Are you ready to switch off your screens and ponder or discuss another writing/conversation prompt during dinner tonight? You want to know about my thoughts on it? Here’s my take:
Isn’t this a pristine image? A field suggests something quiet and peaceful. Butterflies are usually something beautiful, ephemeral, therefore somewhat precious. A field of butterflies. And yet …
My father’s mother and my mother were both very keen on Nature and knew a lot of creatures – animal as well as plant life – not just by name but also by their lifestyle, if you can call it that. I grew up with getting explained what we encountered during our walks – herbs and trees here, birds and insects there. And, of course, butterflies. Back then, I thought it tedious. Later, I wished I had listened better, as I had to learn everything the harder way. In coming to the U.S., a lot of things have changed, among them plant and wild life. I’m still learning, mostly without any outside help.
I grew up in the rural suburbs of Stuttgart (there were heavily industrial ones, too). Our suburbs were surrounded by fields, not pastures. The shoulders of the fields were usually strips of wild meadow with all kinds of beautiful flowers and grasses. It was Paradise for pollinators. But when there were cabbage fields, butterflies seemed to be abundant. Large whites aka cabbage butterflies and – very rarely – my favorites, common brimstones. In German, their name is so much nicer: Zitronenfalter (pronounce: tsee-‘troh-nen-fulter), which means lemon butterfly. Of course, I knew that the farmers were not happy about the former. Their caterpillars used the cabbage as main staple. See how a realistic perspective turns a field of butterflies into something that is not necessarily desirable?!
Also, have a look at the photo above – as soon as it is more than a few butterflies to be admired individually, a kaleidoscope (that’s what you call a big group of butterflies) is somewhat disturbing. I know people who are not really keen on going into butterfly houses for that reason. Because some butterflies are huge, and one wonders what they are thinking! Now, imagine a large number of them … On the other hand, there is the saying that a flapping of one butterfly in the Sahara desert could change the weather. Imagine that with a kaleidoscope. They’d flap up a storm!
Let me get back to a field of butterflies – I prefer a meadow of butterflies, bees, bumblebees, and beetles. As a child (in spite of my hayfever) I enjoyed sitting down in such meadows on hot summer days and listening. The buzzing and humming, the whirring – it was a world of its own. Add the fragrance of a colorful meadow with wild flowers of all kinds. Only the butterflies … they aren’t to be heard or smelled. Their beauty is but for the eyes.
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