Butterflies and Theophanies

Monarch butterflies -- all butterflies really -- are a gift from God...period. That's about as definitive as I can be on any subject. Butterflies are at once fragile and remarkably durable, not unlike the stained glass windows to which their wings are often compared. For Canadians Monarchs are one of the most if not the splashiest butterflies we're going to see. And we've learned that they undertake a remarkable migration from Canada to Mexico mostly, although Western Monarchs end up in California. Sadly, these creatures which never fail to create in me a sense of wonder have been in a decline which is more like a free-fall. It's estimated that the North American population has declined by 90% or more. Pesticides, elimination of milkweed, and habitat loss have conspired to cause this haphazard path to extinction.

This past Summer and Fall I was heartened to see a lot more Monarchs in different locations across Southern Ontario. My observations are what are termed "anecdotal" by researcher, but lo-and-behold the scientific evidence is that there was an uptick of as much as 150 in populations in some regions. Many municipalities are leaving milkweed and even seeding it to provide this essential breeding and feeding crop. There is actually research into how milkweed can be a viable commercial crop, a win-win for humans and butterflies.

 

I rummaged around in Barbara Kingsolver's novel, Flight Behavior, which is about a discontented 28-year-old mom named Dellarobia who stumbles upon a woods full of roosting Monarchs in her rural Tennessee area, where they aren't supposed to be. This discovery changes her hard-scrabble community and enlivens her. When she first sees them it is what we often call a "theophany" in scripture, an unexplainable experience of the holy, the numinous. Dellarobia is quietly cynical about the conservative Christianity of her town, yet:

"Trees turn to fire, a burning bush. Moses came to mind, and Ezekiel, words that occupied a space in her brain but no longer carried honest weight, if they ever had. Burning coals of fire went up and down among the living creatures.

We had this sort of unexpected experience ourselves years ago, walking a trail along the shore of Lake Ontario near sunset. We were puzzled by the movement in tree branches, then realized it was thousand of Monarch butterflies, staging before the arduous flight across the huge expanse of water. It really was extraordinary.

Let's hope that the summer of 2018 wasn't an aberration in the disappearance of a species. Surely the Creator is waiting for us to do the right thing on behalf of these glorious creatures.


https://www.canadiangeographic.ca/article/tracking-milkweed-save-monarch-butterflies

https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/the-vanishing-flights-of-the-monarch-butterfly