Day 90

I made this GIF from a YouTube video using GIMP w/ GAP

I have noticed lately that the Western Tiger Swallowtail is lingering in and out of our yard. I did not notice this last year...and let me tell you that if you are Catholic, please don't take offense of my blaming part of my nature spiritual superstition on that. With things like the Shroud Of Jesus, St. Francis (I call him Frank), the Miracle of Our Lady Of Fatima (I remember it being a great old movie watching it as a kid, although I always felt a sorrow for nuns because they had no husbands), appearance of stigmata, The Exorcist, The Omen and grilled cheezus (lol).

I feel a certain hocus pocus when nature appears suddenly. And there is always folklore that goes with sudden animal appearances from many different cultures.

I also have a fraction of Chinese in my ancestry from my mom's side (yet I can not read tea leaves or bones)...lol. The practice of divining from bird calls, properly called auspicy in the English language, appears to originate in China so says this link to Crow Augury and put me at peace that there was more to what a crow or raven caw is all about (not just bad) and it depends on the direction it comes from and the time of the day...but the wiki concentrates on Roman Auspicy... 

"In ancient Roman religion, the auspices provided divine signs to be interpreted by an augur. An augur would perform a ceremony (known as "taking the auspices") and would read flight patterns of birds in the sky. Depending upon the birds, the auspices from the gods could be favorable or unfavorable (auspicious or inauspicious)". [from above wiki link]

I love gathering up tid bit trivia on stuff like this. It is like that small little section of "Do you believe?" in the funnies on Sunday type of interesting.

One of my first manipulations for the blog was "The Flapper" because I have a printout on my wall above my desk area for over a year now. I like the picture. And I see now how it is symbolic to dieting the transformation of a voracious eating caterpillar to a colorful winged beauty.

It is almost primitive how easy I am influenced by symbolism.

According to Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, by Lafcadio Hearn, a butterfly was seen in Japan as the personification of a person's soul; whether they be living, dying, or already dead. One Japanese superstition says that if a butterfly enters your guestroom and perches behind the bamboo screen, the person whom you most love is coming to see you. [source wiki]

Symbolism involving butterflies has it's own little section in the wikipedia under Butterfly. I get a good feeling when nature appears in front of me suddenly making me notice it...at least with the butterflies. :)

In 1995, I was walking up a dirt road to our relic cabin home at the time on a hill near the California Grapevine about 250 miles north of  LA and found an intact monarch with a tag on it and a toll free number to some UCLA study. I thought that was magical, but was sad that the butterfly was dead when I found it.