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  1. thenewatlantis.comCaitrin Keiper127 min
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    thenewatlantis.com
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    • Jessica2 years ago

      This article has been on my starred list for nearly 2 years. I'm so glad I finally read this piece. Learning about the complexity of other animals is so fascinating, humbling, and invokes a sense of peace.

    • deephdave
      Top reader of all timeScoutScribe
      3 years ago

      “Butterflies don’t live a season,” answers God. “They live a life.” The elephant protests. “They’re gone when it’s their time,” replies the cloud. “To a butterfly the season is their life, they expect nothing more and fulfill their existence. To the trees, your life is brief…. Seconds or hours, long shadows or short, it’s all the same kind of time. The butterfly feels he has as long a life as you.” Then pondering how such limits could be more gift than theft, “God spoke to the elephant, and called him by his name, and filled his heart full of his beloved butterflies, and they soared through his blood, wingtip to wingtip, until he understood the power of their life.”

    • jeff4 years ago

      An epic, beautifully written piece. One of my favorite quotes:

      No revelation, no tradition. Just attention to the way the world goes by and simple wonder at it, with all of the same questions that force themselves on us raw and fresh and perpetually unsolved in moments of crisis or clarity. An elephant may only have dim intimations of them, but after all, so do we; envisioning a more limited but still searching perspective can renew our appreciation that we too see through a glass darkly.

      I don’t feel like it should be controversial or contradictory to acknowledge and appreciate both the ever-advancing scientific understanding of the mechanical and chemical hardware of the mind as well as the near complete mystery of the software that runs on it.

      Speaking of software, if anyone has trouble loading this article on iOS please make sure you’re updated to the latest version (4.2) to fix an issue with the text encoding!