Before becoming a butterfly, the caterpillar begins on a host plant chosen for what it can provide at one stage of life. The plant may not stay the same or remain part of what comes next. Still, it makes early change possible. In this case, the beginning is supported by something specific, temporary, and just enough for that moment.
It is hard to believe real change can begin in a place that feels temporary. When the rest is still shifting. When nothing feels clear or whole. But the caterpillar’s host plant invites a different thought..that something important can start in a place that is filled with questions.
A moment where the usual story feels distant, yet something still asks to be tended.
An hour that holds no answers, only a small refusal to give up entirely.
A return to something once left behind, not to finish it, but to remember it mattered.
The host plants of the world are the conditions that hold just enough for something to take shape, even if they are temporary places.
Notice what offers just enough to start: for perhaps, it is a reminder to begin forming, anyway.
– Morgan Harper Nichols
