Metamorphosis and Lessons on Change

 

Female (white) and male (brown) Lymantria dispra dispar moths with brown egg mass.

Summer is the time of year that we enjoy being outside in nature and Mother Earth is a great teacher.  This spring and summer, I have been learning about Lymantria dispar dispar or the LDD moth.  Early in the spring people talked about ways to scrape the light brown egg masses off of the trunks of trees into buckets of soapy water.  It apparently takes 48 hours of this this treatment to render them lifeless.  Later in the spring, the caterpillars hatched and looked quite cute and innocuous at first.  As they feasted on the leaves of trees, they got bigger and fatter and the trees became bare in some areas.  People talked about picking the caterpillars off of tree trunks and giving them the same treatment as the egg masses.  Sitting under an Oak tree felt like being in a gentle rain, of black caterpillar droppings and walking through the forest meant carefully removing caterpillars from our legs, hats and sleeves.

There are some parasitic wasps that eat the outer eggs of the egg masses and some birds and mammals will also eat the caterpillars and moths.  If we had had a cool, wet spring, the entomophaga fungus that can infect LDD moth caterpillars or the Nucelopolyhedrosis virus could have killed many of the caterpillars.  But we had a hot dry spring which was perfect for them to flourish.  It was hard to watch the canopy become bare in June and July.

Dead caterpillars and two adults

However, at some point it all stopped as the caterpillars went into the pupal stage creating a strange time of quiet in the forest that only lasted one or two weeks until the adult moths appeared.  The adults don’t eat and only live a few weeks with the sole purpose of reproducing.  The larger white females sit on the bark of trees or sides of buildings while the smaller brown males fly about looking for them.  The males have feathery antennae to help in this search and they mate as many times as they can.  However, the female only lays one egg mass which can contain between 600 to 1000 eggs which won’t hatch until the following spring.

Empty pupae casings and adult LDD moths

Meanwhile, in the absence of caterpillars, the deciduous trees have now started to refoliate.  New leaves are appearing as if it is May once again.  The little moths flitting about with butterflies seem almost magical.  The forest is becoming shady once again. 

However, the bright unimpeded sunshine that has poured down thanks to the caterpillars has allowed the stumps of logged trees to send up suckers.  Some Ash suckers are now taller than me.  Maples and Poplars are about half as high.  The forest is regenerating from the food stored in its roots thanks to the recent rainfall. 

Most of my attention this summer though, has not been on the LDD moths.  It has been on the discovery of unmarked graves on the grounds of former Indian Residential Schools.  One piece of artwork including orange hand prints read, “They tried to bury us.  They didn’t know we were seeds that would awaken the world.” 

Artwork from N'kwala School in BC

As more and more graves are being discovered across Canada the constructed colonial account of these schools is being dismantled.  Priests and politicians have been repeating the false narrative saying that the architects of these schools believed they were doing the right thing, that they meant no harm.  Survivors and Indigenous leaders are reminding Canadians that the express intent of these institutions was to separate the children from their culture, language and families so that they would “assimilate” into settler culture and end what the government saw as the “Indian problem.”

I am having many conversations with non-Indigenous people who just want the discoveries to end.  Some are learning about the actual history of Canada and some don’t want to know.  As the version of history that they learned in school is eroded piece by piece, I see grieving, confusion and anger on peoples’ faces.  It feels like the canopy in the forest being eaten away and seeing bare branches in June.  It feels wrong and many feel unsettled and powerless.  People look to blame the government, the churches, and the RCMP who were the perpetrators.

However, none of these actions would have been possible if the settlers hadn’t wanted the land for themselves.  None of these actions would have seemed permissible without racism which said that white people deserved more than Indigenous Peoples.  And that is what has kept these lies going for so long. Yes, the truth was hidden, but in 2015 the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its findings and most Canadians did not listen.  But, now the lost children are speaking.  Their story which has been told for over a hundred years is finally being heard by those who believed the lies.  The trees of Canada’s story may look bare without the lies. 

New leaves emerge from the defoliated trees in July

Just like the trees in the forest that are growing new leaves, Canadians are learning a story that is old and yet new to them.  New initiatives and connections are sprouting up from the roots below.  As Canadians pay their respects to the children who died because of the Residential Institutions (they were not schools) and learn to respect Indigenous Peoples who have shown strength and resiliency in the face of racism, new leaves will grow and a new story will be told.

Maple shoots sucker from stump in the midst of art installation that shows
the interconnectedness of life with coloured wool and string.

Perhaps each new announcement of discovered graves will provide an opportunity for the metamorphosis of Canadians’ understanding of our actual history.  Our words and actions are like seeds or eggs that grow into a new reality.  Unlike the LDD moths that are bound by nature to lay the same eggs over and over, we humans can choose what seeds we plant.  Showing respect and recognizing the dignity of the children who are being found is like a tree growing new leaves.  Our oldest relations, the trees, are showing us how to do that.