However, the word ‘butterfly’ is interesting in itself. My Webster’s dictionary defines it as “any of certain slender-bodied diurnal (active during the day) insects forming the division Rhopalocera of the order Lepidoptera that have very large broad wings which are often strikingly coloured and patterned and are usually held vertically over the back or expanded when at rest and usually slender somewhat club-shaped antennae sometimes hooked near the ends.”
The bit that fascinated me most in my dictionary, though, was just before the definition regarding the origin of the word – from Old English buttorfloege and the belief that “butterflies or witches in the shape of butterflies stole milk and butter.” I wonder how these ideas got/get started. Did someone see a butterly light on a dish or milk or butter? Many butterflies eat nothing at all, but of course it would take a lot of observation to find that out.In some of the ancient Central American cultures images of butterflies were carved into many buildings (including temples) and objects (jewellery). Such an image was often shown with the jaws of a jaguar. I have difficulty putting those two things together, and yet in a sense they make sense – the dark and the light, yin and yang. And of course, such an image would resonate even more in those cultures where butterflies were believed to be the souls of dead warriors. Beauty and strength, poetry and death (reminds me of the Samurai)
Very Jungian somehow, and perhaps also Joseph Campbell. The connections just keep happening -- the ancient Greek word for butterfly is ‘psyche.’Perhaps you’ve heard the expression about the flap of a butterfly’s wing causing a tornado somewhere. I tracked down (by accident – wonders of Internet serendipity) the correct statement and the origin of this. In the late sixties Edward Lorenz was using an early computer program at MIT to study weather and changed one number representing atmospheric conditions from .506127 to .506, which totally transformed his long-term forecast. This resulted in him presenting a paper in 1972 before the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The paper was titled “Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterly’s Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?” He doesn’t actually answer yes to this question, but does say, in effect, that predicting weather over the long term is very difficult because we don’t understand all of the factors (small thought they may be) that go into affecting weather. To read the entire article (which isn’t that long and is pretty easy to read) paste the following into your browser: http://voluntaryboundaries.blogsome.com/2011/02/03/predictability-does-the-flap-of-a-butterflys-wings-in-brazil-set-off-a-tornado-in-texas/ Lorenz died in 2008, but it’s great that his paper is still available (and it still seems valid to me).
I think that butterflies are truly amazing, whether in reality or in our imaginations. And they have been with us a long time -- the earliest known butterfly fossils are from 40 to 50 million years old.
I just learned that the cells that make up butterflies are called "imaginal" cells. Once the caterpillar gets so fat that it can hardly move, it hangs itself up and as the cocoon hardens around it, imaginal cells appear inside the caterpillar and eat up all the caterpillar gunk as they become a butterfly! It's so fascinating.
ReplyDeleteWow. Thanks Shanti Shanna, I didn't know this, but it adds so much to the connections around the word.
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