Insight, Meditations and Reflections

Observing the life cycle of butterflies is a popular summer project in libraries. The Mountlake Terrace Library in Washington State, USA, set up a small butterfly observatory this summer. It is exciting to see kids and adults young at heart stop by to look at the transformation of the eggs to butterflies. After about two or three weeks, the children's librarian released the monarch butterflies from the cage.

As we go through various forms of transformation a crucial point to note is the rate of the change that is taking place. In the case of the monarch butterflies, it is easy to link the eggs and the pupa and the butterfly because the changes are relatively fast from our human perspective.

Just as the butterfly life cycle lasts a few weeks, the average life cycle of a tortoise is over 150 years. In other words, since we humans live between 70 and 80 years on average, it means that an individual without building on the knowledge of others will be unable to have a full grasp of this creature's life.

The movement of satellites and planets is another example. The 28/29 day moon cycle is visible to all of us. The yearly solar cycle is 365/366 days. In these two instances, the rate of change is large enough for us to notice. But there are other rates of change that are too big for us to perceive within our short life spans. 

To prove a point: Please answer the question: What is your birth astrological sign? Whether you believe in astrology or not you are very likely going to give me your sun sign. But the western astrological sun sign you think is your sign is likely wrong from an astronomical point of view. Ancient astrologers used the time the sun entered a specific constellation as the beginning of a sun sign. They used the date the sun left that sign as the end of the sign.

As a result of the rate of change or phenomenon called the precession of the equinoxes the sun does not enter these constellations at the same time every year. Gradually, what used to be the date the sun entered Aries, became the time the sun is entering Pisces. Today Western Astrologers kept the 2000 year old positions of the signs of the zodiac: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, etc.. Astronomers are using the current positions of the signs.

OK. I know this can sound a bit confusing without getting into too much detail. The point I am making is there are different rates of change. The rate at which things change or the duration of cycles is different but extremely important in understanding our world. If we fail to pay attention to these rates of change as well as cycles, we will not understand what is going on around us. We are likely going to misread events be unable to take charge of our destinies. Moments of great change are likely to take us by surprise. We may waste time resisting inevitable change.