The Butterfly Effect

The last few days I have noticed something new in my backyard garden. I kept seeing these "dragonflies" whisping past me. I thought to myself, there are a lot of dragonflies back here. I had not seen them much since my days growing up on Lake Okoboji.

As I took a closer look and watched them fly about, these were no dragonflies! They are hummingbirds! Call me silly, but I had never seen a hummingbird before. I noticed, then, that my neighbors had hummingbird feeders...those red feeders stuck on the kitchen windows to attract them. I googled on the types of plants that hummingbirds liked and found that I had some wonderful plants for them to nourish themselves.

And the butterflies....wow, so many butterflies. This year I planted two new butterfly bushes. Let me tell you...if you plant it, they will come! Butterflies are amazing. I named my first Monarch "Petie". I swear Petie came back to see me every summer when I was a kid growing up on West 9th street. He knew just where to come. He would land on my finger and I knew it was him...not changed one bit from year to year.

Are you aware that in 1963 Edward Lorenz presented a hypothesis to the NY Academy of Science stating that a butterfly could flap its wings and set molecules of air in motion, which would move other molecules of air, in turn moving more molecules of air--eventually capable of starting a hurricaine on the other side of the planet? Lorenz and his ideas of the "butterfly effect" were laughed out of the conference.

Thirty years later, it was no suprise that professors came to the conclusion that the butterfly effect was authentic. Soon after, it became law.....The Law of Sensitive Dependence Upon Initial Conditions. And it encompases more than just butterflies...it includes people as well.

You and I make moves whose effects ripple through the lives of others everywhere...just like the butterfly that flaps its wings to move molecules. You can look back as far as the eyes can see and you will find that one thing can be traced back to another, and another, and another. And how far forward would we need to go in your life to show the difference you will make. Everything you do matters and many lives will be shaped because of something you and I do today. No one is created equal. All our abilities are in no one else. And you may not know it, but you and I have had an effect on someone else. We will never know when and how, but it happens.

My Monarch friend, Petie, changed my life. A couple flaps of his wings moved molecules of air, and those molecules moved more molecules of air, and so on. There was not a hurricaine, but those movements affected me. Petie will never know how much I love monarchs or nature or those silly "dragonflies" I see in my backyard. You just never know....