On the chrysalis
This past week, I was made aware of how superficially many of us value a butterfly’s transformation.
We love the image of the ebulliently winged creature flitting jerkily on summer breezes, flashing its glorious array of colors through the air. It's the epitome of lightness, agility, and freedom. We love thinking about the fact that it used to be a worm bound to the earth and clumsy, nibling on leaves with its voracious appetite. These thoughts are—for some of us—inseparable from Eric Carl's The Very Hungry Caterpillar, a lovely childhood memory. And so, we placard businesses and branding with the winged-worm images that inspire thoughts about transformation.
As beautiful and inspiring as the butterfly is, we miss the most dynamic part.
Little is ever said about the transformation proper. Oh, sure—we know that the worm spins a cocoon about itself, incubates, and then bursts out, but we don't really talk about what happens within the chrysalis. How does the caterpillar physically transform from a clumsy, fat worm to a creature with outsized wings, lithe body, and spindly legs?
Warning: violent language ahead.
Photo by Brandon Vázquez on Unsplash
The caterpillar dissolves into goo. Let me say it differently: Mother Nature dissolves the caterpillar bit by bit until there's nothing that resembles the worm-shaped creature. The myriad legs melt, the bulbous body liquifies, and the internal organs slide about as a solution that used to have form and substance, that used to climb on branches. All this happens before a slender body with thread-thick legs and ebullient wings takes shape.
You cannot speak about the chrysalis of a butterfly without a language of violence.
"Violent" comes from the Latin violens, violentis, (pronounced wee-oh-LENZ, wee-oh-LEN-tis), a noun derived from another noun vis (pronounced WEES). It means "force, power, strength." The funny sounding word "vim" from our English phrase "with vim and vigor" is the form that vis takes when it’s the direct object in a sentence. Nature mashes the cuddly caterpillar into slime with “vim and vigor,” and the caterpillar is powerless to oppose. Molecules deliquesce under nature's violent direction like a stick of butter in a microwave.
It’s so violent, in fact, that academic studies have coined the phrase “the Chrysalis Effect” to describe an ends-justifies-the-means publishing environment, whereby researchers choose questionable research practices for the sake of publishing articles. The chrysalis is Machiavellian in academics and in nature, and we are complicit in its violence when we fail to see that the chrysalis is as much the caterpillar's grave as the butterfly’s womb.
Yes, we skip these details when we glorify transformation. And yes, we glorify the outcome to our own detriment. In my own life, I prayed to be transformed from what I considered to be a hideous creature. The hideous results of a life lived lying to myself led to lying to others and left a wake of wreckage in my life. I prayed for it daily not knowing that the process of being transformed—my own chrysalis—would dissolve everything I recognized of myself.
What I previously saw as my chief accomplishments now seem irrelevant, outdated, or even silly. What things gave me confidence no longer seem to matter. Under the acid bath of spiritual transformation, they've been reduced to an unrecognizable solution where a doctorate degree sloshes against two decades of teaching experience. Translation and language skills—over two decades worth of effort—have disappeared into this dissolving pool of formless wash.
I no longer recognize myself because I don't know what I am within my chrysalis. It’s dark here. At times, it feels that nothing is happening; at others, that something unbeknownst to me is being formed. Legs want to stretch out. Unseen wings want to unfurl. The critical moment of emerging hasn't arrived, and the vice grip of the chrysalis continues to cramp and squish and suffocate. I'm fighting to wriggle out of this (s)hell, knowing that some butterflies die within the chrysalis.
Photo by Alfred Schrock on Unsplash
If what I’ve read of the chrysalis is true, the butterfly is a very dangerous creature. It's responded to nature’s violence with its own greater violence; to force, with greater force; to strength, with greater strength. It hasn't looked back at the hungry days of summer when it crawled from leaf to leaf, grass blade to grass blade, eating because its life depended on it. It hasn't regretted creating its own grave. It hasn't lamented losing its lumpy worminess. It hasn't bemoaned its existence. It has shown itself worthy of its calling by boning up under the deliquescing power of nature and fighting free in order to fly. It submitted to its fate willingly. It emerged victoriously.
A couple of literary examples are coming into focus. The violence of the chrysalis helps me under more clearly what Fyodor Dostoevsky meant when he prayed from a dark Siberian prison that he would be considered worthy of his suffering. A similar realization is emerging, too, regarding the story of Jacob wrestling with God all night long. Their struggle within the darkness of their own chrysalides were efforts to show themselves superior to the violence with which life was handling them.
May I show myself worthy of my story.
