The Quiet Work of Becoming: Lessons from a Monarch Garden

A lesson from the garden about slowing down and embracing change

We planted a few milkweed plants to help support the Monarch Butterfly’s. We weren’t expecting much, but boy were we surprised when after a few visits from a couple of Monarch’s and a few weeks later we had lots and lots of caterpillars.

One day our milkweed was green and leafy, and before long it seemed to be covered with tiny black, white, and yellow visitors. Monarch caterpillars had hatched, and they were hungry.

I started watching them more closely. They crawled along the stems, curled themselves around leaves and ate...and ate...and ate. Before long, the once-leafy plants looked almost bare. At first glance, it might have looked as though something had gone terribly wrong in the garden. But something wonderful was actually happening.

A Garden Is More Than Its Flowers

Milkweed isn't simply a pretty plant in a butterfly garden. It is a host plant for monarchs, providing the food their caterpillars need as they grow. And those caterpillars can eat an astonishing amount of it. In fact, monarch caterpillars can strip milkweed of its leaves surprisingly quickly. An established plant can look nearly bare and still recover. So those chewed leaves and naked stems weren't a gardening failure. They were evidence that the garden was doing exactly what I had hoped it would do. It was supporting life. And soon, I began noticing something else. Tiny new leaves. The plants were already beginning again.

The Wandering Begins

As the caterpillars grew, they started appearing in unexpected places. One even made its way onto the screen of our house. Then I began discovering beautiful little green chrysalises around the yard. One hung beneath the top of our hot tub! Another was tucked among the roots of an orchid growing on a palm tree. And another behind a plant that I could only see from inside our lanai. I realized there was an entire transformation happening around me that I could easily have missed. Life was changing quietly while I went about my day. And perhaps that's why I've been thinking about it so much lately.

Starting to form a chrysalis under and on a leaf. This was taken from my lanai.

A chrysalis tucked among the roots of an orchid on our palm tree

A Season Between Seasons

This time of year always feels a little strange. School is starting again. Familiar routines are returning. Summer hasn't really left, especially here in Florida, but walk into almost any store and pumpkins, ghosts and Halloween decorations will tell you otherwise. Fall is calling and it can be very tempting to hurry toward it. To start thinking about the next season, the next holiday, the next project, the next thing we need to accomplish. But watching these caterpillars has made me want to do something different.

I want to slow down.

We Celebrate the Butterfly

We love the beautiful part of transformation. The butterfly. The wings. The moment something finally emerges. But there was so much that happened before those wings appeared. There was a caterpillar that needed to eat. There was a plant that surrendered its leaves. There were bare branches. There was new growth. There was a chrysalis hanging silently beneath a plant. There was waiting. None of it looked particularly dazziling while it was happening. Most people wouldn’t even notice it and yet every bit of it belonged to the transformation. Maybe our lives aren't so different.

Let the Season Arrive Slowly

We don't have to leap from summer into fall. We can let it arrive a little at a time. We can notice the routines returning to our days. The changing afternoon light. The first morning that is a little bit cooler and an evening that feels just a little different. The things we're finally ready to let go of. The tiny shoots of something new growing. Maybe we don't always have to rush towards becoming whatever comes next. Nature certainly doesn't. The caterpillar doesn't hurry because pumpkins appeared at the store. The chrysalis doesn't open early because we're impatient. The plant doesn't give up because its leaves are gone. Each simply moves through the season it is in.

And Then, Wings

And eventually, there they were. Monarch butterflies. Those tiny caterpillars that had spent their days munching through my garden had become something entirely different. But by then, I realized the butterfly wasn't the only beautiful part of the story. The caterpillar was beautiful. The bare plant was beautiful. The tiny new leaves were beautiful. The hidden chrysalis was beautiful. Even the waiting was beautiful. Because transformation isn't something that suddenly happens at the end. It is happening through all of it. Maybe that's something worth remembering as another season begins calling us forward. We don't have to rush to meet it. We can linger here for a moment. Notice what's changing. Notice what's returning. Notice what's disappearing. And trust that even when we can't see the wings yet, something beautiful may already be quietly becoming.

🌿 A Little Nature Pause

Step outside today for five quiet minutes. Don't look for anything extraordinary. Instead, look closely at something you normally walk past. A new leaf. A fading flower. A tiny insect. The afternoon sky. Then ask yourself: What small change is happening in my life right now? You don't have to rush it. You don't have to fix it. You don't even have to know where it's going. Just notice. Sometimes beauty is already there, quietly becoming.

A Little Practice for the In-Between

During seasons of change, it can help to notice the small moments of beauty that are still happening around you. These little glimmers can be easy to miss when we're focused on what comes next.

I created a 7-Day Glimmer Practice to help you slow down and notice one small moment of joy, beauty, comfort, or connection each day.

✨ Download the 7-Day Glimmer Practice✨

The Quiet Work of Becoming