NEW BEGINNINGS
A FLIGHT IN THE SUN

That first bright step into the sunshine of life
begins with the opening of the family cocoon.
The caterpillar becomes a butterfly
spreading her wings into the world.

What she is today is but a tiny mirror.
of the transformation that is yet to come.
For with time, love, humor and warmth
She is an ever changing masterpiece.

Whether as wife, mother, career woman or all,
she will find her center of peace.
A place that is hers and hers alone,
the essence of what she is and will be.

Using the instincts that each of us have
to find the good in each other.
to be a caring friend, lover, helper and playmate,
to listen and share, to laugh and to cry.

With loving support of family and friends,
she takes flight down an unknown road towards her future,
like the rising of the sun in the east.
Each day filled with new beginnings.

Finding excitement and challenge at each new turn.
Her flight through life filled with many happy adventures
and memories to put in her book of life,
as the sun moves along that steady path across the sky.

When the sun at last begins to set in the west
and her flight nears its end, she can look back along her path
and know that she has been everything she can be
and has done her very best.

Poem by Linda Dietz

A Collection of Butterfly Poems
provided by the International Butterfly Breeders Association

A selection of butterfly quotations
researched by Jacqui Knight

I only ask to be free.  The butterflies are free. 
~Charles Dickens

May the wings of the butterfly kiss the sun
And find your shoulder to light on,
To bring you luck, happiness and riches
Today, tomorrow and beyond.
~Irish Blessing

Butterflies are self propelled flowers.  ~R.H. Heinlein

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.
~Rabindranath Tagore

If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies.  ~Author Unknown

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a
butterfly.  ~Richard Bach

The butterfly is a flying flower,
The flower a tethered butterfly.
~Ponce Denis Écouchard Lebrun

Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your
grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
~Nathaniel Hawthorne

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a
butterfly.  ~Richard Buckminster Fuller

"Just living is not enough," said the butterfly, "one must have
sunshine, freedom and a little flower."  ~Hans Christian Anderson

But these are flowers that fly and all but sing:
And now from having ridden out desire
They lie closed over in the wind and cling
Where wheels have freshly sliced the April mire.
~Robert Frost, "Blue-Butterfly Day"

Love is like a butterfly:  It goes where it pleases and it pleases
wherever it goes.  ~Author Unknown

I've watched you now a full half-hour;
Self-poised upon that yellow flower
And, little Butterfly!  Indeed
I know not if you sleep or feed.
How motionless! - not frozen seas
More motionless! and then
What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees,
And calls you forth again!
~William Wordsworth, "To a Butterfly"

Flowers and butterflies drift in color, illuminating spring.  ~Author
Unknown

We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.
~Carl Sagan

This great purple butterfly,
In the prison of my hands,
Has a learning in his eye
Not a poor fool understands.
~William Butler Yeats, "Another Song of a Fool"

Know thyself!  A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly.  Whoever observes
himself arrests his own development.  A caterpillar who wanted to know
itself well would never become a butterfly.  ~Andre Gide

Bees sip honey from flowers and hum their thanks when they leave.
The gaudy butterfly is sure that the flowers owe thanks to him.
~Rabindranath Tagore, /Stray Birds/

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes
it has gone through to achieve that beauty.  ~Maya Angelou

The fluttering of a butterfly's wings can effect climate changes on the
other side of the planet.  ~Paul Erlich

A million butterflies rose up from South America,
All together, and flew in a gold storm toward Spain...
~Winfield Townley Scott, "Annual Legend"