entire caterpillar body everything dissolves into a “molecular soup,” EXCEPT special groups of cells called imaginal disks. After a while, the imaginal cells start to duplicate. As they grow in number, they start to form the legs, wings, mouth, heart of the new butterfly. When the butterfly is fully formed inside its chrysalis, it breaks out, dries its wings, and flies away. As a butterfly, it feeds on flower nectar.

The Great Transformation of the clumsy caterpillar into a graceful butterfly is a metaphor for the social transformation needed in this era of climate change. Humanity society needs to change. As a species, we need our own chrysalis of self-transformation.

Painted for the Jefferson Nature Center’s project “Shifting Patterns: Preparing for Unsettled Days.”