| Frances Ono, F.R.C., wrote: "In a luminous early morning meadow I happened upon a new born butterfly climbing out of its green, gold-spotted case. 'Here is a being changed, transformed,' my mind thought. I remember that I has heard a person say, 'People will not let me change they expect me to be what I was before and I am not.' "It is as if the caterpillars thought, "Once a worm, always a worm, - the worm will not, cannot change.' But caterpillars do change - they enclose themselves and grow within, later hatching out more beautiful than ever before. And within his mind a person may incubate new attitude (a change of mind) about himself. He will grow and change within and suddenly emerge anew - a changed, more perfect person. "Why does that surprise us so?" There is something that tells the grubby, earthbound garbage-seeking, crawling caterpillar, "You can be different. You can ascend. You can shed your heavy burdensome, drab coat for silk and color and beauty." Santa Cruz is located in the alluring Monterey Bay area of the state. It's beauty in inexhaustible. Surf, giant Redwoods, sunshine, orchards, and craggy low-lying ranges are an artist's delight. Carmel, California, a few minutes drive from Santa Cruz is the community of the nation where artist and sculptors showcase their creations. And it is to this area that the monarch butterfly comes. The annual return of the butterflies has prompted a yearly festival in Pacific Grove. The month is October. These exquisite, tiny, aerial wayfarers are powerful fliers. They weigh a fraction of an ounce. The wingspead is three inches. They fly at speeds between 11 and 30 miles per hour. They can fly hundreds of miles without alighting. They can go around the Great Lakes. They can navigate the Rockies. They can cross hot deserts. They can fly through storms. All of this know-how built into a fraction of an ounce! These majestic orange and black monarch butterflies summer, like geese, in the north. Their life appears leisurely as they glide from one flower to another on almost motionless wings. Direction does not seem to be significant. But when autumn comes there is an urge. Suddenly from the Canadian Rockies, Southern Alaska, and the North Pacific Coast there is a turn around. A warning sounds. A route has already been surveyed and prepared. For regularity and extent this mass migration is unique. Each monarch begins its fight alone, but is soon joined by migrating companions. Groups get larger and larger until hundreds of thousands are flying together. Often the advancing front is miles wide. In one instance it was measured and discovered to be 250 miles wide. It was estimated that one and a quarter million butterflies passed a given point there during every minute of daylight. The monarch butterfly, which weighs a fraction of an ounce, has a power plant that will lift to as much as 11,000 feet above sea level. How is it done? Do you know the secret? It can't be ignored? It says to you "Believe!" Consider further! How does one generation pass this knowledge to another generation? The life span of the monarch butterfly is short. By July all the monarchs who made the migration the migration the previous fall to Pacific Grove and the Monterey Bay area have died. The offspring must make the next trip. There are no repeats. A new generation makes the migration annually. How does the new generation know the way and the target? What is the guidance system? This portion of America respects the monarch butterfly. A city ordinance of Pacific Grove makes anyone molesting butterflies liable to a $500 fine. The city has erected signs of "Quiet Please" and Quiet Zone" near the favorite trees of these butterflies. Strangely enough if the butterflies are molested on a certain tree one year, succeeding generations of monarchs seldom visit the same tree. How is this knowledge transferred? As many as a thousand monarchs will gather on a three foot pine branch. One estimate is that two million monarchs cover the branches of about six acres of pine in Pacific Grove each year. Why do these millions choose one locality and renew that option as far back as records in these parts have been kept? Each generation of monarchs has this sense that here is their "winter home". But the question remains: How can a frail butterfly find its way to these wintering grounds from a summer birthplace half a continent away? Hardly from memory. There is no record of a monarch long-lived enough to return to its wintering place the following year. What is built into the biochemical forces which urges the monarch and guides the monarch? What we behold is both a puzzle and a delight. "A NEW LIFE DEMANDS A NEW LIFE STYLE" "1. Put off the old self! No more cocoon. Put off the shabby clothes of your old way of life...The decision to climb out of that cocoon is your first step toward flight. 2. Be renewed continuously in the spirit of your mind!... 3.Put on the new self! Put on the new clothes. Try out those wings...." Ephesians 4 22 Strip yourselves of your former nature [put off and discard your old unrenewed self] which characterized your previous manner of life and becomes corrupt through lusts and desires that spring from delusion; 23 And be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind [having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude], 24 And put on the new nature (the regenerate self) created in God's image, [Godlike] in true righteousness and holiness. -Amplified Bible |