The Caterpillar

We found a caterpillar this morning while I was washing the cluster beans I had bought yesterday. Raghav wanted to make him a home and so moved him to a pot in our balcony, which houses the green chilli plants. :)
I am loving the running commentary that he has been giving me ever since :)
"I wonder if he will like the chilli plant....what if he eats the chilli by mistake because it is green, and finds out that it is too spicy?!"
"I love the way he moves in waves.....that is so cool to watch!"
"And he can suddenly be so still! I can't do that!"
"The nice thing about being a caterpillar is that you have so many legs....and when you want to explore around you, you can stand on a few legs, lift off your body from the floor without losing your balance and explore as much as you feel like!"
"I like the way he just burrowed into the soil....maybe he will make friends with the ants. I wonder how he will breathe underground?"

Learning on the way

Learning happens all the time and in the most unexpected of places usually. ( I am doing another post on that more in detail) I wonder if this is got to do with learning as being the fabric of  life on earth, while we inhabit this planet as human beings. I love the magic that comes with this kind of learning....when you are always open like a channel, to receive all that the universe has in store, especially for you.

We were driving down the East Coast Road, on a Saturday morning, with a long list of errands to finish off......yes all noted down as a list, carefully tucked away in a corner of my bag....things that we had to do and could not forget. But then, when you make your plan, the Universe makes one that over-rules everything else!

We stopped by at the garage to get the person to check something in our car. While we were waiting by the side of the road, I looked out of the car window to see the most amazing sight! I gleamed and exclaimed " wow!", just like a little child does in wonder. Raghav turned from the front seat and smiled. I asked him to look out of the window. He saw what I had seen and beamed. Both of us opened the doors and got out. We crouched and looked carefully at the little magical world that seemingly faded into oblivion in the hustle of a busy road.

We saw baby caterpillars and their pupae hanging from wide, big leaves, over the wall, on the side of the highway. There was a little ecosystem brewing there in front of our eyes! There were a few baby caterpillars clinging to the leaf as the morning breeze threatened to airlift them. We saw a little spider scurrying along and hiding under the cover of the leaf. We saw some brown and white speckled pupae hanging from the leaves and dancing in the wind, undeterred.

caterpillar by the road side

pupae dancing in the wind

caterpillar and spider sharing the space

Raghav had so many questions, and so did I. We spent the next few minutes chatting about what kind of caterpillar it must be, compared it to the one we saw while shelling peas at home sometime ago, wondered whether it would grow into a butterfly, discussed its life cycle, wondered what leaf and plant that was, if it was feeding on that one; watched how it moved along and stayed undeterred while the breeze blew strong and hard, wondered how it must feel to hear all the blaring noises from the passing traffic....and so much more...

This was learning that came from the busy road-side, not from textbooks and classrooms....it was learning that was timeless and not confined to a defined space....learning that happened in ten minutes that did not need flogging and repetition that numbs one's mind....learning that happens in the most unexpected places and at the most unexpected times, that awakens the inner child in every one of us and draws us unwittingly into its magical realm...where one forgets who one is - the learner or the teacher or both...

Why would we confine learning to a particular time, space or person, when we have the whole Universe to show us the way?

Shelling peas, Caterpillars, Fighting ants and What is home...

Raghav was in the midst of clearing a level in his new found passion - a game called Real Racing Challenge, on the iPad. Occasionally, he would scream out what he had achieved or come over to me and share something that he was thinking about....or ask me to choose cars to race with for his next level.

I was in the kitchen shelling peas that had been lying in the refrigerator for many days and needed attention....yes everything needs attention - our bodies, our minds, things and people around us, feelings that rise and fall...and when something is given that undivided attention, I have found that things are peaceful both within and without.....and then one begins to notice tiny miracles and celebrate every moment...

So here I was, flitting like a butterfly, from shelling peas to listening to my son....back and forth, back and forth, my attention flew from one to the other, but stayed with each, trying to find the sweet joy in doing both.

The peas were a rich green despite being in the refrigerator for so many days. I loved the cool, soft texture between my fingers, the sound of popping them open and watching the perfect green rounds roll into the vessel in line, with an occasional rebel that rolled out and onto the floor! I found myself lost in the moment until my son called out to me...so many times I have found a quiet peace and joy in mundane, repetitive activities and chores around the house that I so love to do, because they keep me in constant touch with myself in an intriguing way.

our little friend

My thoughts stopped when I saw a bright green caterpillar move out of the half-opened pod. I quickly called out to Raghav to come and see what I had found...unabashedly sharing the excitement of the little child in me! That was the beginning of our wondrous exploration over the next few hours.

Raghav first brought his magnifying glass to look at it more closely. Suddenly, he remembered the little bug box that we had (which I  thought was long-forgotten!) and ran to get it. While I gently transferred the green squiggle into the bug box, he reminded me to put in some of the pea pods in, so that it would have food to eat.

For the next few hours, all that he did was to watch it closely from all angles, describing it and sharing what he discovered, felt and thought.

let me take a closer look...

"Amma it has seven legs on each side....so that makes it 14 legs!.....I wonder how it manages with so many legs...I can't manage with two sometimes!"

"It has beautiful black dots on its body....see how beautifully God has created it?"

"I don't think it has eyes....I can't see them.....but it has a head."

"Look at the way it moves....it is as if its whole stomach is moving forwards and backwards!"

pretty pattern

"Amma, why does it lift its head and stretch out like that? What is it trying to do?"

"I don't know....maybe it is exploring or trying to get out....", I replied.

"Then, why don't you Google and find out? Google will tell you everything!", he said with a certainty.

"Where do you think it came from? Where is its home?", he asked with concern and a little sadness. "Where do you think its family is?"

That led us onto a path of exploring our thoughts and feelings about what is a family, what is home, how it must be feeling, and so on. We spoke about how it must have come from a farm somewhere up in the hills (because peas usually grow in hilly areas), how it perhaps fed on the leaves of peas, how it must have travelled by bus or lorry or train, to the organic store we bought the peas from, in our bag and then to our house.

when time stood still and watched with us....

I remembered how when I was in 3rd or 4th Grade in school, I used to love the essay writing activities our English teacher gave us about imagining ourselves to be something - like a coin or a flower or a fly and write in first person, how we felt, describing our imaginary journey. This conversation reminded me of that exercise. But what was different here, was that similar thoughts and putting oneself in the shoes of another, happened so naturally and seamlessly, triggered by a real-life experience. It was not contrived. It was not a flight of imagination. It was real - one could see, feel, touch and live it as it was unfolding before us.

"Amma, I think it has come specially to be with us....I don't think it will be sad anymore amma. It has a family now....we are its family..."

I knew what was coming. "Let's make a home for it!", he beamed. So I Googled and found out how to keep caterpillars at home. While we pored over the information together, we watched our little friend move around, rest a while on a pod and then arch his body upwards towards the lens of the bug box. "Do you remember how you caught a mosquito once for me in this bug box, and then we set it free? Let's do the same.....let's make it a home so that it can come and go as it pleases", he said. "I think this bug box is too small for it....remember 'Flippy the Fish story' in my Oswald DVD? I think he needs a bigger home".

the new home we made for it :)

So we  found an old terracotta bowl, put some of our compost in it as a thin layer, added a few pea pods that Raghav insisted was his friend's food, and moved our friend into his new home gently, using a piece of cardboard. We watched him crawl around the edge of the bowl, sometimes so tantalizingly poised that we thought he might tip over. Raghav kept wanting to know why he was moving around the edge. He felt that his friend probably wanted to get away, while I felt that he was just exploring his new place. Raghav wanted to know if his friend was happy in his new home, and so we watched him move and stretch, trying in our own ways to make sense of what we saw. Finally, when the little green fellow crept into a pod and lay snug inside for a while, the happiest person that moment was my little son!

looks like a comfy home!

In a few minutes, our friend seemed to get restless again and started crawling around. He tried to stretch towards a plastic bucket close by, but couldn't. Raghav felt that he probably wanted to explore that, but that the surface was perhaps too slippery and smooth for him to crawl on. Then, we kept a piece of cardboard like a ramp, so that he could crawl out of the bowl and onto the floor if he wanted to. Sure enough he did! He even crawled over to Raghav's scooter nearby and then fell off!

arching its body to reach the bucket...

crawling up the ramp to its home!

You can watch a little video clip of him here:

 Our Rendezvous with a Caterpillar

There was a long line of red ants nearby, scurrying to the kambha which I use for composting. We watched how they hurried along, barely missing bumping into one another in their hurry. We wondered together about how they must send messages to each other or talk to each other. I remembered reading Feynman's experience while observing ants and rubbed the space in between with my finger. We watched together with excitement when the ants seemed confused and did not know which way to go. I shared with him whatever little I knew about pheromones and how when you rub the space in between the paths the ants take, they cannot smell and send messages anymore.

It was also wonderful to see how they did not once disturb the little caterpillar or come in his way. Each one seemed to have his own invisible space demarcated. Raghav suddenly found one little ant carrying something white and hurrying on. We figured that it must be some of the old rice that I had put into the compost pile. Raghav laughed as he watched this ant trying to move away from the rest with his piece of treasure :) and at one point a couple of them bumped into each other, tugged at the rice (were they fighting over it?) and then moved on.

Lost in the wondrous world of ants, we had forgotten about our little friend, the caterpillar. We looked everywhere, but could not find him. He had disappeared. Raghav was very upset and kept asking me: "Where do you think he would have gone?" I had no answer that could satisfy him. We sat together in sadness and thought about where he might have gone, why, how he must have felt and how we felt about it all. We spoke about freedom and home - what it means to us.

"We found him a nice home amma....then why would he want to leave?", he asked pouting his lips. He was really upset.

"What is home Raghav? What makes you feel happy at home?", I asked.

"Home is where I am free to do what I like. I feel safe and happy...and I am with you and appa", he said.

"Yes. So do you think he was free in this new home? Do you think he was happy? Did he have his appa and amma or family?"

"No....I don't know", he said looking sullen.

I hugged him and we talked about how we missed him....and then we hoped that he would come back to us someday, and be happy and free, wherever he was now.

The little bowl still sits in the same place in our balcony. Raghav still goes out every morning to see if his friend is back. The pea pods are now dried up, but still lie there in the same place. Who knows? Perhaps he will come back someday. Perhaps he won't.

Real life is filled with infinite possibilities.....of living, learning and simply being.
And so we live in hope and trust, celebrating each moment that comes our way, opening our minds and hearts to those endless possibilities that are waiting somewhere for each of us...