Farmer HighlightsLike the monarch butterflies she adores, Allie Schield was transformed too

By GREG C. HUFF
Gazette News Editor
(Created 8/7/01 4:42:59 PM)

STILLWATER -- Thanks to Allie Schield, there's a little more trust and faith in the world today. "Trust" and "Faith" were the names given to the monarch butterflies that Allie and a grade school class raised from caterpillar eggs, watched emerge from cocoons, and then released last month.

"We always name (the butterflies) something the world needs more of," Allie says. "And then we send that out into the world."

Allie is the owner of a new local business, One Little Miracle, which she operates from the Stillwater home in which she lives with with her husband, Mike, a car salesman at Denny Hecker's Routson Motors, and daughter, Stephanie, 14. Son, Sam, 21, a Stillwater graduate, lives in Colorado.

Allie sells what she describes as "monarch rearing kits," which come in a plastic case complete with a monarch caterpillar, milkweed leaves and a set of instructions. She's been giving away the kits for about five years. She began selling them only this year.

"I'm not interested in making a huge amount of money, just in covering my costs and making a little extra while sharing the gift," she says. "I'm not selling a product, its an experience. It's hard to understand until you do it."

She sells many kits to parents with small children and hopes to use them in classes at daycares and in other educational environments. But the kits appeal to adults as well as children, she says.

"Sometimes we forget what's important," she says. "I'm just thankful that I've come to a place where I see things like a little kid -- much to my daughter's dismay!"

That perspective didn't come easy, she says.

Transformation

Like the monarchs she adores, Allie was transformed as well. Crawling along for fifteen years in an unsatisfying profession, she found herself encased in a melancholic cocoon. When it broke, she emerged brightly colored, with wings.

Emotionally, Allie's complexion is rosier these days. Spiritually, she soars. Especially when talking about monarchs. Although she's told the story dozens of times, Allie still speaks excitedly about how she developed a passion for the creatures.

"You don't see as many butterflies as you did when you were a kid," she says. "All areas are getting so built up and people are selling off lots and mowing them so they'll look nice for prospective businesses. And along with that goes the milkweed and the wildflowers."

Where there is little milkweed, there are few monarchs. A monarch butterfly will lay its eggs on nothing but a milkweed plant, Allie says. Monarch caterpillars eat nothing but milkweed.

Lisa Matthies, a neighbor and then a kindergarten teacher in Mahtomedi, taught Allie about monarchs -- taught her about milkweed; taught her how to recognize the eggs.

About a year later, while "going through a very hard time personally," Allie was walking with her daughter in Afton while on leave from an unfulfilling career of about 15 years. Seeing some milkweed plants, she remembered what Matthies had taught her.

Investigating the plants, she found a caterpillar. She took it home and watched it every day for hours. She made a journal to chart its transformation. When it emerged from its chrysalis as a butterfly, something in Allie was freed as well.

"It was such a spiritual experience," she says. "It relaxed me, it focused me ... . To me it was a gift. It was something I needed at the time."

New career, new outlook

Her enthusiasm for monarchs grew. She began giving caterpillars to friends and family so they too could witness the miracle and perhaps gain inspiration. After returning to work for about a month, she quit.

A year later, she found herself a special education teaching assistant at North St. Paul high School, working with children with learning disabilities — a job she never would have imagined for herself.

"I thought it was crazy," she says. "I said "Okay God, I think this is nuts, but if you really want me to take this job, have them offer it to me, and I'll do it.""

They offered it to her. She did it. She's still doing it. She loves it.

"I'll never go back to anything else," she says. "I really enjoy it, I feel like I'm giving something."

On a walk recently with her daughter, Allie noticed her senses were more attuned to nature. She saw butterflies she had never noticed, she says, listened to birdsongs she'd never heard. Noticing too, Stephanie offered perspective:

"See mom, what it's like when you quit looking ahead and start looking around?"

It was a "defining moment," Allie says.

Book project

A Christian, Allie sees easily a parallel between the King of Kings and the butterfly with the kingly name.

After disappearing into a cocoon-like pupa called a chrysalis, Allie explains, a monarch caterpillar will emerge a butterfly. Jesus, Christians believe, was crucified, died and was buried, and rose again.

Allie, who describes herself as "very spiritual," discussed with her sister-in-law, Wendy, the parallel between monarchs and Christ.

"This is life," Allie told her as they watched a caterpillar eat a milkweed leaf.

"This is death," she said, days later, after they awoke to find a chrysalis. "Wait until you see the resurrection."

When it emerged, Wendy shared in Allie's passion for monarchs, calling the metamorphosis "incredible."

Allie's new business' name -- One Little Miracle -- reflects her Christian beliefs. So too, does the children's book she wrote recently.

In "Solomon & Lily," the first-time author uses the monarch's metamorphosis as a metaphor for the dying process. The monarch's emergence from its chrysalis is a symbol for a person's passing on to Christian Heaven.

In the book, a narrator describes a friend, once full of life, whose body stops working and "dies." While the narrator could be describing a person, the book's illustrations will convey the metaphor to children. Allie's daughter, Stephanie, 14, a "great artist," will illustrate the book with drawings of a caterpillar in its various stages of development.

"When we die we go to a special place where we get brand-new bodies that are perfect, that will work forever," Allie says, paraphrasing the book's dialogue. "Then it shows the butterfly in a happy place, and (the narrator) says "now I can feel a little happy, because I know my friend is happy.""

Allie has yet to consider how, or if, she will publish her book. Her motive for writing it was more philosophical than financial.

"I feel like I was led to do it, so I did it," she says. "I'm being obedient."

More info

For more information about One Little Miracle, call Allie Schield at (651) 439-3250, or visit her this Saturday between 7:30 and 11:30 a.m. at the Stillwater farmer's market at 3rd and Pine streets, across the street from the Washington County Historic Courthouse.