Heroes Not Zombies

I’ll never cease to be amazed by butterflies. Many of them have such beautiful colours and patterns on their wings. They are such delicate and astonishingly weird creatures! If you were using your imagination to create a life form, would you come up with anything that looked like a butterfly?

I’m sure that, like me, you’ve watched a butterfly in flight, and asked yourself “How on earth do they fly like that?” They seem to move through the air in an utterly unpredictable random manner. At no point can you figure out where they are going to go next. Yet they cover a lot of ground in a remarkably short period of time. They are certainly not very streamlined but they sure get from one side of the garden to the next quickly!

Sometimes I see two, three, or more flying around each other in some airborne version of a dance and I have no idea how they don’t keep bumping into each other.

But perhaps the most incredible thing about butterflies is their lifecycle. It’s still mind boggling to know that the caterpillar, chrysalis and adult stages are the life stages of every single butterfly. Not only do they look utterly different creatures during each of these stages but how on earth do they transform their bodies so completely from one stage to another?

Can there be a better representation of metamorphosis?

Butterflies are a great opportunity to experience the “How do they do that?” effect….not to find an answer, but simply to be amazed.

Wonder…..perhaps one of the most important qualities of a good life…..worth practising every single day.