It’s March here in the Midwest and it’s supposed to dip into the 20s overnight, yet two days ago, my daughter told me that she and her friend saw their first butterfly of Spring. I don’t doubt it, and I’m sad I missed their joy!

I’m a butterfly-lover at heart (as you can probably tell from certain posts on my Hobby Blog), so when I saw this book on the shelves of a thrift store, my heart sang a bit. Written in 1972, this simple hand-written, sketched-and-painted picture book is “a tale—partly about life, partly about revolution, and lots about hope for adults and others (including caterpillars who can read).” Now who wouldn’t be curious about a book with a front-cover description like that?

The story follows freshly-hatched Stripe as he makes his way from leaf-eating larva to dissatisfied caterpillar who knows there’s more to life than just eating. And then he sees it, the “caterpillar pillar,” a tower of worms reaching to the sky, glued together by every-man-for-himself attitudes which cause insects to steps on the faces and bodies of their fellow-bugs just so they can get to the top—wherever that is.

Stripe finds himself here, climbing and bumping and scraping and longing to go higher and achieve more, until he meets Yellow, a female caterpillar that causes him to doubt the wisdom and the purpose of the climb, though she herself is stuck in the same ascending crowd as well. Together the choose to go against the flow of bodies and descend to where they can hug and play and fall in love.

The urge of the climb stays with Stripe, however, and he eventually leaves Yellow to continue his climb up the pillar to who-knows-where. Yellow, sad and alone and recognizing the futility of it all, meets a pupating caterpillar and discovers that there’s beauty available and real ascension, if only she’s willing seemingly to die to herself in a cocoon of her own making and be reborn as a butterfly. She does and soon is able to fly higher even than caterpillar pillars (of which there are many), and she then goes on a search to share with Stripe this marvelous news.

This natural allegory was a favorite among the Flower Children of the 1970s, as the snippets of praise on Trina Paulus’ website suggest (Drew Barrymore being the top). It’s also a favorite among Eastern mystics and spiritualists (like Deepak Chopra), and for obvious reasons. I loved it of course but I have to be aware that, although it’s imagery of death-to-self and resurrection and love and a futility-of-life all smack of biblical teachings, it’s not a Christian parable. There is no Savior in this parable but Self, and while the pillar could represent any misguided philosophy that the Majority follows because it’s simply what everyone else is doing, the answer is quiet rebellion, peaceful revolution, and inner change that comes by accessing the power that already lies within.

This book fascinates me, I’ve got to admit. You can get an e-book copy for $2.99 on the author’s website, but I prefer this stocky paperback version that I bought, and I’d recommend you go find yourself a copy. The art style makes me wonder if I could ever make something like this with pen and watercolors in hand (but my wife’s handwriting instead of my own). It’s inspiring to think that a simple picture book like this could carry such weighty subject matter through a simple story about nature and love! I’ll be reading this one a few more times, I think, and I recommend you do the same.

©2023 E.T.