15/07/2025
Tonight, while I was out digging — trenching a line through the old soil — I stumbled upon something that made me stop. At first, I thought it was just a butterfly resting in the twilight. But when I looked closer, I realized it wasn’t just any winged being. It was Callosamia promethea — the promethea silkmoth.
Some call her the spicebush silkmoth, named for one of the sacred plants she’s drawn to. But as I knelt there, watching her stillness, something inside me stirred. This wasn’t just a moth — this was medicine. A lesson from the land.
You see, C. promethea doesn’t harm the trees it lives on. It takes only what it needs. Its young grow in silence, wrapped in cocoons stitched from their own silk — suspended from the branches like prayers left in the wind. And when the time is right, they emerge. Quietly. Gently. With no fanfare but the miracle of transformation.
What really struck me was the balance — the sacred dance between the male and the female. The male flies by day. The female calls by night. They overlap for only a short window, those early evening hours — and somehow, across miles of forest, the male finds her. Not by sight, but by scent. By devotion.
This moth lives in reciprocity. The female lays her eggs on many different trees — tulip, sassafras, spicebush — trusting the land to raise the next generation. The caterpillars eat carefully, never taking more than the leaves they need. When they’re ready to rest for winter, they roll themselves in a single dead leaf, blending into the forest’s rhythm.
And here’s the part that humbled me: the male moth doesn’t protect itself with fangs or venom. He protects himself through mimicry — he looks like the pipevine swallowtail, a poisonous butterfly, so predators think twice before striking. He survives by resembling something dangerous, even though he is soft and harmless.
Now tell me — is that not the story of our people too?
Some of us have survived by blending in. Others by appearing fierce. Some by calling out only when the time is right. But always — always — we have found our way back to each other. Against all odds. Across time, distance, and silence, we have found our way home.
So tonight, under the same moon that stirs the wings of moths, I offer this prayer:
That we listen to the land, as the moth does.
That we honor both the day-flyer and the night-caller within us.
That we remember — even from a cocoon wrapped in stillness — we are preparing for flight.
Mîyawâsin. It is good.
—Kanipawit Maskwa 🐻🦋
John Gonzalez
Standing Bear Network
