On Butterflies and Thoughts That Abound.

Today was mild and sunny in the Shire, and this afternoon I saw a single bee and a single butterfly in the garden. The butterfly was one of these:

 

 

It’s a Speckled Wood, and is seen here feasting on the pollen of the celandine flower which is probably the most ubiquitous of the wild plants in these parts. It appears very early in spring and becomes more abundant as the season progresses, before disappearing in early summer. Today’s late flyer was searching the garden for something to feed on, and finding only the remnants of greenery still waiting to turn brown.

I did a bit of research on butterflies and discovered that most of them only live for 2-4 weeks. And so I wondered where butterflies go when they die, as I often wonder where I shall go when I die. Will there be butterflies, I thought. Who knows? I imagine various scenarios of what I would like to wake up to when the dream is over. This is one of them:

To rest on a beach where the sands of time are forever still – on a beach where warm winds blow from the south and sea birds do not cry, but sing – on a beach where human contact is rare and only of the finest vintage – on a beach where peace predominates and suffering is over the hill and far away.

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Tonight I watched the second half of Cherry Blossoms. I watched the first fifty minutes last night, just up to the point where the action shifts from Germany to Japan. Tonight I met, and was captivated by, the lady Yu for the third time. I had my usual emotional moment when Rudi dances with his dead wife while Mount Fuji towers benevolently in the background. And then it ended.

I switched to the blog and checked the stats for visitors. There had been only one, at around the same time as I’d started watching the film. It was from Japan. Visits from Japan are rare, and how many times have I heard people say that there is no such thing as coincidence?