Caterpillar Decisions

We've raised loads of Monarch butterflies the past three years. We carefully scan our milkweed plants for tiny eggs, and have seen many special stages. Tiny just-hatched babies, shedding skin to allow more caterpillar growth, caterpillar into chrysalis, and emerging as a butterfly. So many quick moments, so many miracles in just a few weeks' time.

A couple weeks ago I realized there was one part of the process that I hadn't seen - when a caterpillar goes into a J formation, the very beginning point from "I am a caterpillar" to "I am changing into a butterfly."

The very beginning of that process involves the caterpillar deciding its eventual hanging spot, then spreading silk strands lightly in seemingly random patterns. It goes on another eating binge, something it also does leading up to that point, packing away almost an entire large milkweed leaf (the only food they eat) in just a few hours. It heads back to its spot, creates a little ball of silk to hang from, maybe eats a little more, rests for a bit again, then attaches to the ball of silk, finally stating, yes, I'm doing this.

The caterpillar I was watching had already attached its back feet, so I knew I would soon see what happens. Soon is a relative term, though - I watched intently for about an hour and a half to see the full process. That's coming from a girl that can't hardly sit through a TV show.

This particular caterpillar had chosen to attach to a milkweed leaf that was leaning at the side of a jar. It was upside down along the leaf, all pairs of feet attached. Later in the process it seemed each set of feet was holding to some of the randomly placed silk. Maybe not so random to the caterpillar?

As I watched, its body started to pulse, and suddenly its front three pointy pairs of feet weren't holding on anymore, the front section of the caterpillar hanging maybe a centimeter from the leaf, but unattached.  The caterpillar "rested" (I guess?) about 10 or 15 minutes, then again the body pulsed for a minute, and the furthest back pair not attached to the silk weren't attached to the leaf. Another long period of rest, pulsing, and another front section of feet detached. Rest, pulsing, and another back set away, leaving only the final center set holding it to the leaf. More rest, pulsing, and they were off, the caterpillar officially hanging, visually declaring, I'm becoming a butterfly. Amazing!

It took a little time for it to straighten then curl into the J, but the *decision had been made, and the J is the final show of that decision, before all the big changes start happening.  It's still another day before its skin splits for the last time, revealing the chrysalis.

It surprised me how powerful the whole experience was. So normal in a Monarch's life, so brief, so seemingly unimportant verses into a chrysalis and out as a butterfly, but really, for all of us, isn't the decision the most important point? The, I'm not going to be the same anymore. It's time to be different. It's time to be more than just a caterpillar. I want to fly!

I have to wonder if any of the process is painful - shedding skin, chrysalis, all the changes inside. It seemed changes were possibly already happening in the pulsing as each section of feet let go.

An interesting thing to note - when the caterpillar sheds that last layer of black, white, and yellow skin revealing the bright green chrysalis, before it hardens you can see various butterfly elements, especially wings and body, that just need to develop, take form, beautify, and emerge.

The butterfly was always inside.

Think about that again. The butterfly was always inside.

The caterpillar just needed to grow enough and make the decision it was time to change.

Before and after. Caterpillar to butterfly. Am I still crawling, on the ground in some aspect of my life? What change do I need to make so I can fly?

Alma 30:44 - "The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator."

Moses 6:63 - "And behold, all things have their likeness, and all things are created and made to bear record of me, both things which are temporal, and things which are spiritual; things which are in the heavens above, and things which are on the earth, and things which are in the earth, and things which are under the earth, both above and beneath: all things bear record of me."

Since that day, I've watched two others through the same step. One from the top of a jar lid, the other on the side of a jar. Both were very similar processes. I think it's my new favorite part.

* When I was talking to Sam about all I'd seen, he matter-of-factly stated, "I'm sure it doesn't actually decide. It probably just does it." Well ... so?  :)


Some other interesting links:

My favorite video about Monarchs.

Chrysalis Damage - This also leads to another page with loads of detail on chrysalis to butterfly issues.

Ernest Shackleton

Ernest Shackleton was a great explorer with his eye especially on Antarctica.  After his first experience there, it became his goal to achieve the South Pole.  Three times he shot for that goal, yet he failed each time.  But were they really failures?

S. Michael Wilcox suggests that "His destiny seems to have been to teach us how to lead."  It is easy to categorize Shackleton as a true service-oriented leader.  Through incredible tests of survival, Shackleton always kept his vision of bringing every man home at the front of his mind, giving up his own comfort and personal goals for the benefit of the rest.

During his third attempt at the pole he was especially tried.  Their ship, Endurance, became ice bound for several months.  After the ship was crushed by the melting and shifting ice, they were stranded on the ice for a few more months.  I know our family gets pretty stir crazy when sickness or something keeps us all home bound, so imagining months and months stuck on the same ship then even more on the ice - yikes!  Besides being sick of one another, dangers were everywhere.  "[Shackleton] knew how dire their plight was.  Almost every night, he shouted himself awake from nightmares in which he pictured one disaster or emergency after another.  Would the boats be separated when they took to the ocean?  Would he himself be incapacitated?  Would Worsley's navigational books be lost?  Would they run out of food?  One after another, disasters visited him and shook him awake.  Then, in the remaining hours of the night, he would form plans for meeting the crises he had dreamed of.  In spite of his anxiety, he tried to keep up the appearance of calm in order to maintain morale.  Although tortured by worry, he remained outwardly unperturbed" (Armstrong, 70).  Much of Shakleton's success came from his ability to look clearly at potential problems and plan accordingly, rather than succumbing to the fear of what could be.

When the ice melted enough that they could get to the open ocean, the 28 men were split between three lifeboats to paddle through terrible, freezing storms to Elephant Island, 346 miles from where the Endurance sank.  Upon arrival, realizing they couldn't stay there long, Shackleton took five others and climbed back into what was deemed the strongest lifeboat, leaving behind the rest of the men to go in search of help.  Shackleton kept a careful watch on the men, knowing he needed each to make their destination.  "When someone looked particularly bad, the Boss ordered a round of hot milk for all hands.  The one man he really wanted to get the hot drink into never realized that the break was for his benefit and so wasn't embarrassed, and all of the men were better off for having the warmth and nourishment" (Armstrong, 100).  I love that he cared for each man as an individual, mindful of their needs and aiding those without making that person feel singled out or weak.  He watched the individual, cared for all, and all benefited.

After another 15 days on the cold, stormy ocean, Shackleton and the five arrived at South Georgia Island, but for safety's sake, landed on the opposite side from where the whaling ships and factories were.  The boat was no longer in any shape to sail, so with two men too sick to continue, Shackleton left one man to care for them, and took two others with him over the unexplored snow-covered mountains, taking them an amazing 36 hours to cover 32 miles with only about 50 feet of rope and a carpenters adze.  (Seriously, this man never quits!)

One of the most beautiful parts of the story comes at this part of their journey.  "As they slogged their way through the snow, a strange feeling began to grow on each of the men.  The three discovered long afterward that they all had the feeling that there was a fourth.  'Even now again I find myself counting our party--Shackleton, Crean, and I and--who was the other?' Worsley wrote later.  'Of course, there were only three, but it is strange that in mentally reviewing of the crossing we should always think of a fourth, and then correct ourselves.'

"'When I look back at those days,' Shackleton added, 'I do not doubt that Providence guided us . . . I know that during that long march of thirty-six hours over the unnamed mountains and glaciers of South Georgia it often seemed to me that there were four, not three.' At the time, however, Shackleton, Worsley, and Crean did not discuss it" (Armstrong, 110).  I think Shackleton's purpose was so true and so selfless, that he was supported through that by heavenly means.

Another incredible experience happened as they got closer to the whaling camp.  They found themselves at the top of a frozen waterfall.  "There was nothing to tie the rope to.  Worsley held it, while first Shackleton and then Crean went over the edge.  They went down the rope as sailors do, letting it slip through their hands and not putting their weight on it until just before they hit bottom.  At the top, Worsley bunched the end of the rope up and jammed it under some rocks.  If he didn't put his weight on the rope until the bottom, it just might hold.  Worsley stepped off into the air, plummeting downward with the rope whipping through his hands.  Shackleton and Cream caught him as he fell, and his full weight yanked on the rope.  It held.

"Startled, the three men stared up at the top of the waterfall and tugged on the rope.  It wouldn't budge.  It might have been frozen, but they couldn't understand what was holding it.  Shrugging, they turned and left their rope hanging where it was.  They didn't need it any longer" (Armstrong, 114).

When they finally reached the whaling station, their thoughts were not of their own rescue, but that the rest of the men were now saved.  Still, it took Shackleton four attempts to get to the men back on Elephant Island, where he found ALL were safe and alive.  "We knew you'd come back," one of the men said to him.  Shackleton called that the best compliment he'd ever received.

Many, many leadership lessons can be taking from Ernest Shackleton.  But I'll end with Shackleton's own words about it.  "It was like this," Shackleton said much later.  "The thought of those fellows on Elephant Island kept us going all the time.  It might have been different if we'd had only ourselves to think about.  You can get so tired in the snow, particularly if you're hungry, that sleep seems just the best thing life has to give . . . But if you're a leader, a fellow that other fellows look to, you've got to keep going.  That was the thought which sailed us through the hurricane and tugged us up and down those mountains . . . and when we got to the whaling station, it was the thought of those comrades which made us so mad with joy that the reaction beats all effort to describe it.  We didn't so much feel that we were safe as that they were saved" (Wilcox, 116).

I need to memorize part of that one.  I may not travel the Antarctic, but there are plenty of tired, hungry, just want to hide under the covers days.  But if you're a leader . . . 

Quote Sources:

Jennifer Armstrong, "Shipwreck on the Bottom of the World."

S. Michael Wilcox, "10 Great Souls I Want to Meet in Heaven."

Hall of Fame

My new favorite hobby is studying awesome people.

Last summer I discovered the book "Lessons from Great Lives" by Sterling Sill (but if you want it, get the old edition since the "co-author" of the new one took out half the people, though he did add in two, including a chapter on Sterling Sill).  For quite some time I've watched for great qualities in people that I want to emulate, but Sill talks about creating his own personal "Hall of Fame" of people with qualities he wanted to build in himself.  It's an inspiring read, and it's helped me to see history in a new, more real light.  Sill wrote biographies of over 100 people for his own benefit.  As he states, "A person who provides a good example has the blessed ability of arousing a desire in others to develop their own talents and aptitudes to their upper limits.  The tremendous upward pull that one personality may have upon another might be compared to the attraction that the planets exert as they hold each other in their orbits."  

From Sill, I learned about another source on great people.  Elbert Hubbard wrote the "Little Journeys into the Homes of Great..." series, which includes great scientists, orators, teachers, women (because they were written a long time ago when we needed our own book), reformers, musicians, etc.  Lucky enough, these are in the public domain and free for use.  I've only read a few of these, one that I thought was odd because it didn't have nearly enough about the person, and two others that I really enjoyed.

Then a couple months ago we had just walked into Deseret Book when I noticed the book "10 Great Souls I Want to Meet in Heaven" by S. Michael Wilcox.  I carried it around the rest of the time we were there telling myself to put it back, but when I didn't, I googled for a coupon and bought it.  Very glad I did.  Wilcox mentions that when he initially started making his own list of great people, he began with family, then thought of people in the scriptures, historical figures, and even great characters in literature, but for the book he chose historical figures.  One quote from the preface that gives me chills (referring to things like Psalms 8:4-5), "Sometimes it is difficult to believe such lofty thoughts are describing us and our fellow human travelers.  It is certainly true we have, as a race, often not lived up to these divine potentialities.  Yet man was created in the image of God, not only outwardly, but also inwardly, in the qualities of the soul.  Humanity was the last act of creation, its crown!  We shouldn't be surprised to see evidences of glory and honor in our fellowmen."

I've been able to teach about and discuss some of the great people I've been studying during Vanguard, our homeschool group, but I've decided I need to keep a better record of that for my own Hall of Fame, and maybe to spark the interest of others that might want to learn about some of these greats as well.  Stay tuned.  (This might actually get me blogging somewhat regularly again.)

P.S.  Here's an interesting article I found with a "discussion" between 10 greats.

My Parenting Lesson for the Day

I needed this today. Take a look (it's SO worth it).

Lead Like the Great Conductors

Now really, don't read on until you've watched that or you won't get most of the rest. It's 20 minutes if you just watch it straight through (took me at least an hour because I was taking crazy amounts of notes).

I love to learn about leadership. I love how leadership principles apply in so many many ways. In fact, I'm even very slowly working on a book about leadership. I have a few posts I've written about leadership that have never been posted with the book in mind. Maybe I don't want bad feedback on something that is so deep in my heart. One post even involves a great conductor I saw in person once. Maybe I'll have to share that since it's so closely related to this.

So about this particular leadership lesson from Itay Talgam. I want to lead like the greats, especially when it comes to leading my children. Unfortunately today was a Riccardo Muti kind of day. How things slide down that slope I don't know. I don't have the excuse that I was trying to tell a story as beautiful as Mozart's.

About my own mother. She's not one that most would call a great leader, but she's someone I've been trying to study and figure out for a very long time. I read something a few months ago that opened my eyes to her leadership a bit, and I wish I had written it down, but as it stands I'll have to try to find it again. I don't remember her ever being like Muti, or most of those conductors. I would put her in the category of the last Bernstein clip. I don't remember a lot of lectures or instruction from her during our growing up years (maybe she's rolling her eyes right now at my great memory), but like the orchestra, I guess we knew what was expected, how to make it great, and we did it. And she has five awesome children to show for it.

I am not that parent! And far too many days I find myself sweating by the end. Do I look at the "trombones" too much?

I don't know if I'll ever be a Berstein, but maybe I can at least make it to Kleiber.

"You have the plan in your head, you know what to do, and you become a partner to create the sound as you take the ride."

"When it's needed, the authority is there." (Poor trumpet guy!)

"He's there 100%, but not commanding, not telling what to do. Rather enjoying what the soloist is doing."

Thank goodness tomorrow is another day. There's always another concert to play. It's their story that needs to be nurtured and told, not mine. Hopefully the conductor shows up more prepared. At least they haven't fired me yet!

(For your viewing enjoyment, here's the full version of that last Bernstein clip.)

Ay, There’s the Rub!

At 4:30 am the night after posting that last post, I woke up thinking about another quote from L'Engle's "Circle of Quiet" (sorry folks, Madeleine is in me; plan on hearing about her for a while):

"You are basically not teaching a subject, you are teaching children. Subjects can probably be better taught by machines than by you. But if we teach our children only by machines, what will we get? Little machines. They need you, you as persons." And I quoted Emerson: "What you are speaks so loudly over your head that I cannot hear what you say."

So I know, with a sense of responsibility that hits me with a cold fist in the pit of my stomach, that what I am is going to make more difference to my own children and those I talk to and teach than anything I tell them. (156)

If my goal, then, is that my children are often coming face to face with greatness, I need to do what I can to become great. Ay, Hamlet, there IS the rub.

This reminds me of Mrs. March in Little Women telling Jo, "I must try to practice all the virtues I would have my little girls possess, for I was their example. . . The love, respect, and confidence of my children was the sweetest reward I could receive for my efforts to be the woman I would have them copy."

Back to Madeleine (feel free to substitute "teacher" with "parent"):

All teachers must face the fact that they are potential points of reference. The greatest challenge a teacher has to accept is the courage to be; if we are, we make mistakes; we say too much where we should have said nothing; we do not speak where a word might have made all the difference. If we are, we will make terrible errors. Be we still have to have the courage to struggle on, trusting in our own points of reference to show us the way." (181)

(Sidenote: I LOVE everything she said about points of reference. Get the book and read the rest.)

This "become what you want your kids to become" IS NOT EASY! Mrs. March was apparently excellent enough at it that her girls didn't believe she ever had any faults. But she is a fictional character, and you and I are not. It's a comfort to read all this greatness from Madeleine, yet have her confess things like "When I scrubbed the kitchen floor, the family cheered. I couldn't make a decent pie crust. I always managed to get something red in with the white laundry in the washing machine, so that everybody wore streaky pink underwear" (21).

I know I have plenty of areas to improve, things like personal discipline, housework, consistency, not procrastinating, housework, and housework among many other things. Madeleine gives a few others to add to her list as well. "I would, quite often, like to be grown up, wise, and sophisticated. But" she adds, "these gifts are not mine" (42). That brings out something I love about Madeleine - her word choice. She is excellent at finding just the right word, and I never would have thought of those things (except maybe being wise) as gifts. But if they are, then other things I wouldn't always see as gifts are also gifts. Like maybe the ability to play!

I've been trying to wrap things up for this post off and on for a while now but it hasn't happened yet. I will have to tie things up in another post, if even then.

Face to Face with Greatness

I have been feeling very uncreative lately. Like someone stuck a cork in my bottle of creative juices. I was blaming this on Madeleine L'Engle's "Circle of Quiet," which I am currently reading. Hands down one of the best books I've read. Beautiful and inspiring, full of greatness and truth, but maybe my head is so full of that that until I'm done with it my own thoughts won't flow as freely. Or maybe it's something else entirely. Maybe I just have nothing to say.

Because of that I'm going to share some of Madeleine's greatness. There are so so many things I could share (and I'm sure you'll be hearing more of her), but there is something that makes me say "YES!" every time she mentions something about it, because it's something I strive for and is a goal in teaching my children as well - coming face to face with greatness.

Oliver DeMille states that "reading and working with greatness inspires selves to become greater," and "who we are changes as we aspire."

Madeleine L'Engle talks about it in this way:

"When we talk about ourselves as being part of the company of such people as Mozart or van Gogh or Dostoevsky, it has nothing to do with comparisons, or pitting talent against talent; it has everything to do with a way of looking at the universe. My husband said, "But people might think you're putting yourself alongside Dostoevsky." The idea is so impossible that I can only laugh in incredulity. Dostoevsky is a giant; I look up to him; I sit at his feet; perhaps I will be able to learn something from him. But we do face the same direction, no matter how giant his stride, how small mine" (38).

When she was being rejected by publishers, "It was great writing which kept me going" (39).

And more:

"Nobody can teach creative writing--run like made from anybody who thinks he can. But one can teach practices, like finger exercises on the piano; one can share the tools of the trade, and what one has gleaned from the great writers: it is the great writers themselves who do the teaching" (61).

"A great painting, or symphony, or play, doesn't diminish us, but enlarges us, and we, too, want to make our own cry of affirmation to the power of creation behind the universe. This surge of creativity has nothing to do with competition, or degree of talent. When I hear a superb pianist, I can't wait to get to my own piano, and I play about as well now as I did when I was ten. A great novel, rather than discouraging me, simply makes me want to write. This response on the part of any artist is the need to make incarnate the new awareness we have been granted through the genius of someone else...

"It is beauty crying out for more beauty" (147).

I actually feel terrible in a way for sharing this now, knowing that she'll be dropping more gems on this through the rest of the book. But here I go to hit the publish button, all in the name of sharing greatness.

I am loving learning from Madeleine.

Be a Builder

A few days after the press conference announcing President Monson as the new President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, something surfaced that had been lingering in the back of my mind. I started to feel really bad for President Monson, since so many of the questions he got were things like (no direct quotes, just what I remember), "Are you going to continue the Perpetual Education Fund?" "Are you going to keep building temples?" "Are you going to travel like President Hinckley?" President Monson definitely has big shoes to fill, but does he need that barrage in his face as he starts out? Poor guy.

Then my thinking turned. I realized the lack of vision that many of those asking questions had. Vague recollections of the death of the Pope a few years back and the process of finding a new Pope started to surface. I remembered hearing mention of people wanting certain men selected for different reasons, hoping one would be chosen because he was more conservative, or another chosen because he wasn't. Since there wasn't all that discussion around a new prophet, I assume they were wondering if he was going to change the direction of the church.

What those questioning didn't understand is that we believe that Jesus Christ is the head of this church, and that every prophet we've had has been a builder for the church, because he has been the voice for Jesus Christ.

Charles W. Dahlquist II spoke on builders at the Fall 2005 Young Men's Open House. (You may be wondering why I would read those - he talks a lot about scouting and training. Plus they are EXCELLENT talks.)

"I love the last verse in section 35 of the Doctrine and Covenants, which reads: “Fear not, little flock, the kingdom is yours until I come. Behold, I come quickly. Even so. Amen.”

The kingdom, His kingdom, is indeed ours to grow and build, to nourish and strengthen, and to prepare for the day when He comes. It is obvious the Lord needs builders, not just caretakers. The success of our ministry will depend not solely upon whether the light we bear burns while we yet live, but whether that light will continue to burn in the hearts and souls of those we teach and lead long after we have been released or finished our missions here on earth."

I love that, "the Lord needs builders, not just caretakers." We can all question where we fit in that at church, at home, at work, anywhere, because there are opportunities to build in everything we do. The reward would then be to see our influence continue, though many times we probably won't even realize the places our "light" touched.

Yes, President Hinckley did great things. We love him, we miss him, and his influence will most definitely continue. But he was also building on the prophets before him and continuing the work they did to build the kingdom at their time.

Makes me excited for President Monson, and to see what is to come.