Multiple Personality Disorder

Believe it or not, this is the same butterfly with its wings closed and opened. It is the American Lady butterfly, though this one is male. It spent most of the past two days flitting around on this blooming oregano in my garden. The topside and underside are totally distinct, as if this butterfly couldn't decide who it wanted to be when it grew up. I understand this entirely. For twenty two years, as a nurse I squashed myself into white uniforms, then pantie hose and business suits. On my days off, like Superman in a phone booth, I tore away my suits revealing my true self. Wings closed, wings opened to ripped jeans, T shirts and muck boots. I too, frantically shed the professional garb as if it were life and death. It was, indeed. The live kernel of my creative, primary brain would have perished completely had it not been able to bust out. Come to think of it, this sounds more like The Incredible Hulk than a switch-er-oo butterfly or a more noble superhero. But then, I could be all of them; I no longer have to choose between my multiple personalities. I can just breathe - wings in, wings out.





To find out more about The American Lady, or Hunter's Butterfly, see the May 6, 2009 posting in the archive of this blog.

Random for Fun

I think I'll occasionally post some photographs just for fun, like this Belted Kingfisher. I took this in Phippsburg about a week ago. I think he's interesting on this pole with all the wires. Competition wildlife photography does not allow any 'hand of man' to be seen in a shot. Too bad. This is really cool!















These are Trout Lilies. They are a native wildflower. Phippsburg has millions of them. I rarely saw them in North Bath only 15 miles from here.

The American Lady butterfly, seen here on dandelions, was previously know as Hunter's Butterfly. It ranges from Nova Scotia to Mexico. This beautiful butterfly was originally given its name by the English aristocracy to honor an American of note in the early 1800s, John Dunn Hunter.

John Dunn Hunter, born c. 1798, claimed to have been kidnapped, then raised from infancy by Native Americans of the plains. He said he had been given the name "The Hunter" by the Native Americans for his skill at hunting. He said he never knew who his true parents were, so 'John Dunn' was the name he later chose for himself after that of a man who had been kind to him. With his proceeds from beaver trapping he funded his education and then wrote several books about his experiences with the Kickapoo, Kansas and Osage Indians. John Dunn Hunter eventually travelled to England where he became a darling of the nobility for his colorful background and interesting stories of life with the native Americans. He further ingratiated himself by gathering natural history artifacts, such as butterflies, from the United States to add to the collections of the English. It was eventually determined that his stories were fabricated when a Frenchman who was studying the idioms of the Native Americans discovered that John Dunn Hunter spoke none of the languages of those peoples with whom he had claimed to have spent his life! 'Outted' as one of the greatest conmen of his time, neither his former reputation, nor the name of the fabulous butterfly stuck. Each would morph several times, as is the nature of the butterfly,and the creative nature of man.