A Different Kind of Metamorphosis

I saw a butterfly land on a man’s hat.

The hat was orange. The butterfly was yellow.

It was a tiger swallowtail.

This was at the Miami Open last weekend, when I was watching women’s doubles with some girlfriends.

Several of us noticed the butterfly—this particular type is one of the largest of the species and hard to miss. And the swallowtail folded and unfolded its wings on the guy's hat for a long, graceful minute. 

But then the man scratched his head. 

And the butterfly alighted and fluttered across the bleachers. 

Until it found another orange hat.

The swallowtail stayed at the second hat for another minute. But then the point ended, people clapped, there was a changeover, and two ball boys opened umbrellas to shade the players. 

The umbrellas were orange.

And the butterfly then landed on one of them. 

But all too quickly, the umpire was calling time again, the umbrellas folded, and the butterfly took off again. This time, it disappeared out of view.

But not before I had taken it in.

What struck me about this moment was that several of us saw the butterfly flitter from one landing place to the next. But none of the people who had been visited by her knew that she was there.

Have you ever had a butterfly land on you, and you didn’t notice it?

In other words, has something beautiful and transformational happened to you, but even if others saw it, you missed it?

That’s the case with me.

Back when my son was little, I'm sure there were moments when he would grab my hand and look up at me, trying to get my attention. But I was looking at something else, so I missed it. 

Or a time someone shared a sweet word or compliment, and I would brush it off because I was uncomfortable with the attention.

Or a moment when an real butterfly landed on my own hat, but I was preoccupied with something else, so I didn’t see.

Do you know how butterflies fly?

They basically swim through the air. They contract their bodies, pushing air under their wings, and that air enables them to fly.

How cool is that?

I like to wonder in moments of stress or overwhelm what contractions I might make in my own life to lift my own wings. What is needed for me to alight again?

This swallowtail seemed to be trying to send some kind of message to us.

Look at me, she said.

Look here. Be present.

Focus on now.

There’s much we can learn from the butterfly. There are those crazy stages of metamorphosis from egg, to fat caterpillar, to chrysalis—until they transform into something delicate and beautiful. And this entire cycle takes only a month for the swallowtail. 

Which means they can produce generations in just a year.

Which means they only live for a few days.

I think in the end, these beautiful insects are not here to teach us about struggle. They are not here to mentor us about how to wriggle out of our own cocoons when we feel trapped and limited. 

Instead, they are here to teach us about grace. About this moment: Right here, right now.

Indian poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore once said, “The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.”

We, too, have time enough. 

That is, if we pause long enough to take in what alights before us.

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