Title: Butterfly Culture - By: Janet K. Nelson

There have been many famous butterflies through time. Consider the Monarch Butterfly which is the state insect for Alabama, Idaho, Illinois and Texas. It is also the state butterfly for Minnesota, Vermont and West Virginia. It is the national insect for both the United States and Canada. Art and culture offers Madam Butterfly and Dance of the Butterflies.

According to Wikipedia, a butterfly is an insect of the order Lepidoptera. Butterflies are known for their unique life cycle and developmental stages. They start out as an egg and then hatch into larvae. The larvae grow into caterpillars that eventually form a pupa within which they transform into the beautiful flying insect we know as a butterfly. Butterflies symbolize rebirth. Life is a colorful statement of radical change and new possibilities. This is a creature that starts out crawling and ends up flying through the air. Reality transcends science fiction in discussing morphology. In Greece, butterflies symbolize soul.

There is a “Butterflies” chapter in Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, by Lafcadio Hearn, that says a butterfly is seen as the personification of a person's soul; whether they be living, dying, or already dead. Butterflies seem to bring life to a climactic celebration with a dance of glorious color and beauty as seen in out-stretched wings that bear the intensity of life. There is a Japanese superstition that says, if a butterfly lands in your room behind a screen, your beloved is coming to see you. In China, two butterflies flying together always mean love is present.

The Russian word for butterflies is babka. It is pronounced "bah' bch ka", it also means "bow tie". This may explain why art and culture often display beautiful gemstone and butterfly jewelry as pendants.

Butterflies integrate culture and technology. Light reflects off the scales that decorate the wings of swallowtail butterflies. They have taught us how to make more efficient light emitting diodes. This improvement in electroluminescence has affected the use of LEDs in many state-of-the-art inventions.

Culturally, this integrates well with creative opportunity in our natural world. Many gemstones such as tiger eye, quartz and jasper have an iridescent quality known as chalcedony. Geology shares this trait with biology when beautiful butterflies are created by artists and designers in jewelry and sculpture.

Have you ever had “butterflies in your stomach”? Probably not literally, but figuratively and biologically this is not a pleasant experience. It usually indicates stress and a queasy or sick feeling in the stomach. It is believed that this is caused by the release of epinephrine or adrenaline, when you get a case of nerves. The blood is pulled away from the stomach and instead, is sent to the muscles. The stomach temporarily shuts down. This may be the reason for loss of appetite when one is "love sick".

Even our economy is dependent on these magnificent little creatures as they pollinate many flowers and plants that bloom and produce fruits and vegetables the whole world needs. Butterflies are valued culturally, artistically, biologically, socially, economically and technologically. These voracious eclectic participants in all aspects of existence demonstrate the genius of our integrated world and how every creature plays its part in the celebration of life.

Butterflies play a universal role in art, culture, science and economics. This article describes the value and importance of this integrated role and how it is celebrated in many cultures.

Janet K. Nelson has done research and written articles on subjects that range from the cultural to the technical. She is noted for integrating information and providing a fresh, clear and whole-picture perspective on her subjects. Ed: Double BA in Music/Communications and MBA. See tigereyejewels.com