The butterfly
was chosen as the totem for elemental Air not merely because it is a creature
that is constantly moving, always active, always shifting its position from
one place to another, but because of its great transforming powers. From an
unattractive crawling insect, slow and vulnerable, the butterfly turns into
a beautiful and delicate flying creature.
Butterfly Clan people are always active - either physically, mentally or emotionally - with fresh ideas and often unexpected ways of doing things. They are manipulative and like to transform things.
Butterfly Clan people are invigorated and stimulated by getting out in big open spaces and away from any kind of confinement.
Kenneth Meadows
Insects are opportunists.
When butterfly shows up, make note of the most important issues confronting you at the moment. This is probably why butterfly has shown up. What stage of change are you at in regard to the issues? To determine that, you may have to examine and determine what you wish the outcome to be, and how best to accomplish it.
The butterfly is a symbol of change, joy, and color.
Butterflies appear to dance as they light upon flowers They remind us not to take things quite so seriously within our lives. They awaken a sense of lightness and joy. They remind us that life is a dance [that] brings the sweetness of life back.
Butterfly medicine reminds us to make changes whent he opportunities present themselves. Transformation is inevitable, but butterfly teaches that growth and change do not have to be traumatic. They can occur gently and sweetly and joyously.
Ted Andrews
The power that Butterfly brings us is akin to the air. It is the mind, and the ability to know the mind or to change it. It is the art of transformation.
Jamie Sams
Among the ancients, an emblem of the soul and of unconscious attraction towards the light. The purification of the soul by fire, represented in Romanesque art by the burning ember placed by the angel in the prophet’s mouth, is visually portrayed by means of love holding a butterfly close to a flame. The angel of Death was represented by the Gnostics as a winged foot crushing a butterfly, from which we may deduce that the butterfly was equated with life rather than with the soul in the sense of the spirit or transcendent being. Butterfly is symbol of rebirth.
Cirlot
By thinking we are able to recognize the meaning or purpose of the object we observe, that is, we form a concept of it.
E.A. Bennett
Just as butterflies taste flowers through taste receptors in their legs, we can taste the power of life through dance - we connect to the earth and its energy in this way, while reveling in the music of life around us.
The butterfly transforms through the element of air. The thinking function is needed here. Thus, when we are faced with difficult decisions, butterfly clan people use thought processes to make their decisions, while frogs use feeling, hawks use intuition, and turtles use sensation.
Each month we will bring you a new totem animal. I hope that learning to listen to the voice of totem animals can bring great joy into your life, as it has mine.
Sources
Andrews, Ted, Animal Speak. St. Paul, Llewellyn 1995.
Clement, Stephanie and Terry Rosen, Dreams: Working Interactive. St. Paul, Llewellyn, 2000.
Meadows, Kenneth, Earth Medicine,. Rockport, Element, 1991.
Sams, Jamie and David Carson, Medicine Cards. Santa Fe, Bear & Company, 1988.
