Mind the Butterflies…

I had a mentor who once told me to “mind the butterflies.” At first, I didn’t quite understand what he meant by that, because frankly, it did not have anything to do with what we were discussing at the time — seemed more like a random statement than anything else. Yet, those words hung in my head and after some reflection, I realized what he might have meant — though, once again, my conclusion had absolutely nothing to do with what we were talking about at the time…which, at this point is of little matter.

See, at first I was thinking along the lines of…what do butterflies have to do with anything? They don’t do anything really…besides what they need to do to survive and propagate. So putting aside the chaos-theory-flapping-wings thoughts for now…butterflies simply do not affect anything…not really. So why mind them for anything more than the marvel of life and specifically their beauty?

Well, I realized that that is sort of the point –

Butterflies do not affect much…but rather…are affected by much.

Butterflies are quite fragile creatures, so it stands, butterfly habitats are sensitive. Conditions must be right for a butterfly habitat to exist. As such, butterfly habitats are good indicators of adverse changes to the immediate butterfly environment.

As most know, butterflies make their home in some of the most beautiful places on Earth. The ‘beauty’ of these places, of our Earth, is the diversity — the amazing range and scale of living matter literally stops one in their path…or should. True, there are many beautifully diverse places and not all of them contain butterflies, for as I stated earlier, butterflies are amazingly fragile creatures and aptly require an amazingly harmonious habitat to call home.

Yet, for where we do find butterflies, does it not stand to reason that any adverse affect on a butterfly habitat directly correlate to an adverse affect on a beautiful place of this Earth?

It does and for this reason I believe the popularized ‘Butterfly Effect’ should come to have a different meaning and mantra:

For when a butterfly no longer flaps its wings should we expect a more disastrous hurricane.

Not unlike the original, I admit this new mantra may be a bit much.

Nonetheless for now, I echo an old mentor’s advice: “Mind the Butterflies..” yet add, “...for then we are minding our home.“

And lastly, with all these thoughts on butterflies I have come to this final proposition:

(this post was inspired by this post)