Butterflown of love
Everything was complete, Old-man-coyote marbled at his creation when a gust of wind made the fallen leaves circle in a whirl wind. His heart was heavy, and a feeling never experienced before fluttered a thought in his mind. Not so fast a drop that could have been the first tear ever, dropped to the crooked hands resting on his knees. Yes, the sun had managed to steer a thousand sunshine ripples in the brook.
“What a pity the children will grow old, flowers will wither, fire will burn the woods” he thought, and for a lonely moment Old-man-coyote wished the world may never experience death. He went on, with his knotted fingers took a little of a child’s smile, smeared his finger tips in the rainbow, collected the mellow singing of birds, from flowers picked up many perfumed petals and he put them in his bag. “I will give the sky a smile, so people rejoice that they may see,” he wished, as he worked the contents of his bag. With this wish in his hand he emptied his bag and at once a million butterflies caressed the arms of time, everyway there was joy melodies of love embraced the world singing butterflies.
“This is not right” said the little sparrow.
“When you made the world you gave everyone something special, now you have given butterflies our songs. They are not only beautiful and dress like rainbows, they also sing our songs.”
“You are right”
And from that moment on butterflies are mute.
Melbourne’s butterflies
Graffiti butterfly by Westgarth train station
In silence words may lay empty of meaning if there is no one to read them, and in empty meaning butterflies may fly away unless we read them. People of different worlds have given butterflies such names and meaning, if they only had to carry them perhaps they would never be air borne. Take for instance the biggest butterfly in the world from New Guinea, British naturalist and bird collector Alfred S Meek never even bothered to find out what this butterfly nearly as big as a fruit bat (30 cm in wing span) was called in native language when he decided he had discovered it and named it; “Queen Alexander Bird Wing” in honor of the Danish wife of King Edward VII of England. A man of his time we may conclude.
Naming and seeing reality go together and in naming we may be conjuring the world, and if we are to subscribe to the Buddhist principle that “nothing in life is an accident or a coincidence,” then we must think twice. The Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) originally a native of the North American continent has made Australia its home since 1871, and today it is known as the “Wanderer” by Australians. I actually like this present name better than the “Monarch” given by Samuel H Scudder in 1874 because “it…rules a vast domain” he quoted, (The butterfly today is found in Hawaii, the Canary islands, Australia and New Zealand). But how did the butterfly managed to travel such a big distances across the sea? Of course they came following the cargo ships bringing potatoes from the New World. Sadly the only Wanderer butterflies I have seen in Melbourne were in captivity at the Butterfly house at Melbourne Zoo.
Monarch butterfly or Wanderer
(Danaus plexippus)
There are many more examples to call up on; for ancient Mexicans for instance, butterflies were associated with fire as in the murals of Teotihuacán “The City where gods are made,” butterflies were the souls of fallen warriors in battle, and the souls of dead mothers who had died during child birth for the Aztec people, the two most sublime sacrifices people could have made they believed.
Teotihuacán, Central Mexico
Late Classic AD 600-900
Incense burner
earthenware, pigment
(a-b) 67.0 x 30.2 x 25.0 cm (overall)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Presented anonymously, 1980 (PC162.a-b-1980)
Today butterflies of course have acquired a more macabre meaning in the Western world as in the Chaos Theory; “a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world may start a hurricane in another in a chain of events” it is said as common knowledge almost trivially. But a lesson is none the less, the many more butterflies you see may mean a healthy environment unless they have moved to a new habitat because the weather has changed elsewhere.
Butterfly in paper container, Clifton Hill train station
Butterfy in poster at Fairfield cafe
Butterflies are in other words the words that nature speaks addressing our doings, so fragile, so neat, and so gentle they along with many more insects are the first to suffer the consequences. In the USA the Monarch butterfly has caused much concern as it is threatened to extinction because of pollen from GM crops of BT corn Maize. The pollen falling by the edges of corn fields contaminates the soil where the milk weeds grow the solely food of such species at larvae stage. The milk weed sucks up the soil along with pollen and the larvae of the Monarch butterfly does not manage to grow its normal size and dies. And in New Guinea the Queen Alexander Bird Wing is threatened to extinction because its rain forest habitat is being reduced as oil palm plantations are created…
Dingy Swallow Tail or Small Citrus Butterfly at Clifton Hill
(Graphion Macleayamos)
Cabbage White Butterfly on Heidelberg Road
(Pieris Rapae)
Common Dusky-blue or Varied Dusky-blue Butterfly in Bulleen
(Candalides Hiacinthina Hiacinthina)
Pure hygiene sign in public toilet
Heide donation box
Heide Museum of Modern Art
