A Year in the Life of a Butterfly

The year begins on a leaf.

The egg is small.

It rests against the surface, held there by a substance that will dry and keep it in place.

Around it, the leaf grows.

Rain falls.

Wind moves through the plant.

The sun warms the surface.

Nothing about the egg announces what will come.

For a while, there is only the leaf, the air, the changing light.

Then the shell opens.

Something small emerges.

It has legs.

It moves.

It begins to eat.

The world has changed.

What was once a surface is now food.

The caterpillar moves across the leaf and eats.

It eats again.

And again.

Its body grows.

The skin becomes tight.

The caterpillar stops.

For a while, almost nothing happens.

Then the old skin splits.

The caterpillar emerges larger.

The leaf remains.

There is more to eat.

Days pass.

The caterpillar grows through several forms, each one larger than the last.

Its world is close.

Leaf.

Stem.

Shade.

Rain.

Heat.

Wind.

A bird passes.

The caterpillar becomes still.

A shadow moves across the leaf.

Stillness matters.

Then the shadow is gone.

The caterpillar moves again.

It eats.

It grows.

The season changes.

The plant changes with it.

New leaves appear.

Old leaves become marked by feeding.

Some dry.

Some fall.

The caterpillar continues.

Until one day it stops eating.

It leaves the leaf.

It finds a place where it can remain.

It attaches itself.

The familiar movements cease.

The body becomes enclosed.

The world outside continues.

Rain falls.

Wind moves through the branches.

Birds pass.

Leaves open and close in the changing light.

Inside, the caterpillar's body changes profoundly.

Some structures break down.

Others develop.

The form that crawled among the leaves is no longer being maintained.

The form that will fly has not yet appeared.

There is no moment at which the old creature simply becomes the new one.

The transformation takes time.

The season moves on.

Then the casing opens.

Something emerges.

It is soft.

Its wings are folded and damp.

It hangs quietly.

Air moves over it.

The wings begin to expand.

They unfold.

They become firm.

The creature climbs higher.

For the first time, the ground is no longer the whole of its world.

It flies.

The leaf is still there.

The stem is still there.

The forest is still there.

But now there are flowers.

There is nectar.

There is open air.

There are currents of wind.

There are distances that can be crossed.

The butterfly moves from one flower to another.

Its body carries pollen.

Its wings catch the light.

The world has not changed.

The butterfly has.

Or rather, the relation between the butterfly and the world has changed.

What once mattered as food now matters as shelter.

What once had to be climbed can now be flown over.

What once enclosed the world has become one place among many.

The days become warmer.

The butterfly feeds.

It rests.

It flies.

Sometimes it is carried by the wind.

Sometimes it resists the wind.

Sometimes rain drives it beneath a leaf.

Sometimes the sun returns and it emerges again.

Other butterflies appear.

They meet.

The season continues.

Flowers open and fade.

The forest changes.

The butterfly grows older.

Its wings become marked.

Their edges wear.

The flights become shorter.

But the life continues.

Eventually, the butterfly finds a plant.

Not simply a place to rest.

A place where another life can begin.

It settles.

It lays an egg.

Then another.

The eggs are small.

They cling to the leaf.

The butterfly leaves.

The year is turning.

The flowers are fewer now.

The air is cooler.

The butterfly will not return to the leaf.

Its life has passed through the world in several forms.

Egg.

Caterpillar.

Chrysalis.

Butterfly.

Nothing has remained unchanged.

And yet nothing has been lost from the continuity of the life.

The egg was not waiting to become the butterfly in any simple sense.

The caterpillar was not merely a butterfly without wings.

The chrysalis was not an empty interval between two familiar forms.

Each was a way of living.

Each had its own world.

Each had its own relations.

And each made possible what followed.

Now the first egg is beginning to open.

A small creature emerges.

It moves across the leaf.

It begins to eat.

The year has come around.

But the butterfly has not returned.

Another life has begun.

The leaf is still there.

The air is still moving.

The forest is changing.

And once again, life begins with something very small, attached to a leaf, surrounded by a world that matters.

It will eat.

It will grow.

It will change.

It will fly.

And, in time, it will leave another beginning behind.

A Year in the Life of a Plant

The light changes.

At first there is no other difference that needs to be noticed. The morning comes, as it has come before, but it stays a little longer. The warmth remains after the light has begun to leave. Water is held in the soil. The dark is shorter.

Something begins to move.

Deep within the plant, what has been held through the cold begins to change. There is pressure where there was none before. A small swelling becomes a shoot. The shoot presses against what surrounds it and then finds a way through.

The first leaves open.

They are small. They have not been waiting for spring. They have been part of a continuing relation with soil, water, darkness, cold and light. Now the relation has changed.

The sun reaches them.

The leaves do not look towards it. They simply become more fully what they can be in its presence.

Around the plant, other things are changing.

A plant that was hidden beneath the winter growth becomes visible. Another sends a shoot upward. Roots extend through spaces in the soil already occupied by roots. Water moves differently now. The ground is softer. Small animals pass through the vegetation. Something brushes against a stem and moves away.

There is more.

The air carries scents from flowers that have opened nearby. An insect arrives, rests, moves, leaves. Another comes. The plant changes in their presence.

Nothing has been announced.

Nothing has been explained.

Yet the world is different.

---

The days lengthen.

Leaves become larger. Stems thicken. Roots continue outward and downward, finding water where water can be found. The plant grows towards what permits growth and away from what does not.

There is no boundary between the plant and its surroundings that remains quite the same.

Water enters. Minerals enter. Light enters. Carbon enters the leaves from the air. Matter leaves again. The plant is not a thing standing in an environment.

It is a continuing exchange with one.

The soil dries.

The plant responds.

Clouds gather and the air becomes heavy. Rain comes. Water reaches the leaves and runs down the stems into the soil. The roots meet it there.

For a while, there is plenty.

Then there is less.

The plants around it grow higher. One casts shade across part of the plant. Another grows close enough that its roots occupy some of the same soil.

The plant does not resent them.

It does not know them.

They alter what is possible.

A leaf in full light is not the same as a leaf in shade. A root in wet soil is not the same as a root in dry soil. The same plant becomes different in different relations.

There are differences everywhere.

Some make little difference.

Some make a great deal.

A caterpillar arrives.

It eats.

The damaged leaf changes. Soon the plant itself changes. Compounds move through it. The air around the damaged leaves changes too.

Nearby, another plant responds.

There is no conversation.

Nothing is said.

And yet something has passed from one living thing into the conditions of another.

The second plant changes because the first has changed.

Perhaps this is what it is to live among others.

Not to know them, but to be continually altered by their presence.

---

The heat comes.

The soil becomes hard.

For several days there is little water.

The plant continues.

A leaf loses more water than it can easily replace. Another leaf changes. Growth slows. The roots reach further.

The sun is bright.

The air is dry.

The afternoon lasts a long time.

Then, one evening, something is different.

Smoke.

It comes from beyond the trees.

The air changes before anything else does. There are substances in it that were not there before. The light becomes strange. The warmth is altered. The leaves are touched by something carried on the wind.

The plant changes.

It does not know there is a fire.

It does not need to.

Smoke does not have to mean fire in order to matter.

The wind changes again.

The smoke thins.

For a while there is only the altered air, and then the ordinary air returns.

But the plant is not quite as it was.

Nothing is ever quite as it was.

---

Summer continues.

There are flowers now.

An insect arrives and moves among them. Its body touches one part of the plant and then another. Pollen is carried away. More is brought.

The plant does not see the insect.

It does not need to.

Something has happened.

Later, where there was a flower, there is something else.

Fruit.

Seed.

Possibility held in another form.

The plant gives something away.

The seed falls.

Perhaps it will remain where it lands. Perhaps water will carry it. Perhaps an animal will carry it somewhere else.

The plant does not know which.

It does not need to.

Its possibilities extend beyond its own body.

---

The first cool nights arrive.

They are small differences at first.

The light leaves earlier.

The warmth of the afternoon does not remain as long.

The plant changes again.

Leaves that were once green begin to alter. Some substances are withdrawn from them. Resources move elsewhere. What has been useful in summer becomes less useful now.

A leaf falls.

Then another.

The ground begins to cover itself.

The plant becomes less visible.

But nothing has ended.

A seed lies in the soil.

A root remains beneath the surface.

The plant has not disappeared into winter. It has changed its relation to the world.

The air becomes colder.

Rain comes.

Then more rain.

The soil is wet for a long time.

Wind moves through the branches.

Some leaves remain. Others are gone.

The nights lengthen.

---

Winter comes quietly.

There is less light.

The plant does less.

But less is not nothing.

Water moves differently. Growth slows. Some parts remain dormant. Roots persist beneath the cold soil. The plant continues to be what it is in relation to what surrounds it.

The cold is not an absence.

It matters.

The darkness is not an absence.

It matters.

The shorter days matter.

The wet soil matters.

The dry wind matters.

A bird lands on a branch.

Its weight matters.

A fungus grows nearby.

Its presence matters.

A fallen leaf lies against the soil and begins to change.

It matters too.

The world is not quiet simply because less is happening.

It is full of differences.

---

One morning the cold is less.

Not warm.

Just less cold.

The light stays longer.

A little more.

The soil softens.

Deep within the plant, something begins again.

There is no memory of the year in the way there is memory in a mind.

There is no recollection of summer, no expectation of spring.

And yet what happened has not simply vanished.

The plant has been changed by having lived through it.

The relations that remain are different from the relations that were there before.

A root has extended.

A branch has thickened.

A seed has fallen.

The soil has been altered.

The shade beneath the plant has changed.

Other plants have grown.

Some have died.

Some insects have returned.

The plant is not returning to the beginning.

It is entering another possibility.

The light changes.

Again.

A shoot appears.

It presses against what surrounds it.

Then it finds a way through.

The first leaves open.

The sun reaches them.

Around the plant, other things are changing.

There is more.

There is always more.

The year has not been a story that happened to the plant.

It has been the changing relation between the plant and everything that mattered to it.

And nothing had to mean anything for that to be enough.

The light mattered.

The water mattered.

The cold mattered.

The insect mattered.

The neighbouring plant mattered.

The smoke mattered.

The soil mattered.

The darkness mattered.

And now the light is returning.

The plant begins again.