Heroes Not Zombies

I was sitting in the garden yesterday next to some buddleia bushes which are very, very popular with the butterflies. I watched a few of fly around, then took this one’s photo when he landed on the blossom near me.

Isn’t this creature both beautiful and astonishing? The colours and patterns on its’ wings, its’ delicate antennae, the long proboscis probing deep down into each little flower to gather up nectar? Have you watched a butterfly flying and feeding like this? Its’ movements seem completely random. It doesn’t start on one flower then move outwards or around in some obvious pattern. It will select this flower, then that one over there, then that one next to it, then it flies up into the air and lands on a completely different part of the bush, only to reappear again on the original flower a few moments later.

We can’t predict exactly which direction a butterfly is going to fly next.

Butterflies are almost a symbol of unpredictability. The apparent randomness of their flight is one of their key characteristics. When scientists discovered that everything on Earth was actually connected, they picked the butterfly as an example to explain how small changes lead to large, unpredictable ones. “The butterfly effect” poetically describes how the flapping of a butterfly wing in one part of the world can change the air movement there, which sets off a cascade of interconnected changes, leading to a hurricane in another part of the world.

Small changes that we make can lead to huge changes down the line. That always makes me think two things – first that if I want to bring about a big change, the way to do it is to keep making small changes. In other words, the choices and actions I make in my daily life, are the best, indeed maybe the only, way to bring about the changes in the world I want to see. The second thing is there are no guarantees. Despite the claims of some to know that if we do this or that, then the outcome will be exactly this other thing, that’s just not true. It’s better to stay humble and realise that not only is there much I don’t know, but I have no way of knowing exactly how things are going to turn out. Some people find that frustrating, but I think it’s empowering. It means I need to make my choices and actions on the basis of my values, not on the basis of control. I can’t control the future. But I can sure choose to act in loving ways. I can sure choose to act in “integrative” ways, building healthy, mutually beneficial bonds between me and the others (the well differentiated parts). I can choose to create. I can choose to increase diversity. I can choose to tolerate. I don’t need to be in control of the future.

Butterflies are magnificent examples of change. They go through four utterly different, distinct phases of life – egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, then winged insect. The four phases are so different that some people still think a butterfly is more than one creature. No wonder they are the symbol of change and metamorphosis.

All of life is change.

We are all in a continual process of becoming. It’s a characteristic of life – emergence – an unfolding, a developing, a creative changing reality.

Butterflies are also great examples of connectedness. I see that two ways. First of all, the day the buddleia bushes in my garden began to bloom the butterflies appeared. The more the blossom, the more the butterflies. You could almost think both the blossom and the butterflies emerge from the same source. They are certainly intimately connected. Mysteriously connected.

Secondly, some butterflies, like some birds, are migratory. They spend some part of their lives in one part of the world, and some in others. For the British “painted lady” butterfly that involves distances as far apart as Africa and the Arctic Circle. If that’s not enough to astonish you, wait till you hear this! They complete this migration over SIX generations. Yep, no single butterfly makes the full trip. No butterfly and its’ immediate offspring makes the single trip. It takes SIX generations to make the round trip.

How does that work?

I read that they navigate “using a time-compensated sun compass” – a what?! How does THAT work?

No wonder we see butterflies as symbols of change, metamorphosis, mystery and complexity.

Don’t we live on just an incredible planet? Isn’t life, literally, astonishing?

Every, single, day.