“Caterpillars chew their way
through ecosystems leaving a path of destruction as they get
fatter and fatter. When they finally fall asleep and a chrysalis
forms around them, tiny new imaginal cells, as biologists call
them, begin to take form within their bodies. The
caterpillar’s immune system fights these new cells as
though they were foreign intruders, and only when they crop up in
greater numbers and link themselves together are they strong
enough to survive. Then the caterpillar’s immune system
fails and its body dissolves into a nutritive soup which the new
cells recycle into their developing butterfly. The caterpillar is
a necessary stage but becomes unsustainable once its job is done.
There is no point in being angry with it and there is no need to
worry about defeating it. The task is to focus on building the
butterfly, the success of which depends on powerful positive and
creative efforts in all aspects of society and alliances built
among those engaged in them.”
- Elisabet Sahtouris
