Imaginal discs 

The egg

We love our mythology about the period of evolution between caterpillar and butterfly—you enter the chrysalis as a boring, ground-crawling caterpillar, hide away from the world, then poof! You emerge as a beautiful butterfly. Magical!

Hatching

There really isn’t much difference between butterflies and moths. We often think of butterflies as colourful and graceful floating flowers. They pollinate and dance on the breeze. Moths on the other hand are drab with dusty wings. They permeate our closets and our grain bins. As we contemplate the boundaries between moths and butterflies, the lines of categorization collapse. What makes a moth not a butterfly? The Luna moth (Actias luna) has antennae that look like a fern unwinding in the spring. The Rosy Maple moth (Dryocampa rubicunda) is vibrant daffodil yellow and cotton candy pink that would put a monarch to shame.

Caterpillar skin #1

I wish I spoke caterpillar so I could ask how painful the process of molting is for them. I want to know what it feels like to shimmy out of your skin, to be able to look back at who you used to be, then walk away towards the next leaf. My mind grows larger with complexity, but I can’t shake off my enculturation. The cells of my body were created within these limits of western understanding that I want to leave behind on a tree branch so I can expand into something new, but also old.

First molting *

Western Hemlock Looper (Lambdina fiscellaria) native defoliator, western interior

damage predicted, monitoring plans developed

reduce through targeting biological Impact

short-lived host ages, results in high levels of mortality

Loss of valuable danger risks, loss of outbreaks.

hatch feed voraciously. Long-term management while short-term strategies include monitoring and biological insecticides.

Caterpillar skin #2

Imagine carrying around a snack that was your skin. Imagine the energy needed to molt from that skin and how tasty those leftovers would be. If only we could shed and eat our traumatic memories, breaking them down in our digestive tracts with pepsin, gastric juice, and hydrochloric acid. The pain would mingle with the veins of poplar leaves to create an unrecognizable detritus.

Second molting

Let’s molt Carl Linnaeus and his faux categorizations. The world isn’t made up of hard lines and sharp edges. It’s created through relationships between, across, and through. It’s the refraction of light through a new leaf in April. It’s as blurred as the edges of a cloud.

Caterpillar skin #3

Tradition has it that the woolly bear caterpillar predicts the coming winter. The tips of the woolly bear are black; the middle is a rusty red. They’re fuzzy wuzzy all over. Story has it that the wider the red band on the woolly bear, the milder the winter will be. A thin red strip means we’re in for snow! The Original Society of the Friends of the Woolly Bear tried to prove whether this theory was correct and it took them out among the burnished foliage as summer leaned into fall. Would anyone like to form the Unoriginal Society of the Friends of the Woolly Bear together? We can wander through crisp September mornings, measuring caterpillar bands, and dreaming of soft boundaries.

Third molting

Humans also shed their skin, but it’s not so dramatic a process. Would I better understand you if I saw you shimmying and rippling in struggle? If I could see your cast-off skin left on a sidewalk like a discarded candy wrapper and understand you were born anew? Apparently butterflies retain memories of being a caterpillar, of what life was like crawling around on leaves. Do they carry with them the trauma of transformation? Are monarchs wallowing in remembered pain as their proboscis dips into a milkweed?

Caterpillar skin #4

Have you heard that brushing the dust off a moth’s wings will mean that the poor being will never fly again? That’s just a superstition. The dust is the scales of the wing, shedding like old sadnesses.

Fourth molting

Do you believe there is a dividing line between moth and butterfly, between butterfly wings and wind, between wind and human breath? By breaking down the entire world into little boxes, into categorizations on a chart, we ignore the sameness and relationality of moths and butterflies. Linnaean classification breaks down our world into kingdoms, then into classes, then into orders. For Linnaeus, moths fly at night and butterflies flitter during the day. But perhaps what matters most is that in waxing crescent moonlight, the whites, greys, and taupes of the One-eyed Sphinx Moth (Smerinthus cerisyi) glitter like a gift. That their wings are tented around their body like a shield.

If you can draw a line around a butterfly and see it as separate from the caterpillar and as separate from the coneflower from which it drinks, I suspect it might be easier for you to extract anything or anyone from their environment for your pleasure or profit. To blast water (liquid) into rock (solid) to extract gas (gas) for cash (profit). To pin a butterfly (moth) by its wing (wind-human breath) under glass (liquid sand, amorphous solid).

Caterpillar skin #5

I used to dream about flying. I’d move my arms through space as if I could push the air away, like water while swimming. If I could fly, I wouldn’t have to worry about fai/lling. How can I create a cocoon from which I’ll emerge with wings of chitin, emblazoned with a pattern that looks like anger?

Cocooning

I too would like to wrap my wings in loosely woven silk. I too would like to wrap my dreams in a cocoon of my own making.

Pupation 

We invisibilize processes. We love to jump from caterpillar to butterfly as if there wasn’t a process involved, one that was gooey and painful.

Step one: find a branch or twig that is calling your name. It should be safe from strong winds, and pokey sticks of children.

Step two: build a silk pad.

Step three: shed your skin to become a chrysalis.

Step four: digest yourself.

Step five (optional): scream without mouth or lungs into the chrysalis of your non-self.

Step six: become caterpillar sludge.

Step seven: build a body from imaginal discs and the protein-soup of your former body.

Step eight: replicate cells by 1000 times.

Step nine: rip through the shell of your former self into

Emergence 

Moths are born and reborn six times. We should consider them holy.

Moth

Do moths born in piles of oats dream of emerging from their cocoon into a full moon night, with the lilt of star magnolia on the breeze? Or do they only know what they know, meaning they’re never disappointed?

Death

One way to say it is that moth wings are made of thin layers of chitin—the hardened protein that makes up their entire body, strengthened with veins, and covered with the tiny scales that give their wings colour, no matter how drab.

That means another way to say it is that moth wings are made of moth.

Yet one more way to say it is that moth wings are made of processes.

* From https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/industry/forestry/managing-our-forest-resources/forest-health/forest-pests/defoliators/western-hemlock-looper

[Editor’s Note: Publication of this poem was made possible by a gift from Kristin Waller during our annual Kickstarter.]