On Easter, a Meditation on (Secular) Death and Rebirth

The butterfly as a symbol has become a painful cliché of rebirth.  I am quite sure that the butterfly does not see itself as such.  And I am equally sure that the overwhelming majority of Nature would concur with the butterfly's self-evaluation.  It is only the human perspective that has imposed this desecration on the glorious creatures categorized by the human mind as the Butterfly.

I have been painting images of butterflies recently for a client.  I enjoy engaging in the experience of the realities that human perspective has made problematic as symbols.  And so, as I sit here on this Good Friday morning, I wanted to use the life cycle of the butterfly as the beginning point for my secular meditation on the notion of death and rebirth so central to this Easter weekend.  A massive cliché, I know. (1)

First, a question.  Do you know how to spell the organism from which a butterfly transforms?  Is it "catepillar" or "caterpillar"?  I was not sure, and so I had to look it up.  In fact, it is spelled with the "r"…"caterpillar."  Please don't ever imply that there is no real knowledge extended in this missives.  This is a prime example.  But I digress.  We all know that the butterfly begins as a caterpillar, spins some kind of cocoon (one "c" or 2?) and emerges after some extended period of withdrawal a transformed or metamorphosed being…a butterfly.  The caterpillar dies in some sense as its former being and is reborn in a transformed being.  It emerges reborn…a new thing in some very real sense.

My interest in mentioning all this is the following.  The caterpillar becomes the butterfly.  In some sense it is a fulfillment of the previous manifestation.  In some other very real sense it is a new creature.  If the latter statement is not true, then why all the effort and time?  And regarding the degree of newness that the butterfly is, does it emerge fully in control of this newness or is there an experience within the butterfly itself of the newness…of the disorientation as regards its restructuring?  Only the butterfly knows.  But the question it raises relates to the notion of rebirth in a human being or in a human society.

Aristotle defined the human being as a "rational animal."  The sense that gives is that any entity that is human is endowed with the fullness of rationality.  The French philosopher, Maurice Merleau-Ponty objects to this characterization.  He argues that the characterization of a human as endowed with rationality is simply not true.  We might be potentially rational, but it is precisely a process of becoming human that endows us with a greater and greater rationality.  We do not emerge fully human…fully rational.  We learn to be human. We learn to be rational.  Being human is an ever evolving construct.  It is a million deaths and a million rebirths.  And while there is continuity, there is newness.  And the newness requires reorientation and learning.  Rebirth is not a return but a hyperjump.  There is a real death…in physics, a phase transition. 

And so, we as humans practice death and practice rebirth all the time.  It should not incite fear.  It is our nature.  But the rebirth is new.  Rebirth is not Return.  We should not expect it to be so out of fear.  We should boldly spread our wings and flutter awkwardly into the New. Reborn.

 My paintings:

(1) As an aside, I very much admire Damien Hirst's work with butterflies and the translation of the compositions of butterflies in Gothic stained glass rose windows.  The first is, I think, the rose window from Chartres Cathedral.  The second is a Damien Hirst rose window butterfly composition.  So lovely!