About- Expecting Butterflies

Welcome to The Butterfly Jungle and thanks so much for alighting here.

I've always liked butterflies. As a kid I liked them just because they are pretty and that's a pretty good reason in and of itself. Art for art's sake. Between my mom's artistic eye and my dad's occupation as an entomologist, how could a girl not help but notice butterflies? They were an early introduction to art and science all rolled up into one gorgeous package. Both aspects, the art and the science, instilled in me a deep appreciation for this incredible world that God created.

Almost every culture and religion in the world makes use of butterflies for some type of symbolism. Good luck/bad luck, death omens, endurance, hope, lost souls seeking new bodies, joy, fickleness, unconscious attraction, or health. There is symbolism for red butterflies, one white butterflies, two white butterflies, when butterflies land on you, when they lay eggs in a full moon, and on and on it goes.

Probably the most readily recognized symbolism of butterflies is that of rebirth and transformation, used by every belief system from Atheism to Zorostrainism.

I certainly identify with this symbolism of rebirth as I make my slow, mysterious, and sometimes painful metamorphosis into the person whom Christ is transforming me.

It is the life of free flight with Him for which I live.

For the purposes of this blog, however, butterflies symbolize the surprising moments of joy and beauty that flutter upon us as we hack our way through the jungle of life.

by hungaro phantasto via Flickr Creative Commons

A jungle ecosystem is complex, astounding, and full of life, but anyone who has studied or spent time in a jungle will tell you that there are dangers there as well, some of them quite frightening.  Even if we never encounter  leopards or snakes or, more likely, any of the nasty biting insects that can wreck havoc on our bodies, there is the day to day drudgery of hacking through the undergrowth. Sometimes it's just hard.

And then we spot a butterfly.

Maybe it's the breathtakingly huge Queen Alexandra's Birdwing that shocks us with it's majesty.

Maybe it's the tiny Western Pygmy Blue that amazes us with its perseverance.

by wanderingnome via Flickr Creative Commons

Maybe it's the brilliantly colored Blue Morpho.

by josoroma

Or the simple Cabbage White.

by Care_SMC

But there are butterflies and we always give a little gasp when we see one unexpectedly. "Oh look, a butterfly." Life is like that. No matter where we are or what the circumstances, there are butterflies, little moments of joy, refreshment, and relief, maybe even just plain silliness. This blog is an effort to search out the surprises and beauty in both the brilliant and the mundane of life, to encourage us all to wait expectantly for the next flick and flitter of something to enjoy and celebrate.

So my subtitle for this blog?

"Sometimes it's a jungle out there.
                           Thank goodness for the butterflies."