The above collection of butterflies in our garden of the recent weeks brings an awareness about the breeding time of Butterflies in Kerala, when the monsoon season is spread over from June to October. I remember seeing more than these species above in the garden, who could not be photographed.
I looked around in the green flowering hedge bushes where they normally breed for pupa and cocoon. I could not spot them. Normally these bushes would have been eaten away by the scores of pupa during this season.
So I wondered if the above butterflies are migrating visitors to the garden, as this season is a time for such migration in this region!
The resting phase the butterflies practice is for thermoregulation in the warmth of the sun as they are cold blooded. They sit on leaves in sunlight to make their wing muscles warm enough to fly. They use sensors in their feet to taste the leaves to decide if the eggs they lay would survive to become pupa. The rest and quiescence they receive by staying still on the leaves help them to conserve energy for flight movements.
The butterflies feed on nectar often found in flowers. During this process they pollinate the flowers as well.
They receive and give !
They receive to give!
The message that the garden announces is its habit of giving!
I happened to watch how the police was physically hurtful while restraining protestors in Delhi yesterday. The protesters were dragged, pushed and held forcefully denying all that is honourable to human dignity! The government that engages the police to do this consists of people who fail to feel! I was so disturbed that I needed comfort and consolation.
The pictures of the butterflies and the way the garden offered hospitality to them, brought hope! The rude act of the police is an aberration. The normal and honourable way is to live interdependently and hospitality!
All protests represent an urge for change and an aspiration for better days! One can contest a protest by dialogue and exchange of thoughts! Resorting to oppressive practices speak poorly of the attitude of those in government who are chosen democratically to offer welfare to all to co-exist and co-serve.
Butterflies thrive in a hospitable garden. People grow up to be benevolent and altruistic in a society when people chosen to govern them show the way of hospitality and accommodate dissent and protest!
A nation is a cradle for human wellness !
The thriving butterflies announce that they are what they are because of a garden!
The people of a nation thrive and flourish when they are offered hospitality, even in provocative situations!
M.C.Mathew (text and photo)
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