My Favourite Moment in Bali: The Butterfly House (or was it the house of transformation?)

Yesterday I visited a butterfly house in the mountains above Ubud.

After putting to rest thoughts of, “This feels so artificial, visiting an outdoor ‘room’ with netting overhead, to keep the gentle creatures confined. Why not just appreciate them in nature?” I soon came across another room, at the centre of the enclosure.

It was made of fly screen and inside were dozens and dozens of cocoons, hanging in rows from brightly coloured pegs on metal wire shelving.

“That one is just a baby. Birthed this morning,” said the young woman in charge.

She was pointing to a very large, brown, velvet butterfly who was tightly clasping the wire frame with its fine legs.

“Still can’t fly,” she said as she spread her middle and forefinger in a ‘V’ and gently slid them beside the insect’s body, coaxing the wings closed until she’d clasped it in her make-shift pair of tongs. She lifted it carefully off the wire and placed it on my hand.

I almost dropped my camera.

“Oh wow. It’s so beautiful,” I said. My face lit up. I felt like a Japanese tourist holding a koala.

Some of the cocoons were jiggling around, bouncing with their inhabitants. They ranged in size, colour and construction, like homes in an estate. Some were brown, others green. Some were made with leaves, others made with the body of the caterpillar itself.

I wondered how the staff found them all and brought them here, into the ‘nursery.’

The girl had left and a young man filled her place. “Do you have to go outside and look for all the cocoons each day?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yes, we find the cocoons. Come.” And he beckoned me to follow back into the garden.

“This one, is the only vine this caterpillar eats.”

We were standing in front of a plant that looked very similar to Ceylon spinach.

“And here, is the caterpillar,” he moved some thick leaves to reveal a long black, red and white body, rumpled with soft groves along its entirety. It also had long antenna poking up and drooping over at its head and tail.

It looked similar to the main character from one of my favourite childhood books, “The Very Hungry Caterpillar.”

“And here, is the cocoon,” he said, pointing to the base of the plant. “That one, the gold one, is only one or two day old. That one, the black one, a week old.”

In my thirty something years of being in love with nature, I’ve never seen something so small, shiny and perfect.

A single, golden orb formed the caterpillar’s chrysalis.

“See here, are the wings, and there,” he turned it slowly to the front, “the big eyes.” I couldn’t believe it. The golden metallic object was simultaneously translucent. I could see the outline of the unformed wings of the butterfly inside.

I think the guide enjoyed having someone so enthusiastic, because he very carefully took the cocoon off the branch and placed it on my palm.

Then, occurred my favourite moment from my time in Bali.

I felt the heart-beat of the butterfly inside, through the palm of my hand.

So delicate.

It took my breath away.

The partially formed body went ’tich, tich’, in the middle of metamorphosis. It moved itself, and moved me with it. I rolled the chrysalis down my hand, sorry to disrupt the inhabitant, but unable to stop my desire to see all sides of the exquisite object reflected in the sunshine.

Ahhh, Nature. How I love your surprises, your elegance and your beauty.

Your jewels of transformation and symbols of life are exquisite.

Delicate.

Divine.