Luna moths are rare to see, especially during the day, because they are nocturnal creatures who navigate by the light of the moon. We gathered around in a moment of shared awe, then carried on.
My wife found my close entomological studies endearing. It’s for science, I always said.
I didn’t realize then that in saving this moth, I would also be saving a part of myself.
Wild release of female, fourth generation. —Courtesy of Kai CogginLuna moths belong to the family Saturniidae, in the giant silkworm group. The scientific name Actias luna, derived from the Roman goddess, refers to the moth’s moon-like eyespots.
I kept the broken-off stem and cluster of eggs in a tupperware on the windowsill above the kitchen sink. It takes about 10 days for luna moth eggs to hatch, and I watched like a devoted monk, washing every dirty dish slowly so as to keep my gentle vigil.
Each day, I woke early, gathering leaves and taxiing them to clean jars. I leaned into this slow, meticulous work. Luna caterpillars molt into five instars, shedding their skin four times. Every four to 10 days, usually at night, the babies would slow and silk-anchor their bodies to a leaf so they could crawl out of their former selves, evacuating the exoskeletons that no longer fit them, sometimes eating them after.
The large enclosure had a door that zipped all the way open. Most mornings, you’d find me on a footstool peering inside their world, tallying softly. The stockpile of leaves I gathered each morning was completely stripped overnight by nocturnal munching. They grew and grew.
In their fifth and final instar, their bright green bodies turned into a pinkish rust color, and they began the wandering phase. Out in the wild, this would be when they’d stop eating, wander off their host tree, and drop to the forest floor to spin their cocoons. With me, in the bird-protected enclosure, they wandered to the floor that I littered with fresh leaves, and spun themselves in an intricately tough cocoon of silk, like forest sleeping bags. I found 44 cocoons stuck all over the enclosure walls and ceiling, some still connected to stems and branches, making hammocks that would sway in the breeze.
On Juneteenth, by sunrise, five moths had emerged, wings open and drying in the morning sunlight. I was not prepared for this metamorphosis. I cried. They were beautiful, ethereal, majestic.
Starting on the summer solstice and for many nights following, I opened the enclosure fluttering with pale green wings, and carefully reached inside to release each one out into the wild moonlight. Frogs would sing their trills from the pond and summer fireflies would light up the woods.
Invariably, before each night’s release, a few lunas would get a little romantic. There would be dozens of eggs stuck to the inside of the enclosure. Midwifing these creatures lasted much longer than anticipated.
Coggin with newly emerged luna moth, first generation. —Courtesy of Kai Coggin
For 16 months, I was dedicated to their green lives, their protection, their metamorphosis. As the luna moths transformed, I did, too. Something about the sustained close attention nourished an ache inside me, a place where my inner child finally had a prolonged practice in wonder, not just survival.
I softened in this slowness, in communion with another species. Observing them led me to see myself and better understand my own story. I had been in a cycle of survival mode, dissociation, and hyper-vigilance since I was a child.
My mother will always be a hero to me. She was in survival mode, too, and had trauma of her own—a small but mighty Filipina single mom who was raised on a Calibungan rice farm, suddenly alone in America raising two young girls. She worked three jobs, and we were latchkey kids home alone after school until late. There was always a roof over our heads and food on the table: the physiological level of Maslow’s hierarchy. She came to every marching band contest, volleyball game, and swim meet, always cheering in the crowd.
I didn’t want to worry her, so I kept everything inside. The depression. The suicidal thoughts in fifth grade. The man who pushed himself inside me when I was 13. The guilt. The shame. The fact that I liked girls. I learned how to wear many masks, used sarcasm to make the pain funny, gained a lot of weight, and disappeared slowly.
My early twenties were a blur of numbing out on anything that could take away the pain. I shut myself off from feeling, no light behind my eyes.
At 28, I fell in love with a remarkable woman. We moved to Hot Springs, Ark. We made a life together. A beautiful life. I paved my own path as a poet, published books, made a name for myself. My life finally started looking up, and I didn’t look back.
Finding the language of complex post-traumatic stress disorder gave me the intellectual capacity to begin the journey to healing, but the healing in my body came on the wings of a luna moth and her cluster of eggs.
Luna Moth with clutch of eggs, Ouachita National Forest; First generation male luna moth hanging from stem, drying his wings after emerging from cocoonThe daily ritual of care showed me the nurturing I needed to give my own emotional growth and metamorphosis.
My therapist guided me through cognitive behavioral therapy, internal family systems, brainspotting, and bilateral sound stimulation that awakens hemispheres of the brain to create new neural pathways. Each time a luna moth shivered their wings, gearing up for flight from the launch pad of my fingertips, painful memories shook off and fell from my shoulders, telling me to keep flying through the dark to my whole illuminated self.
Metamorphosis is a mysterious act, an unbecoming and becoming something else entirely.
If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental-health crisis or contemplating suicide, call or text 988. In emergencies, call 911, or seek care from a local hospital or mental health provider.
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