Single Sipper: Great Spangled Fritillary

There are things you can’t reach. But
You can reach out to them, and all day long.
The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of god.
And it can keep you busy as anything else, and happier.
I look; morning to night I am never done with looking.
Looking, I mean not just standing around, but standing around
As though with your arms open.
- Mary Oliver

Yesterday, I shared with you a scene of two butterflies sitting side by side at the soda fountain (aka, the butterfly bush - buddleia - in the sunniest corner of our front yard). Well, the soda fountain was open again on this day, with its tasty delights being sampled by at least two great spangled fritillaries, a spicebush swallowtail, and numerous hefty bumblebees. There was lots of up-close-and-personal butterfly proboscis action going on; it was thrilling to behold, especially for a proboscis-loving fiend such as myself!

I have been having an ongoing conversation with one of my blip friends about whether we see and observe things best and most fully when we are taking pictures of them, or whether our photography obsession can sometimes get in the way of living fully in the moment. Can we see out from behind our cameras?

One of my observations would be that my answer varies. In some situations, I probably would see and appreciate more of my surroundings if I weren't clicking away on the camera like a woman obsessed. But it is one of my personal and most definitive characteristics that I am never done with looking. And so . . . many times, looking so actively yields delights in the moment that I never would have noticed otherwise.

It is unarguable, however, that when I get my pictures home and download them onto the computer, I pore over them with a fine tooth comb. And I spot in my pictures later things I never would have noticed in the moment that I took them.

I admit that I can't really seem to discern which orange fritillary is which at the very moment when they are dancing about on the butterfly bush in the sun. However, when I look at the pictures later, I can tell the butterflies apart based on the scars and tatters they bear (for butterflies are hardy creatures, no doubt about that, and they teach us firsthand the lesson that it possible to be imperfect, yet still beautiful) and the patterns and markings of their wings.  

For instance, look closely at this butterfly. Did you note the big chomp out of the lower wing facing us? And have you ever noticed that some of the spots on a butterfly are in the shape of a heart? The forewing of this butterfly contains numerous tiny black hearts, as well as tiny hearts reversed in a light cream against the golden orange. How could I not have noticed?!!!

I look around me with open eyes; and I reach out to my world with open arms . . . and a full and overflowing heart. And so in honor of this butterfly, this lovely, heart-bedecked creature, the song to accompany this picture is Jackson Browne's In the Shape of a Heart.