Seeing a walking stick bug
A walking stick bug is built to pass for a twig. Young ones can regrow a lost leg while they are still molting, a reminder that many things mend best while they are still growing.
What it may mean
A walking stick on a porch screen is easy to take for a twig the wind left there, which is the whole idea. Northern walkingsticks, common in the eastern United States, are brown or green and thin as a pencil, and they rock gently as they walk, like a twig in a breeze. They have another trick, less often seen. A young walking stick that loses a leg can grow it back over its next few molts, often a little smaller than before. Once it is fully grown and stops molting, a lost leg stays lost. For this insect, repair belongs to the growing years. People resemble it more than they might like: habits, skills and friendships mend easily while they are still forming and set harder later. A walking stick on the door frame with one short leg is a life that rebuilt itself while there was still time.
Depending on how you saw it
Eggs falling like rain
When walking sticks are plentiful in eastern forests, females drop their seedlike eggs from high in the trees, and in big years the falling eggs can sound like light rain on the leaves. The mother never sees what hatches. What are you letting fall now that might sprout long after you have moved on?
A walking stick in a classroom tank
Some stick insects kept as classroom pets lay eggs that hatch without any male at all, so a single female can fill a tank with near-copies of herself. The colony grows and nothing new comes in. What keeps getting copied in your family or team without anyone adding something new?
Why it happens in nature
Walking sticks are plant-eating insects whose long, thin bodies and slow, swaying walk make them look like twigs. The northern walkingstick of the eastern United States feeds on the leaves of oaks and other trees and drops its seedlike eggs to the forest floor. Young walking sticks can regrow lost legs over later molts; adults, which no longer molt, cannot.
To reflect on
Which habits and friendships of yours are still young enough to mend, and which have already set?