An Invitation to Wonder

By Heidi Holliday McKitrick

For the past two weeks, I’ve had three quiet houseguests keeping me company as I work. When they first arrived—tiny, just an inch long, and black as peppercorns—my

Our tiny houseguests—three Painted Lady caterpillars.

The waiting begins.

kids crowded around, marveling at how they wiggled and crawled, almost waving as they explored their new home. Each day, we watched in fascination as they doubled and then tripled in length. Then, one morning, they climbed to the roof of their container and hung upside down. That’s when the real magic began: holometabolous metamorphosis.

Children’s books make the butterfly’s transformation sound simple: larva to caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly. In reality, this complete metamorphosis is at once one of the most common—and most complex—biological processes on Earth. Though 80% of all insects undergo this process, it’s butterflies that steal the show. And with good reason: witnessing their transformation feels nothing short of miraculous.

Watching this process with my children is a lesson in cultivating awe and wonder. Once the caterpillars are suspended upside down, we try to “catch” them in the act of forming their chrysalises, but the moment always seems to elude us. Every morning before school, we check on their progress. Every evening, we make guesses about when the next phase will begin.

There’s a sacred patience required in this waiting, a reminder that transformation cannot be rushed or forced. It unfolds in its own time, often out of sight, in the quiet and the dark. Our own spiritual journeys are often like the proto-wings and proto-organs of the future butterfly, developing in the caterpillar long before they are visible to the world, until one day we emerge transformed.

The first emerged and dried its wings.

I started “raising” butterflies 15 years ago, while working with community and schoolyard gardens in Kansas City. I’d always buy an extra container of caterpillars for my office so we could keep track of their phases before leading after-school gardening clubs. My staff—mostly fresh college graduates—would tease me, claiming they were “too old” for such things. Yet as the weeks passed, I’d catch them peeking in with anticipation and curiosity, just like the children in the garden club. As the years have passed, it’s become a personal ritual, an exercise in patience, hope, and renewal. 

Rachel Carson, the groundbreaking grandmother of the environmental movement, wrote in her essay “The Sense of Wonder” that “if a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder. . .  he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.” She continues, saying, “A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantment of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.” 

These words, written over half a century ago, before the rapid technological advances of the past thirty years, feel more relevant than ever. We are constantly distracted by email notifications, social media, and breaking news, all designed to vie for our attention and, indeed, “alienating [us] from the sources of our strength.” It takes practice, consistency, and self-discipline to instead pay heed to the quiet and complex natural world. 

Proboscis sighting!

Often, the story we tell of the butterfly ends with the metamorphosis and their role in our gardens. But in many ways, what happens next in their story is even more remarkable. These tiny creatures, less than 3 inches long, travel thousands of miles on their migratory journey. Generations of butterflies are born on the journey, and the full migration is done in a sort of butterfly relay race—the butterfly that started the journey is not the one who ends it, but all have a part to play.

When we gather together as a community of practice at the Center, we are engaging in the work of quiet transformation—within ourselves and within our world. We are finding the “source of our strength”—the natural world, the wild spaces that nourish us, and the spirit that connects us all. When we share these practices with our younger generations, we are cultivating that indestructible sense of wonder and spirit. We are the pollinators of ideas that can reach far and wide. Like the butterflies in their migratory relay race, we may not see the change we are creating in the world, but we trust and hope it is happening through our efforts, individually and collectively.

Ready to take flight.

What would it look like to trust that even in our most hidden, vulnerable moments, something beautiful is being formed within us?

During our monthly meditation this month, one of our participants reminded us of Mary Oliver’s gentle guidance (from “Sometimes”): 

Instructions for living a life:

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it. 

Perhaps the greatest spiritual gift we can offer ourselves—and our children—is not just to witness wonder, but to participate in it. To pay attention, to be patient, and to be astonished by the quiet miracles unfolding all around us… and share in that wonder together.

First flight!

Trying out the proboscis.

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