Asagimadara - butterfly
Asagi Madara is a species of migratory butterfly. Asagi is the name of the pale blue that makes it wings look like panes of glass in a window, looking up into the sky. The frame of each pane starts at the top as a deep brown, almost black, but fades into a ruddy reddish color at the bottom of the wings. I imagine antique wood of an old dish cabinet, where the red varnish is fading. These butterflies are so beautiful.
Asagi Madara will flock together and migrate in groups. The flowers they feed on are limited to a certain species, so if you plant those in your garden, the butterflies will surely be there to attend. Imagine these two species evolving in tandem. The flower that they've evolved to drink nectar from is the one that specifically blooms during their migration, and native to all the pacific islands between their two homes. May these flowers always bloom in the correct season, despite global warming, and fuel these butterflies.
At the top of Mount Daiyu a patch of Hiyodori flowers are cultivated in order to attract the butterflies. The mountain overlooks Setouchi City with its long rice fields golden and ready for harvest, and new, small houses popping up around the center of town. The view is also great for historians, as you can see the plans where armies battled during the Warring States period, and also the ridges where old castles once rose and fell. In fact, as I arrived on the hilltop, there was a history tour going on and you could also choose to take a picture with a samurai or a butterfly lady.
This mountain attracts a lot of people. Hikers, photographers, historians, naturalists. . . It wasn't a crowd, but there certainly were a lot of people coming and going. The place where the butterflies were, though, was special. People stopped talking. They approached slowly, footsteps hardly making a sound. When someone stopped for a second or an hour to take a photo, people gave them space and privacy. In this space, butterflies are respected.
Researchers capture and tag some butterflies each year. If you happen to find one with a number on its wing, you can receive a reward. A local woman who hikes the mountain often said she found one once. She showed me the picture. I could tell from the shot that she has a nice camera. She also managed to catch a butterfly with her bare hands. I didn't want to cause it any further suffering, so I refrained from photographing it, but the man in samurai attire did some interesting poses with the butterfly. It reminded me of the ancient Japanese sentiment of our fleeting lives being both transient, and therefore beautiful. Through war, the samurai's life is no more sturdy than a butterfly.
The more I spoke with this lady, the more I realized how similar she is to me! A naturalist at heart! We're facebook buddies now, and unlike me she's not afraid to post weird bug pictures.
A couple emails ago I was answering questions from people. One question I haven't gotten around to answering yet is this: Do you still do art?
Yes. I make time for it.
People make time for the things they love. This is something that comes up in my business a lot. "I'm too busy" is valid, but it also means they didn't love something enough. If a student resigns from our program because they are busy studying for college entrance exams, then that is a valid reason to quit. But when I'm studying, I still fight to make time to play piano, or go hiking, because those things are what makes life worth living for me. It might really be a fight sometimes, but I do it. So even though someone has a valid reason to quit something, there is that element that they didn't love it enough. Video games and studying Japanese is something I no longer fight to make time for. But I make time to write to you, and I make time to bake cookies once in a while.
I found, fought for, some time to paint some Asagimadara. I gave one to the naturalist I met.
Jennifer