This is from my daughter’s home reading book yesterday. Does anyone else see what I see?
- Signpost 1 of Developing a Plan: What is an egg other than a developing plan for a creature? And it makes us conceptualize how life works.
- Signpost 2 of Playing a Role: The caterpillar is all about playing his role, eating as much as he can to support the next stage. On contact with it, we play out our own lifecycle roles as humans: the child’s wonder “Look at this cute caterpillar on my hand!”; the squeamish parent “Gross! Put that down and go wash your hands!”; the humouring parent “I’ll get a container and help you catch some more!”; the annoyed caretaker “those caterpillars are everywhere this year, we need to squish them before the ruin the trees”.
- Signpost 3 of Changing One’s Nature: um, chrysalis, enough said. (And as nature’s best example of transformation, it influences our own sense of Becoming.)
- Signpost 4 of Conceiving: the butterfly affects everyone’s conceptions … “Can you conceive such beauty? And to think that beautiful creature started out as a lowly caterpillar…”
Overall, it affects the way we think about life. Perhaps that is the Author’s intent?