The Brimstone (image courtesy of Internet butterfly images)This week spring arrived, bright chilly mornings turning into warm sunny days. Earlier in the week on my lunchtime walk I saw the first butterflies of the year - yellow Brimstones and a Red Admiral, so delicate and lovely, the very sight of them can only bring joy to the beholder.
I've watched you now a full half-hour;
Self-poised upon that yellow flower
And, little Butterfly!
Indeed I know not if you sleep or feed.
How motionless! - not frozen seas
More motionless! and then
What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees,
And calls you forth again!
~William Wordsworth, "To a Butterfly"
Last night I watched a French film called The Diving Bell & The Butterfly (Le Scaphanfre Et Le Papillon) a very moving film about a 43 year old editor of the fashion magazine Elle, Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered a stroke leaving him with 'locked in' syndrome. He could hear and see but could not speak or move. However, with the movement of his left eyelid and the use of a special alphabet code he went on to dictate his moving memoir and died 2 days after it was published. The film affected me deeply and I came away reflecting on the strength of the human spirit. How it can lift itself out of the most deadening of physical imprisonments to soar like a skylark. As fragile and resilient as the first butterfly of spring.
I've watched you now a full half-hour;
Self-poised upon that yellow flower
And, little Butterfly!
Indeed I know not if you sleep or feed.
How motionless! - not frozen seas
More motionless! and then
What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees,
And calls you forth again!
~William Wordsworth, "To a Butterfly"
Last night I watched a French film called The Diving Bell & The Butterfly (Le Scaphanfre Et Le Papillon) a very moving film about a 43 year old editor of the fashion magazine Elle, Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered a stroke leaving him with 'locked in' syndrome. He could hear and see but could not speak or move. However, with the movement of his left eyelid and the use of a special alphabet code he went on to dictate his moving memoir and died 2 days after it was published. The film affected me deeply and I came away reflecting on the strength of the human spirit. How it can lift itself out of the most deadening of physical imprisonments to soar like a skylark. As fragile and resilient as the first butterfly of spring.
Notes on word association with butterflies:
Chrysalis from the Greek Chrysos meaning gold - the name for the gold coloured sac the caterpilla is coccooned before its metamorphosis into a butterfly.
Metamorphosis - meaning transformation. This is a word I like a lot, it seems to define all sorts of possibilities for creative or artistic change.
