Butterflies of the Mountains

 [From November 3,  2008]

With the turning of the seasons, I suppose we've seen the last of the butterflies until next spring. From what I observed this year, and from what others mentioned to me, butterflies were unusually abundant. Here are a few of my favorite shots from the past couple of years.

The butterfly is a flying flower,

The flower a tethered butterfly.

~Ponce Denis Écouchard Lebrun

Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

~Nathaniel Hawthorne

I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.

~Chuang Tzu

This great purple butterfly,

In the prison of my hands,

Has a learning in his eye

Not a poor fool understands.

~William Butler Yeats, "Another Song of a Fool"

We must remain as close to the flowers, the grass, and the butterflies as the child is who is not yet so much taller than they are. We adults, on the other hand, have outgrown them and have to lower ourselves to stoop down to them. It seems to me that the grass hates us when we confess our love for it. Whoever would partake of all good things must understand how to be small at times.

~Friedrich Nietzsche

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.

~Rabindranath Tagore