28aug04 Its a Chrisalis (opinion)
More rain. Vibrant brick wall display. I love August.
It’s a chrysalis. Will the sense of wonder ever cease, seeing those perfectly made green shapes, where yesterday there was a black and yellow striped caterpillar.
This transformative process has been going on for eons. In the mind’s eye it seems old hat, dusty and so last year. Yet there is that chrysalis, a new act of incredible creation. Like the movies, music plays from somewhere as the newest generation of smooth mysterious spaceship gets stumbled upon by the good guys. How does the caterpillar, who was blind and only lived to chomp leaves, make music. The floppy, comical youngster has come of age. It is an awesome thing. I am both humbled and awed by the creation.
Being a parent is like that. We dropped our daughter off at college two days ago. The transition is hard for us all. She said it is like she is playing Barbie. Painful process for us and at the end a beautiful butterfly emerges. Have you ever looked at the eyes of an insect. The alien space analogy works for both insect eyes and our own teenagers. Our children are of us and from us. They are also beyond us. Privileged to participate in the act of creation, we are. Agents of the creation, maybe. Like the chrysalis, the process is beyond us to understand and control.
Many aspects of this ceation will undoubtedly be explained as science keeps learning about hormones, the double helix. We are caterpillers blundering about blind, chomping on leaves, courting disaster with arrogant surity of how clever we are. Every single act of God has so many reasons, so many results.
Even so, we are of the earth and cannot be separated, cannot seperate ourselves, from the process. Time moves on. Damage we can do, ever bigger damage as understanding grows of this and that piece of the puzzle. We could stop repeating the mistakes of the past. War and atomic bombs and stuff are not inevitable, we choose to make these. Scorching the earth is not required in the commandments of the great religions.
The little chrysalis, God willing, will spend the winter in Mexico or Florida. It will return next year, if all goes well. I will be here, will let the Milkweed grow. Will get to play a small part in creation, like a child playing Barbie.
It’s a chrysalis. Will the sense of wonder ever cease, seeing those perfectly made green shapes, where yesterday there was a black and yellow striped caterpillar.
This transformative process has been going on for eons. In the mind’s eye it seems old hat, dusty and so last year. Yet there is that chrysalis, a new act of incredible creation. Like the movies, music plays from somewhere as the newest generation of smooth mysterious spaceship gets stumbled upon by the good guys. How does the caterpillar, who was blind and only lived to chomp leaves, make music. The floppy, comical youngster has come of age. It is an awesome thing. I am both humbled and awed by the creation.
Being a parent is like that. We dropped our daughter off at college two days ago. The transition is hard for us all. She said it is like she is playing Barbie. Painful process for us and at the end a beautiful butterfly emerges. Have you ever looked at the eyes of an insect. The alien space analogy works for both insect eyes and our own teenagers. Our children are of us and from us. They are also beyond us. Privileged to participate in the act of creation, we are. Agents of the creation, maybe. Like the chrysalis, the process is beyond us to understand and control.
Many aspects of this ceation will undoubtedly be explained as science keeps learning about hormones, the double helix. We are caterpillers blundering about blind, chomping on leaves, courting disaster with arrogant surity of how clever we are. Every single act of God has so many reasons, so many results.
Even so, we are of the earth and cannot be separated, cannot seperate ourselves, from the process. Time moves on. Damage we can do, ever bigger damage as understanding grows of this and that piece of the puzzle. We could stop repeating the mistakes of the past. War and atomic bombs and stuff are not inevitable, we choose to make these. Scorching the earth is not required in the commandments of the great religions.
The little chrysalis, God willing, will spend the winter in Mexico or Florida. It will return next year, if all goes well. I will be here, will let the Milkweed grow. Will get to play a small part in creation, like a child playing Barbie.
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