Beautiful, Brendan, Thank You! Just the right vision for northern hemisphere caterpillars to pull us through...! ~ Ilse
----- Original Message ----- From: Brendan McKeague To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 2:04 AM Subject: Butterfly Dreamtime Story G'day folks - I came across this marvellous story recently and would like to share it with you - such wonderful imagery and symbolism from indigenous mythology (dreamtime) for the role of butterflies in Open Space - I couldn't resist passing it on....enjoy. Brendan in warm and sun-filled Australia Birth of the Butterflies An Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime Story When the world was young, the birds and animals had a common language and there was no death. No creature had any experience of its mystery, until one day a young cockatoo fell from a tree and broke its neck. The birds and animals could not wake it, and a meeting of the wise ones decided that the spirits had taken back the bird to change it into another form. Everyone thought this was a reasonable explanation, but to prove the theory the leaders called for volunteers who would imitate the dead cockatoo by going up into the sky for a whole winter. During this time, they would not be allowed to see, hear, smell or taste anything. In the spring they were to return to earth to relate their experiences to the others. The caterpillars offered to try this experiment, and went up in the sky into a huge cloud. On the first warm day of spring a pair of excited dragonflies told the gathering that the caterpillars were returning with new bodies. Soon the dragonflies led back into the camp a great pageant of white, yellow, red, blue, green creatures - the first butterflies, and proof that the spirits had changed the caterpillars' bodies into another form. They clustered in large groups on the trees and bushes, and everything looked so gay and colourful that the wise ones decided this was a good and happy thing that had happened, and decreed that it must always be so. Since then caterpillars always spend winter hidden in cocoons, preparing for their dramatic change into one of spring's most beautiful symbols. * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected]: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected]: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
