Everybody knows a butterfly ...

... by name, by sight, may be even by nature. If you are lucky, you might see a single butterfly like a biological falling star visiting your city yard. So quick is the encounter, so fast the wings' beat, that a close observation is impossible. You have seen butterflies categorized by species in books, frozen in motion in photographs or even presented petrified in a collection of a biologist or museum. Have you ever been in a butterfly conservatory? That is total different experience!

You think it might be like your garden, only more... try New York, Manhattan in snow and you in your indoor winter clothes - entering the butterfly conservatory of the American Museum for Natural History - preferably early before the school-class arrival. Through the transfer doors - a kind of air-lock - keeping drafts out, butterflies in and the temperature stable, you step into tropic heat and humidity, amidst plush plants and blossoms - and innumerous wings all around you. Flying, trembling, sitting, feeding, amazing. So many, so different, and some of them so big! The magic silences you.
You have to move slowly - but when you stand still the unthinkable might happen: a butterfly mistakes you for a plant and lands on you, sits and has no other immediate travel plans. Your part is to get your priorities right - instead of going ahead, now you behave like a plant, be silent, be nearly motionless, and be a host for the little guest who honored you with his trust to feel safe with you, if only for a moment.

I stayed long in the glass walled mystic island inside the museum where butterflies are kings and humans spellbound visitors. I sat down and looked and drew. The sitting butterflies kindly remained in their positions so I could observe their different perspectives - the flying ones repeated their artistic loops often enough for me so I got a better grasp of the sequence. I was amazed to discover, how different the colors and patterns can be between the outside and the insides of the wings. Camouflage to exchange the "sitting duck" image for invisible presence and sparkling bright display during the flight called proudly for attention. I drew the lines on paper, drank the colors with my eyes, and captured the mood in my heart.

And after hours I left.