Learning From Butterflies

What really connects us to each other? Aren't we more the same than we are different? (I hope you read until the end.)

I have been working on a puzzle that Patsy and Brian gave me of vintage butterfly stamps from around the world.

Once I got the frame together I had to decide what my strategy would be moving forward. My go to is starting with a color......put all the blue butterflies together...then all the yellow...and so on. But what I chose to do instead was focus on the words and numbers to start: the names of the countries where the butterflies are from and the numbers with the cost of the postage. 

It was so engaging....and as I was working along there were times when I could have easily connected the puzzle from side to side or top to bottom...something I am always COMPELLED to do. But I didn't. 

I continued with only pieces with letters and numbers...trying not to pay attention at all to the butterflies or how and where the pieces connected. I loved it.

I wondered if an interlocking path up and down or side to side would happen naturally. It never did. 

That really struck me...and I've been thinking about it for days.

All of these countries have different names and are separated by random natural boundaries or arbitrary borders. Sometimes one country can be in conflict with the one right next door...or a few countries away....often times for selfish reasons of greed or power. It's not always easy to pass from one country to the next...and impossible without a passport. And sometimes...people are not welcome in a country and are turned away....arrested...or even killed.

 

But butterflies don't care about borders and boundaries. They move between countries freely...many of them happy staying put in one particular region or climate...others migrating when they need to be warmer. But I think it's safe to say that they are welcome wherever they go....and they are certainly not turned away.

In this puzzle...it will be the butterflies that finally connect countries together... and it will be the butterflies that create the path from top to bottom and side to side. I read this evening that there could be as many as 20,000 different species of butterflies in the world and at least 600 of those species migrate. As a point of reference....I read that there are about 5,000 different ethnicities in the world and 195 different countries.

Maybe we can learn something from the butterflies.