The butterfly’s attractiveness derives not only from colors and symmetry: deeper motives contribute to it. We would not think them so beautiful if they did not fly, or if they flew straight and briskly like bees, or if they stung, or above all if they did not enact the perturbing mystery of metamorphosis: the latter assumes in our eyes the value of a badly decoded message, a symbol, a sign. ~Primo Levi
It’s butterfly season in our hayfield and garden. I know the summer is over and fall is upon us, but the butterflies have been out in force these last few weeks as if they know time is short. There’s much to be done in order to insure butterflies for a coming spring. My spirits always lift when I see that first butterfly in the spring. It will float down on a sunny day and promise that any cold snaps will be just that – snaps, gone quickly as spring gifts us with flowers and summer edges nearer. All summer the butterflies float around, doing what butterflies do. Scaring off the birds with the eyes painted on their wings or bright colors warning that they’re not good to eat. 
And then comes the last days of summer and the fall flowers begin blooming with intoxicating butterfly odors. The butterflies begin to keep me company on my walks in the hayfields, fluttering up from the flowers I pass by to race ahead to a new bloom. Dozens of the little white and yellow butterflies. Could be those yellow ones are why they’re called “butter”flies. Could be I wouldn’t be so entranced with them if I had seen what they looked like a few weeks before they began to light up my walks with beauty.
There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly. ~ Richard Buckminster Fuller
Maybe that’s a lesson for us. Maybe we all start out as caterpillars or at least have our caterpillar days. And then we surprise ourselves with a butterfly day. “How does one become a butterfly?” she asked. “You must want to fly so much you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.”
That doesn’t sound so hard – to give up being a caterpillar – but how many of us cling to what we have and fear to try our wings?
I hope the butterflies floating through your world in these last warm days of the season will lift your spirits and bring you smiles.
Remember, if you haven’t already entered, you still have time to throw your name in my hat for my birthday giveaway. See details on my website by scrolling down to the bottom of the Home page or going to the News & Events page. Some nice prizes including a beautiful NIV Study Bible and of course some of my books, too.