Butterfly Kaleidoscope

A kaleidoscope, a rabble, a swarm, or a flutter of butterflies fills the world with myriad images in nature, as well as, art. Long a symbol of transformation and hope, in some myths the tender creature is the symbol or personification of the soul. Further, for Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross the butterfly became the imagery she used to explain the process of death and dying.

When I was a young mother of a newborn, I took a college course on death and dying learning the five stages of grief. The class was assigned a project of what death meant for us. Many shared their stories of death and their cultural traditions when a loved one died. In my early 20’s, I had had little experience with death and felt I had nothing to contribute. I thought about my baby and my fear that she would stop breathing in her crib—sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). My life had forever changed with my unplanned pregnancy and it wasn’t unusual that I would fear her loss when I wasn’t sure I had wanted a baby in the first place. This fear of SIDS is what I offered my classmates.

I went on to finish college as a single mom with three kids in tow, literally. They followed me to nearly all my classes. This is when I became interested in the subject of children and war in the arts. When I needed a poem on that subject, my professor sent me looking for the book I Never Saw Another Butterfly. In it were the poems and artwork of the children from the Terezinstadt Concentration Camp during WWII. As a symbol of hope the butterfly buoyed the spirits of the children that their souls would be transformed after their death.

Fast forwarding to my daughter’s college years, when she arrived at the airport blown home from “Katrina”, she said, “Mommy your refugee is home.” When she returned to New Orleans five months after the hurricane, she witnessed the transformation of the city’s rebuilding from the natural disaster. Later, one day in Spring she told me she saw a butterfly for the first time since returning to the devastated city. That meant the world to me, because I had been hand sewing her a quilt with a butterfly design. Hope and rebuilding transformed in the images of nature, art and soul.