Butterfly

I heard today of the death of someone I had come to know quite well and to like.  It had all happened very suddenly, and once again I am reminded of the fragility of human existence - at least as measured in our physical selves, within the passage of time.

At a recent funeral, all those attending were given butterflies cut from crepe paper.  The butterfly is a symbol both of beauty and of fragility, and just for those reasons made a relevant and moving keepsake.  But perhaps, too, the metamorphosis that is a feature of the butterfly life cycle can take us a little further and help us to explore what it may mean to think of our selves as not only physical beings but spiritual.

In early times, the butterfly was a symbol of resurrection, and of the faith that has Easter at its centre.  So for those who believe, or at any rate hope, that the death of our physical body is not the end of us, well, each butterfly we see is living proof that the pupa and chrysalis are not the end of the caterpillar, but just an onward stage of its journey.

The fact that there are butterflies does not prove anything really, of course, about our own life and death.  After all, butterflies, in this physical world, die too.  I suspect, though, that the fact that we find them beautiful and inspiring may be an indication that there is something more about us than can be weighed, assessed and measured in physical terms.  For me the marvel has never been that butterflies, flowers, birdsong are beautiful, but that we have the capacity to find them so (and to celebrate this in poetic words, inspirational music, or paint on canvas).

And while that's not in itself a proof of the existence of the spiritual me, it certainly sows within me the seeds of doubt that I could really be only dust and ashes . . .