Life is filled with miracles. Sometimes you are given the opportunity to participate in one, and to be reminded, as Dante Alighieri wrote, “Nature is the art of God.”

Such was the case when we came upon a monarch chrysalis, dangling precariously from the leaf it had attached to as a caterpillar. That leaf, in turn, had become nearly severed from the stem of a damaged milkweed plant. 

With high winds and a thunderstorm in the forecast, both were in danger of falling to the ground, putting the soon-to-emerge butterfly at risk of not completing its transformation, or completing it in a horizontal position rather than the vertical position needed to avoid development of a crumpled wing that could end its ability to fly.

As we debated what to do, two of my personal mentors, Barbara Yeaman (founder of the Delaware Highlands Conservancy) and Ed Wesely (who handed me the reins of this column when he was ready to relinquish “River Talk”) came to mind.

Together, Yeaman and Wesely founded the Butterfly Barn in Milanville, PA many years ago, and this dedicated team made it a practice to provide care to monarchs when needed, even driving them three or more hours south to give the threatened species a head start on migration in a more hospitable climate than that found in Northeast PA in early fall. 

We decided to assist the chrysalis in its hour of need. The fascinating experience allowed us to witness not only a wondrous miracle of transformation, but also to learn more about monarchs than we had known before and to observe firsthand the artful work of God in the transformative process of an exquisite being taking flight.