{"id":4289,"date":"2015-07-28T08:58:13","date_gmt":"2015-07-28T12:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/?p=4289"},"modified":"2015-07-28T14:38:31","modified_gmt":"2015-07-28T18:38:31","slug":"metamorphosis-a-sacred-moment-in-the-monarch-butterfly-nursery-lewis-ginter-botanical-gardens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/?p=4289","title":{"rendered":"Metamorphosis – a Sacred Moment in the Monarch Butterfly Nursery – Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2015<\/a><\/p>\n

As part of a “staycation”, some new-to-Richmond friends and I spent a morning last week at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden<\/a>. With three daughters-in-tow, we lingered at the Butterflies LIVE!<\/em><\/a> exhibit. It’s an incredible indoor “habitat” for tropical butterflies. \"2015<\/a>\"2015<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/a>If you have the patience to be still and butterfly-friendly, the butterflies may come close to you as you come close to them.<\/p>\n

\"2015<\/a>\"2015<\/a>\"2015<\/a>\"2015<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ve been several times and never tire of the marvel of these creatures. My daughter once said how curious it is with butterflies that as big as they are we are drawn to them where we would be repelled by insects of another kind, that large.<\/p>\n

On this particular day, we saw something I had only read about in the past, and hadn’t really considered deeply until that moment. The metamorphosis of the butterfly.\"2015<\/a><\/p>\n

\"2015<\/a>\"2015<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the girls and I stood enrapt watching a caterpillar fix itself upside-down on the edge of the “Monarch nursery” (photo above, creature on right). It was a caterpillar moving and being all caterpillar-like…and then it wasn’t. I’m not really much of a naturalist. Yet, it was impossible to draw away from this seemingly sacred movement.<\/p>\n

The caterpillar made these shuddering movements and its skin literally popped open slowly from the back of its head up its body until all that was left was the chrysalis. The skin fell off, and after a bit more shudders, the chrysalis went still. It would hang still like that for 10-14 days<\/a> until the Monarch butterfly emerges.<\/p>\n