Bright-winged, light, carefree - butterflies have fascinated people since ancient times. And the diverse, almost mystical qualities of this amazing creature of nature are reflected in many beliefs and myths.
In almost all world cultures, you can find images of a butterfly-soul. Lightness, weightlessness, the ability to soar, defenselessness, fragility - these properties of the butterfly were directly associated with the properties of the human soul, freed from the body shell. Such ideas were characteristic of both primitive African traditions and highly developed ancient cultures; they were reflected in the folk beliefs of the ancient Slavs and Indians of Mesoamerica, the literary monuments of medieval China and Japan, and in the painting of the early Christian period. In a word, the soul butterfly is a universal archetypal symbol found wherever these mysterious creatures are found.
The ancient Slavs believed that the soul, leaving the body, turns into a butterfly. Therefore, for forty days after the death of a relative, people tried, even inadvertently, not to harm the butterflies. In the Polish language, for example, a proverb has survived to this day, which in translation means approximately the following: "Don't touch the moth, it does not harm you, and it may turn out to be your grandfather." In some regions of Russia, butterflies are still called "darlings": "Look, someone's darling flew over there!"
The idea of the butterfly as the embodiment of the human soul is most clearly expressed in the ancient Greek myth of Psyche. She is depicted as a young woman with butterfly wings. According to the plot, Zeus frees Psyche from death, delighted with the power of her love for Cupid. So Psyche becomes a symbol of immortality, resurrection, rebirth to a new life. The very name of the heroine - Psyche - translated from Greek means "soul". And the most popular symbolic representation of this plot in art were frescoes depicting a butterfly that flies out into the light from a funeral pyre.
WINGED DEMONS
Our ancestors treated moths and moths quite differently. These are not the souls of the dead, they are dark sorceresses, harbingers of imminent death. They were not touched for fear of the lower, dark world. The “dead head” butterfly evoked a special thrill, which convincingly proves its otherworldly origin by its appearance alone. The dialectal names of this insect, common in the territories of residence of the Western Slavs, are associated with the "dark" hypostasis of the butterfly: diabel, čertica, ježibaba, mora, mara. Some Slavic peoples in fairy tales and myths have "veshtitsa" - a lower female demon who knows how to separate her soul from her body in a dream. The soul of a pendant in the form of a butterfly creates various disgraces at night: it steals fire, milk from people, sucks blood and can even strangle. To punish the witch, they lit a fire at night and waited,while white moths flock to him. If one of the moths is burned, dies in an open flame, then the witch has suffered.
COCOON OF WORLD
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The most important feature of the butterfly, which determines most of the sacred ideas about it, is the ability to transform. Among the ancient Slavs, butterfly metamorphoses were associated with the transformation of the human soul from birth to death and further, and more broadly - with the general principle of the development of the universe.
The life cycle of a butterfly begins with an egg. The egg is a universal symbol of creation, the beginning of beginnings. A larva emerges from the egg into white light. Symbolically, this process can be correlated with the birth of human consciousness, the soul - still young, sleeping, undeveloped. The larva develops into a caterpillar - the embodiment of everything worldly, mortal, base. The caterpillar leads a rather primitive lifestyle: it is engaged in an endless search for food, eats, sleeps, and grows. But soon the most important stage for the future butterfly comes - pupation. The caterpillar leaves the physical world and its vanity. There is no light and sound inside the cocoon, no breath and no thoughts. There is only darkness and a seemingly endless expectation. This stage is symbolically associated with the death of the bodily shell of the soul, experiences of the end of existence, the end of the world and the expectation of a transition to a new hypostasis.
And then, finally, the main thing happens: the walls of the cocoon break through - and a transformed being comes into the world, in which there is nothing of the former, worldly, bodily. A beautiful, almost ethereal butterfly is a liberated, pure, resurrected soul shining in its primordial beauty.
Feels familiar, doesn't it? The Christian paradigm of the immortality of the soul is easily found in living nature! It is not surprising that the image of a butterfly, from whose life one of the central concepts of the greatest religion in the world was written off, is vividly reflected in the material Christian culture, especially of the early period. The butterfly can also be seen on icons depicting the Virgin and Child (usually in the hands of the little Christ), on Christian tombstones from the Romanesque period, along with skulls and other symbols of death.
DREAM, LOVE AND SUN
In the Ancient East, butterflies were considered a symbol of bodily love. In China, the butterfly acted as a kind of Cupid - a deity responsible for marital happiness. In Japanese art, geisha, young priestesses of love, were allegorically depicted in the form of butterflies. The famous Taoist thinker Chuang Tzu tells a parable about how a young man, chasing an exceptionally beautiful moth, accidentally ended up in the domain of a former imperial official. There he met a beautiful woman, who turned out to be the daughter of a wealthy official, and fell in love with her at first sight. He understood that he could not marry her due to her modest background and low income. And then the young man in love decided to change his life, work hard and earn the right to woo this girl. And he succeeded: he reached a high rank, constantly thinking about his beloved,went to her father and asked for her hand. The official said yes. So, writes Chuang Tzu, a passing fascination (in this case, the beauty of a butterfly's flight) leads to profound changes in life. The butterfly, at the beginning of the parable, symbolizing the frivolity of the hero, is transformed into a symbol of fate, happy predetermination.
A peculiar reading of the image of a butterfly can be found in the ancient cultures of Mesoamerica. For example, the Aztecs revered this creature, considering it a messenger of the Sun and a symbol of life-giving fire (probably, the flutter of the butterfly's wings reminded them of the swaying movement of flame). Scientists attribute the image of a butterfly with chopped off wings to the image of the goddess Itzpapalotl, who collects the souls of women who died in childbirth on the heavenly stars.
In ancient Celtic myths, butterflies were also not without. The Irish story of matchmaking to Etain is indicative in this sense. Etain, who has a divine nature, marries the god Midir. But the first wife of Midir cannot survive the appearance of a rival. She uses black magic and turns Etain into a puddle of water. Midir is inconsolable. Soon, a disgusting worm arises in this puddle, which Midir wants to kill. But suddenly the worm turns into a beautiful purple butterfly, which was “the most beautiful in the world, with a voice and buzzing sweeter than the songs of bagpipes, horns and harps, with eyes shining like precious stones in the darkness. Her aroma quenched the hunger and thirst of the one around whom she fluttered, and the dew drops from her wings could heal any suffering, disease or plague in any person. In this story, as in the myths of various peoples,the motive of the miraculous resurrection and transformation that occurs after suffering and physical death is traced again. And this is hardly a coincidence.
Marina SHUMAKOVA