"Now We Can Breathe"

The title of one of the poetry anthologies in my room reads "Hier kan ons asem haal", which literally translates to "Here we can breathe". The English do not read nice, but I in some sense mistranslated it to "Now we can breathe". I find this translation somehow better. Now that we can breathe symbolizes that rare feeling of "at-homeness" or being in a place where you feel you can belong.

Before I go on the usual philosophical tangent, let me first showcase to you the photographs I took of this beautiful butterfly. I have no idea what butterfly it is, or what species it is, but I could not let the opportunity pass to photograph this beautiful insect that visited the garden. I first showcase you the beautiful insect before I muse a bit about it and being "at home" or the fact that we can now breathe.

A series of Butterflies

Now That We Can Breathe and Musings on Being "At Home"

The garden is calm and I feel a weird at-homeness between everything. Yet, I know that this is not my home. I will not survive a week alone in the cold wilderness of nature. We naturalized living comfortably; we do not struggle to get food, we do not struggle to find shelter. Yet, this calming feeling does not reside, it stays with me as I stay within this cold harsh world.

The butterfly's wings are so delicate, yet they can cause tornados on the other side of the world. Jokes aside, the delicate wings of the butterfly open it to be attacked. Its most valuable asset is also its most vulnerable one. Without them, he cannot fly, without them, she will die.

Yet, she is at home in this wilderness with this vulnerability; she carries it with her, she does not hide away in the corner. She uses her agility to maneuver through life to find food, to find a mate, and to reproduce. Yet, she does not ponder these things, as she does not have the luxury. It is merely a vulnerability to us because we can ponder these things, we can think about them. We actually make them a vulnerability because we think about them.

For us, the statement Now that we can breathe makes sense, we can feel the gravity of the statement. We know of the feeling when we stand in front of something bigger than ourselves (think of a waterfall) or when a burden is lifted from our shoulders or if we stand in front of the ocean. We take that literal deep breath and think of the metaphorical statement of at-homeness or at peace.

Yet, the butterfly keeps on flying, thinking the same thing although never like us. We think differently, we think, they live or do. We ponder, their lives are activity driven. The actually live what we think. Yet, we will never be at home in the purely animalistic "living in the moment". We are slaves to our own demise, our own downfall, our own overthinking, and not enough doing.

Postscriptum, or A Small Piece in a large Cog

Such a small insect, yet, without it the machine will surely collapse. Nature equals a machine, but is this idea not already misguided? Nature is not a machine; that metaphor was created so that we could dominate nature. Surely, things are a little more complicated than that.

All of the photographs were taken with my Nikon D300 and 300mm zoom lens. The musings are also my own. I hope you are well. Happy photographing and stay safe!