mariposas

This semester I am teaching my students all kinds of things with a few simple excerpts from Sue Halpern's exquisite Four Wings and a Prayer: Caught in the Mystery of the Monarch Butterfly.

The book is so elegantly written yet so densely layered with information, I can teach almost any style of composition from its slender spine.

Personal narrative. Expository writing. Compare and contrast. Persuasive. Research and use of quotes. Dialogue. Process Analysis.

You name it, Halpern's got it.

Best of all, she has an absolutely fascinating set of stories to tell. First and foremost is the great migration of the Monarch butterfly itself, clouded by controversy between scientists trying to prove the migration occurs and those who claim other phenomena are responsible for patterns resembling migration.

Then there are the internecine battles within each camp, the fight to preserve frail egos and the unorthodox approaches to research that have called some findings into question.

Many of the great battles among scientists are played out in the online forums of Monarch Watch, a project of the University of Kansas and perhaps the most comprehensive resource for Monarch research and education

Halpern also covers the ecopolitics that play out in the butterflies' winter home in Mexico, as loggers and farmers battle the government for better ways to manage the butterfly preserve and sustain human life.

Among the resources Halpern draws from is Science and Human Values by Jacob Bronowski. That's next on my personal reading list.

Monarchs arrive in Mexico at about the same time each year, just in time for the annual Dia de los Muertos. Let's see: millions of orange-and-black creatures that just happen to "die" and be reborn show up as an entire nation begins to celebrate its strangest and most tragicomic festival, to both honor the dead and party like crazy.

Coincidence? I don't think so. This phenom alone is enough to convince me there's a lot going on that we don't understand.

I mean isn't it miracle enough that this

...can eventually become this?

categories: garden life miscellany thought time