The butterfly’s loping flight
carries it through the country of the leaves,
delicately, and well enough to get it
where it wants to go, wherever that is …

Mary Oliver
From
One or Two Things

Reading poetry about butterflies in the same morning as more about neurosculpting has somewhat merged the two in my mind. I imagine neural pathways lighting up in my brain with much the same sort of iridescence we see in a butterfly’s wings. That we do imagine such things is miraculous. That a butterfly emerges from the tight discomforts of the chrysalis towards ‘loping flight … delicately’ is more than miraculous: it is a mystery beyond all adequate explaining. Anil Seth tells me that the colours I see are perceptions created by my own brain; that not every living thing is able to ‘see’ a rainbow as I can. I wonder what a butterfly might experience of itself? How much could a butterfly possibly appreciate about its own beauty? How much do we, about our own?