It was Dulcie's unusual bark with a steadfast look in one direction that drew my attention to a caterpillar suspended in the air from a Christmas tree from a height of thirty feet. Dulcie's fascination to keep looking at its climb upwards, by shortening the height of its web strand and thereby moving upwards caught my imagination.
I had to go inside our cottage to get another camera as I needed a macro view lens to get its movement upward. I could have used videography, but I chose the still as I felt that it was an effort to place the camera on a tripod in a short time before the caterpillar reached the top.
In about eleven minutes it reached the top. At one stage, with the wind the caterpillar was swinging in the suspended slender strand. I wondered whether the strand would get broken! That did not happen. By moving its body in to an upward and downward movement the caterpillar.
It stopped at one place (last photo) and seemed to stay there for another ten minutes. With Caterpillar no more dancing in the air, Dulcie lost her interest to watch a spectacle. Dulcie was pushing me to go inside the cottage, as it was her breakfast time.
The caterpillar suspended in a thin strand thirty feet below the tree and its climb of that height was a visual feast to behold.
It has voyages and routines before it can become a butterfly. It soon would be in a cocoon for a while before it can fly into the wide open world in freedom to explore.
What is this voyage! Its precariousness was what struck me. If the strand in which it was suspended was broken, it would fall on the ground and would have become a prey for the Myna who habitually vists the garden.
The voyage is risky and and yet, it is only by creating its own strand of the web it can cover itself in a cocoon. Its instinct to live and become a butterfly gives it the courage to take the risk of loosing its hold from the web strand and fall into the mouth of waiting bird.
We live by practicing to avoid loosing and to gain finally.
The thirty feet journey of the caterpillar aroused within me the memory of journey of the last fifty years, since I graduated to practice medicine.
I remember hanging on to uncertainty, when the process of personal and professional formation beckoned me into a different path from my own personal aspiration. It was at that juncture, I was protected by Anna and well meaning friends who prepared me to embrace a path that gave no clarity to the direction of the journey. I could have easily lost the path and the fruit of the voyage in my personal and professional life. The long wait at the cross roads and the winding path wearied me almost to a point of giving up!
The sight of the caterpillar swinging dangerously in the wind, while hanging on to its slender strand of the web aroused within me memories of similar precarious situations of friends turning foes. One such occasion was in a formal meeting, when the group made me feel lost, with their impressions about the limited value of pursuing to develop a charity and be involved with developmentally challenged children. They were people who were companions whom I had depended upon.
Thirty five years after that, seeing this caterpillar takes its voyage to its finish, made me marvel and feel amazed at its resilience. In hind sight, I was perhaps more vulnerable than the caterpillar with broken relationships and adverse conversations about Anna and myself because we resisted the collective advice.
A voyage is often through the unknown. A voyage becomes a pilgrimage when we ready ourselves to walk steadfastly. The wounds caused by the falls or the bruises suffered while negotiating the wild or loneliness while enduring the desert are all akin to what a butterfly receives while staying in the cocoon to emerge freely and colourfully!
To turn the voyage into a pilgrimage is a choice one has to make!
Seeing the caterpillar pause at one station and preparing for the next phase of its voyage, gave an indication of the nature's prescription for pilgrimage! God is calling and it is Him we are enabled to follow!
M.C.Mathew (text and photo)
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