Vanessa Atalanta: Red Admiral Butterfly
Master Prover: Patricia Maher
Red Admiral: Military Man Among the Ladies

Natural History: On May 21, 2010 I captured a Red Admiral butterfly feeding on blackberry bushes in Akron, Ohio. They are very abundant butterflies in the continental United States, one of four members of the Vanessa genus in the Nymphalinae subfamily. The Vanessa genus includes butterflies known as Ladies (Painted Lady, American Lady, Western Lady) and the Red Admiral. (The Red Admiral is not to be confused with other butterflies called Admirals that are not in this subfamily.) This subfamily is widely distributed across the globe, as is the Red Admiral species itself.
The Red Admiral and its subfamily belong to the Family Nymphalidae, Brush—footed Butterflies. It has distinct coloration, and a wingspan of 1 ¾--‐3 inches. It has black wings with white spots, and red bands on the forewing and hindwing.
The life history is as follows (from the Butterflies and Moths of North America website):
Life history: The Red Admiral has a very erratic, rapid flight. Males perch,on ridgetops if available, in the afternoon to wait for females, who lay eggs singly on the tops of host plant leaves. Young caterpillars eat and live within a shelter of folded leaves; older caterpillars make a nest of leaves tied together with silk. Adults hibernate.
Flight: Two broods from March-October in the north, winters from October-March in South Texas.
Caterpillar hosts: Plants of the nettle family (Urticaceae) including stinging nettle (Urtica dioica), tall wild nettle (U. gracilis), wood nettle (Laportea canadensis), false nettle (Boehmeria cylindrica), pellitory (Parietoria pennsylvanica), mamaki (Pipturus albidus), and possibly hops (Humulus).
Adult food: Red Admirals prefer sap flows on trees, fermenting fruit, and bird droppings; visiting flowers only when these are not available. Then they will nectar at common milkweed, red clover, aster, and alfalfa, among others. Other sources report that Red Admirals feed on nectar prim.
Habitat: Moist woods, yards, parks, marshes, seeps, moist fields. During migrations, the Red Admiral is found in almost any habitat from tundra to subtropics.
Range: Guatemala north through Mexico and the United States to northern Canada; Hawaii, some Caribbean Islands, New Zealand, Europe, Northern Africa, Asia. Cannot survive coldest winters; most of North America must be recolonized each spring by southern migrants. “
Origin of the name: Vanessa, the name of the genus, most probably refers to the girl’s name; some think it relates to Phanes of Greek myth, the mystic primeval deity of procreation and the generation of new life. (The subgenus of the other 3 species in this subfamily are named Cynthia.)
The name of the Red Admiral itself seems to be an anomaly in this genus of Ladies. Some believe the name originated in England as “Red Admirable” and then was corrupted to “Red Admiral.”
The Trituration:
The trituration was carried out by three homeopaths in Buffalo, New York, on May 22, 2010. We had not planned to do this; it just so happened that we were getting together and I arrived with two different insect specimens ground into milk sugar the day before. All three of us ground and scraped the substance with milk sugar to a C4 level.
The participants were three white females, two 55 years of age and one 39. One knew what the substance was and two knew it was an insect. (At the time I thought the specimen was a different butterfly in the same subfamily.) Of course, the small size and homogeneity of our group of provers, as well as my familiarity with the substance means that our process was far from perfect. Nonetheless, clear themes emerged that will make this a useful remedy.
The Proving:
Butterfly Kisses/Daddy’s Little Girl
Faith Hill:
Daddy take me with you
I promise I'll be good
Daddy, this is next time
And momma said I could
Sittin' in the front seat ridin' down town
An icecream cone I'd rap him around
My little finger
Tighter then my baby could
You can make a tear go a long long way
When you're daddy's little girl
Well he tightened my bike chain from 7 to 13
Taught me to drive when I was a wild thing
Reached and he prayed while I made some mistakes
That I wouldn't have made if I'd have done it his way
Now he hugs me when he sees me
We talk about the past
He tries to give me money
And I try and give it back
He's a book of advice
More then I need
The look in his eyes is saying to me
Let me help you all I can
While I'm still in this world
What will you do when you're daddy's gone
And you're daddy's little girl
Jeff Carson:
There's two things I know for sure
She was sent here from heaven
And she's daddy's little girl
As I drop to my knees by her bed at night
She talks to Jesus
And I close my eyes
And I thank God for all of the joy in my life
Oh, but most of all
For butterfly kisses
With her momma there
Stickin' little white flowers
All up in her hair
Walk me down the isle daddy
It's just about time
Does my wedding gown look pretty daddy?
Daddy don't cry
With all that I've done wrong
I must have done something right
To deserve her love every morning
And butterfly kisses for life
Faith Hill:
What'll I do when my daddy's gone
Performed by Faith Hill and Jeff Carson
The morning of the trituration, our host suggested we go for a walk despite the rainy weather. As if on a mission, she took us to a military warship docked at a pier on Lake Erie which is now a tourist site. The part of the riverwalk that adjoins the battleship is lined with veteran’s memorials from the Revolutionary War, Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War. This was our walk. It struck us (the other two) as very odd that this is where she would choose to take us on a walk, in light of our shared views about war and the military.
On the way back to her house, she told a poignant story of her father who had served in the Marines in World War II. She became uncharacteristically weepy. She described taking her father to the World War II memorial in Washington DC before his death. There her father had revealed that he had been a gunner in the war. She had never known. Telling us this, she began to sob about how he must have suffered, carrying the pain of having killed people. I began to talk about my father having been in the Navy in World War II, and how what he did was also a secret. He had never told my family what he actually did in the war. I also became uncharacteristically misty—eyed about it.
Themes:
Fathers going off to War; Child’s Grief at Father’s Death:
During the C1
• Sad, could weep, Tears
• Alone, small, parents
• Father & daughter; Nostalgic feelings of father; WW II Father’s story
• Anxiety as if something has happened - sadness
• Loss, it feels like it is my fault, something you could have done
• Loss isn’t my fault but something isn’t finished, something I wish I had said
• Loss of father, death; not separation, death, definitely gone
• Feeling of anxiety, just told, just found out bad news, anxiety
• Comes with sadness
• Grief, this is so overwhelming, I feel it in my chest, crying, seeing wavy lines
• Sadness for the loss of my father’s father, what do I need to do in relation with my father to avoid this grief?
• Fear that something will happen to him before I can “repair” relationship/create relationship with him.
• Thinking about loss of his father who died in WWII
• Sadness, feel as if I could cry; a poignant sadness
• Waking dream, girl, secret garden, England, WWI, that time, also the sadness, she is playing alone
• Sadness as if something terrible happened, sadness, anxiety, a loss
• Is there something I could have said? If something I could have said? I did say
everything -- helpless, absolute grief
• Feel resolved about my (actual) father but this is a little girl’s [grief] & I have lost stability, as I grieve about this
• I have to hold this myself, soldier on thru the grief
During the C2
• Sadness for (father’s) loss of his own father [in war], himself, all due to the war.
• The fucking wars, the pain they cause, the damage they do and it does not go away. It leaves one alone with the pain with no way to let it go.
• Easy to avoid pain, do not want to go there, ignore it, maybe it will go away
• The soldiers, their suffering, their loss of who they were before , a loss of self, it
needs to have a purpose. Soldiers have to hold onto a greater purpose. Vietnam vets hold onto it not being pointless
• How painful to feel the pointlessness, how much it meant for dad to be recognized by his Semper Fi hat; soldiers recognize that
• Weeping
• Father always said “when I was 18 I was shooting;” his pain wasn’t acknowledged by his kids.
• The Hurt Locker (movie about Iraq war)
• Iraq war is so pointless
Sentimentality about the Father; identification with father’s suffering:
During the C1
• Strong presence of my father, very present but like a dream state, maybe because we were talking about our dads, not nostalgic about him usually.
• Feeling of my father as a young man, what was he like in the 1940’s? Remembering him from when I was very young: I am seeing him at a much younger age, not the age when he died
• I have never been able to figure out why my father never went to college… even with the GI Bill. What going on with him when he wanted nothing more than to go to college but he didn’t?
During the C2
• My father not living up to his dream, not following his dream. I always wondered about that.
• Really hard to be a man. Can you imagine the pressure and expectation to provide for a family, women don’t have to take it if they don’t want to.
• “Butterfly kisses”, wish I could have played it at my wedding
• Sadness for (father’s) loss of his own father [in war]
During the C3
• Faith Hill song “butterfly kisses”
• My own pain has taken a back burner, it’s less significant because I’ve found compassion for my father
During the C4
• Being at beach with father, riding waves with me on his back, nostalgic for father when I was little
• I was the youngest; my father allowed me to be who I wanted to be, dream big
• Angry for a while, he came off of pedestal
• Strong connection, honored to be at his death
• When went to Ireland for the first time I “got” who he was
Nostalgia for the past:
During the C1
Picture of people kissing in the 1940’s era, “the kiss”
During the C2
• Nostalgia, growing up in the 60’s, bell bottoms, Ziggy Stardust, clogs
• Russian period, melancholy
• Heavy Russian writers. Would dress like a Cossack, Russian blouses, pants up to here (knee). I had whole Russian thing going on. Melancholic
• Fashionable, first to have bell bottoms, clogs.
• Flower power- 60’s, butterflies - LSD, transformation
• Was first in high school to get clogs and wore them with bell bottoms. Also tie-dyed shirts I made myself.
Pain, suffering, pointless/purposeful:
During the C1
• Has to [resolve relationship] before it is too late, doesn’t matter what think of his suffering, suffering will be carried forward if she doesn’t do it
During the C2
• Russian period, melancholy
• The fucking wars, the pain they cause, the damage they do and it does not go away. It leaves one alone with the pain with no way to let it go.
• Easy to avoid pain, do not want to go there, ignore it, maybe it will go away
• Suffering with a purpose
• The substance [we’re triturating], glad we are doing this so its death wasn’t without a purpose
• The soldiers, their suffering, their loss of who they were before a loss of , it needs to have a purpose. Soldiers have to hold onto a greater purpose. Vets …hold onto it not being pointless
• How painful to feel the pointlessness, how much it meant for dad to be recognized by his Semper Fi hat; soldiers recognize that
• Father always said, “when I was 18 I was shooting;” his pain wasn’t acknowledged by his kids
• Can be free from the pain of never being acknowledged by my dad.
•Heavy Russian writers. Would dress like Cossack, Russian blouses, pants up to here (knee). I had whole Russian thing going on. Melancholic.
•The Hurt Locker ( movie)
During the C3
• Worked hard to help her father heal his pain so he would see hers
• My own pain has taken a back burner, it’s less significant because I’ve found compassion for my father
During the C4
• Suffer a lot when see others suffer
Butterflies:
During theC1
Arms feel like wings
During theC2
• Wants a butterfly bush
• Butterfly, black with orange rimmed wings, a lot of butterflies
• Butterfly kisses, wished I could have played it at my wedding ( if I didn’t)
• Flower power- 60’s, butterflies - LSD, transformation
During the C3
• Butterfly kisses, Faith Hill and Brett Carlisle song “Butterfly Kisses”
• I have to do something but it’s too late, I’ve never known what to do, just let it go like letting a butterfly fly off
• Have to hurry up before my father dies, like a butterfly, short life
Clothing:
During the C2
• How much it meant for dad to be recognized by his Semper Fi hat
• Would dress like Cossack -- Russian blouses, pants up to here (knee). I had whole Russian thing going on.
• Bell bottoms, Ziggy Stardust, clogs
• Fashionable, first to have bell bottoms, clogs.
• Was first in high school to get clogs and wore them with bell bottoms. Also tie-dyed shirts I made myself.
Dream about wedding dresses (see below).
Physicals:
During the C1
Head/Face/Nose/Eyes/Mouth
• Headache across forehead
• Pressure in head and behind eyes
• Pain in eyes, shooting pain thru one temple to the other, thru eyeballs; worse Left temple pressure
• Eyes really itchy
• Numbness tongue and roof of mouth
• Numbness lips
• Bitter taste in mouth
• Pressure & sharp pain in Left eye
• Seeing wavy lines
• Left ear ringing
• Nose runny
Stomach:
• Instant tingling upon touching substance, feeling of stone in stomach, of heaviness, very local but hungry at same time, a little right of center
Chest/respiration:
• Chest pressure
• Tingling from chest outward to shoulders, arms, finger tips
• Sighing, difficult to get a deep breath
• Yawning a lot
• Tightness in upper chest
During the C2
Head/Face/Nose/Eyes/Mouth:
• Stabbing pain in left eye and through temples, left to right but not all the way through
• Bitter taste on tip of tongue, sense of burned tongue, as if shiny
• Achy in right lower jaw (from root canal?)
• Nose running, itchy
• Nose burning and itchy, tongue is sore
• Lots of tingling, roof of mouth, tongue as if roof of mouth and tongue are burned
• Headache in same place as before, across forehead
• Upper jaw left side soreness as if clenching teeth up in the joint
• Itchy nose
Throat:
• Strange feeling in throat, prickly feeling, like she swallowed a horse chestnut, throat feels smaller and prickly
• Sore throat when swallowing
• Really sore throat
• Voice sounds constrained
Stomach:
• Hungry
Chest:
• Pressure in chest
Extremities:
• Achey thru shoulders
During the C3
Head:
• Headache in front of head
During the C4
Head:
• Pain in teeth and jaw
Extremities:
• Shooting pains in the left shin, foot and big toe (during the night?)
Dreams: (the night after the trituration)
Dream: #1
Husband woke up and went to the bathroom on the way there something looking like a rat ran across the floor and jumped up and bit him under the arm. He yelled and shook it off. When it landed on the ground it shook itself into a woman. He said, oh it’s you. She shook herself off again and white ash flew off her and started the house on fire.
Dream #2:
My son and I were in an open-air fun house. I lost my purse and went back to find it. I entered through a small door and it was the inner workings of the funhouse. I was riding on the gears, slide down a ramp and landed outside the funhouse. There was a guard saying what are you doing you cannot be in there. I told him I was looking for my purse and my son was still inside and I had to find him. He said no, you cannot go back in.
Dream #3:
A client of mine asked me to clean out a room where she was going to have her wedding reception. I said ok and found mannequins lined up in a row dressed in the evolution of her wedding dress. I look at my watch and it is time for the wedding. When I get there my client greets me with a glass of champagne. She is dressed in the final iteration of the dress. We hug and she tells me it is time for dinner. I take a seat and they are serving sushi.
Conclusion:
In homeopathy, butterfly remedies are associated with childhood and adolescence and with a reluctance or inability to fully take on the responsibilities and complexities of adulthood. The butterfly may be seen to be the “puer aeternus,” the eternal child, flittering and fluttering, on the edge of sexual and emotional maturity. There is also a romantic and magical quality to butterflies – at least to us—because of their vivid beauty and life story of transformation. Many of the butterfly remedies also have to do with protecting children.
These known qualities of butterfly remedies were borne out in this trituration, and most particularly, being an adolescent, romance and sentimentality, and the issue of loss of protection.
But this butterfly proving reflects a heavier, sadder, more grief-stricken aspect:
•Fathers fighting in war; fathers dying in war
•Children grieving their fathers who go off to war: “what will I do when my daddy’s gone?”
•Grief, loss, sadness, guilt, a sense of unfinished business with the father
•Identification with the father’s trauma
•Romanticizing the relationship with the father
•War and all its sufferings, pointlessness
•Nostalgia for the past
Because all three provers were women, it is hard to know how far to take the “daddy’s little girl” theme that emerged in the proving. The song “Butterfly Kisses” was a topic of much discussion while we triturated. In the song there are stanzas written for the father’s voice – which could be an aspect of this butterfly, a kind of mushy, un-boundaried and romantic attachment to the daughter. It was striking how deeply the provers took on their fathers’ pain from the war. We think this is very important, the identification with the father’s pain and the sentimentality around it. What a came up in the trituration was not just grief at the loss of the father but an emotional intertwining with him. This remedy could be very important for daughters who take on their father’s emotional states, live out their father’s dreams, etc. (The sentimentality expressed in the song “Butterfly Kisses” is the most extreme manifestation of this. In fact, women have posted responses to the song on various websites that express a kind of over-the-top, almost desperate attachment and grief).
Yet we suspect that this remedy would also address the needs and issues of young boys who have lost their fathers in war, and who then romanticize and become obsessed with their missing fathers or with the military.
The loss of parental protection is a significant part of this remedy, again in keeping with other butterfly remedies. One of the provers dreamed about being separated from her son through the action of an outside authority and the anguish that went with that. This also might be a great remedy for women soldiers who have to leave their children.
The abundance of this butterfly is not surprising, considering how many people suffer the effects of war.
The Red Admiral and its subfamily belong to the Family Nymphalidae, Brush—footed Butterflies. It has distinct coloration, and a wingspan of 1 ¾--‐3 inches. It has black wings with white spots, and red bands on the forewing and hindwing.
The life history is as follows (from the Butterflies and Moths of North America website):
Life history: The Red Admiral has a very erratic, rapid flight. Males perch,on ridgetops if available, in the afternoon to wait for females, who lay eggs singly on the tops of host plant leaves. Young caterpillars eat and live within a shelter of folded leaves; older caterpillars make a nest of leaves tied together with silk. Adults hibernate.
Flight: Two broods from March-October in the north, winters from October-March in South Texas.
Caterpillar hosts: Plants of the nettle family (Urticaceae) including stinging nettle (Urtica dioica), tall wild nettle (U. gracilis), wood nettle (Laportea canadensis), false nettle (Boehmeria cylindrica), pellitory (Parietoria pennsylvanica), mamaki (Pipturus albidus), and possibly hops (Humulus).
Adult food: Red Admirals prefer sap flows on trees, fermenting fruit, and bird droppings; visiting flowers only when these are not available. Then they will nectar at common milkweed, red clover, aster, and alfalfa, among others. Other sources report that Red Admirals feed on nectar prim.
Habitat: Moist woods, yards, parks, marshes, seeps, moist fields. During migrations, the Red Admiral is found in almost any habitat from tundra to subtropics.
Range: Guatemala north through Mexico and the United States to northern Canada; Hawaii, some Caribbean Islands, New Zealand, Europe, Northern Africa, Asia. Cannot survive coldest winters; most of North America must be recolonized each spring by southern migrants. “
Origin of the name: Vanessa, the name of the genus, most probably refers to the girl’s name; some think it relates to Phanes of Greek myth, the mystic primeval deity of procreation and the generation of new life. (The subgenus of the other 3 species in this subfamily are named Cynthia.)
The name of the Red Admiral itself seems to be an anomaly in this genus of Ladies. Some believe the name originated in England as “Red Admirable” and then was corrupted to “Red Admiral.”
The Trituration:
The trituration was carried out by three homeopaths in Buffalo, New York, on May 22, 2010. We had not planned to do this; it just so happened that we were getting together and I arrived with two different insect specimens ground into milk sugar the day before. All three of us ground and scraped the substance with milk sugar to a C4 level.
The participants were three white females, two 55 years of age and one 39. One knew what the substance was and two knew it was an insect. (At the time I thought the specimen was a different butterfly in the same subfamily.) Of course, the small size and homogeneity of our group of provers, as well as my familiarity with the substance means that our process was far from perfect. Nonetheless, clear themes emerged that will make this a useful remedy.
The Proving:
Butterfly Kisses/Daddy’s Little Girl
Faith Hill:
Daddy take me with you
I promise I'll be good
Daddy, this is next time
And momma said I could
Sittin' in the front seat ridin' down town
An icecream cone I'd rap him around
My little finger
Tighter then my baby could
You can make a tear go a long long way
When you're daddy's little girl
Well he tightened my bike chain from 7 to 13
Taught me to drive when I was a wild thing
Reached and he prayed while I made some mistakes
That I wouldn't have made if I'd have done it his way
Now he hugs me when he sees me
We talk about the past
He tries to give me money
And I try and give it back
He's a book of advice
More then I need
The look in his eyes is saying to me
Let me help you all I can
While I'm still in this world
What will you do when you're daddy's gone
And you're daddy's little girl
Jeff Carson:
There's two things I know for sure
She was sent here from heaven
And she's daddy's little girl
As I drop to my knees by her bed at night
She talks to Jesus
And I close my eyes
And I thank God for all of the joy in my life
Oh, but most of all
For butterfly kisses
With her momma there
Stickin' little white flowers
All up in her hair
Walk me down the isle daddy
It's just about time
Does my wedding gown look pretty daddy?
Daddy don't cry
With all that I've done wrong
I must have done something right
To deserve her love every morning
And butterfly kisses for life
Faith Hill:
What'll I do when my daddy's gone
Performed by Faith Hill and Jeff Carson
The morning of the trituration, our host suggested we go for a walk despite the rainy weather. As if on a mission, she took us to a military warship docked at a pier on Lake Erie which is now a tourist site. The part of the riverwalk that adjoins the battleship is lined with veteran’s memorials from the Revolutionary War, Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War. This was our walk. It struck us (the other two) as very odd that this is where she would choose to take us on a walk, in light of our shared views about war and the military.
On the way back to her house, she told a poignant story of her father who had served in the Marines in World War II. She became uncharacteristically weepy. She described taking her father to the World War II memorial in Washington DC before his death. There her father had revealed that he had been a gunner in the war. She had never known. Telling us this, she began to sob about how he must have suffered, carrying the pain of having killed people. I began to talk about my father having been in the Navy in World War II, and how what he did was also a secret. He had never told my family what he actually did in the war. I also became uncharacteristically misty—eyed about it.
Themes:
Fathers going off to War; Child’s Grief at Father’s Death:
During the C1
• Sad, could weep, Tears
• Alone, small, parents
• Father & daughter; Nostalgic feelings of father; WW II Father’s story
• Anxiety as if something has happened - sadness
• Loss, it feels like it is my fault, something you could have done
• Loss isn’t my fault but something isn’t finished, something I wish I had said
• Loss of father, death; not separation, death, definitely gone
• Feeling of anxiety, just told, just found out bad news, anxiety
• Comes with sadness
• Grief, this is so overwhelming, I feel it in my chest, crying, seeing wavy lines
• Sadness for the loss of my father’s father, what do I need to do in relation with my father to avoid this grief?
• Fear that something will happen to him before I can “repair” relationship/create relationship with him.
• Thinking about loss of his father who died in WWII
• Sadness, feel as if I could cry; a poignant sadness
• Waking dream, girl, secret garden, England, WWI, that time, also the sadness, she is playing alone
• Sadness as if something terrible happened, sadness, anxiety, a loss
• Is there something I could have said? If something I could have said? I did say
everything -- helpless, absolute grief
• Feel resolved about my (actual) father but this is a little girl’s [grief] & I have lost stability, as I grieve about this
• I have to hold this myself, soldier on thru the grief
During the C2
• Sadness for (father’s) loss of his own father [in war], himself, all due to the war.
• The fucking wars, the pain they cause, the damage they do and it does not go away. It leaves one alone with the pain with no way to let it go.
• Easy to avoid pain, do not want to go there, ignore it, maybe it will go away
• The soldiers, their suffering, their loss of who they were before , a loss of self, it
needs to have a purpose. Soldiers have to hold onto a greater purpose. Vietnam vets hold onto it not being pointless
• How painful to feel the pointlessness, how much it meant for dad to be recognized by his Semper Fi hat; soldiers recognize that
• Weeping
• Father always said “when I was 18 I was shooting;” his pain wasn’t acknowledged by his kids.
• The Hurt Locker (movie about Iraq war)
• Iraq war is so pointless
Sentimentality about the Father; identification with father’s suffering:
During the C1
• Strong presence of my father, very present but like a dream state, maybe because we were talking about our dads, not nostalgic about him usually.
• Feeling of my father as a young man, what was he like in the 1940’s? Remembering him from when I was very young: I am seeing him at a much younger age, not the age when he died
• I have never been able to figure out why my father never went to college… even with the GI Bill. What going on with him when he wanted nothing more than to go to college but he didn’t?
During the C2
• My father not living up to his dream, not following his dream. I always wondered about that.
• Really hard to be a man. Can you imagine the pressure and expectation to provide for a family, women don’t have to take it if they don’t want to.
• “Butterfly kisses”, wish I could have played it at my wedding
• Sadness for (father’s) loss of his own father [in war]
During the C3
• Faith Hill song “butterfly kisses”
• My own pain has taken a back burner, it’s less significant because I’ve found compassion for my father
During the C4
• Being at beach with father, riding waves with me on his back, nostalgic for father when I was little
• I was the youngest; my father allowed me to be who I wanted to be, dream big
• Angry for a while, he came off of pedestal
• Strong connection, honored to be at his death
• When went to Ireland for the first time I “got” who he was
Nostalgia for the past:
During the C1
Picture of people kissing in the 1940’s era, “the kiss”
During the C2
• Nostalgia, growing up in the 60’s, bell bottoms, Ziggy Stardust, clogs
• Russian period, melancholy
• Heavy Russian writers. Would dress like a Cossack, Russian blouses, pants up to here (knee). I had whole Russian thing going on. Melancholic
• Fashionable, first to have bell bottoms, clogs.
• Flower power- 60’s, butterflies - LSD, transformation
• Was first in high school to get clogs and wore them with bell bottoms. Also tie-dyed shirts I made myself.
Pain, suffering, pointless/purposeful:
During the C1
• Has to [resolve relationship] before it is too late, doesn’t matter what think of his suffering, suffering will be carried forward if she doesn’t do it
During the C2
• Russian period, melancholy
• The fucking wars, the pain they cause, the damage they do and it does not go away. It leaves one alone with the pain with no way to let it go.
• Easy to avoid pain, do not want to go there, ignore it, maybe it will go away
• Suffering with a purpose
• The substance [we’re triturating], glad we are doing this so its death wasn’t without a purpose
• The soldiers, their suffering, their loss of who they were before a loss of , it needs to have a purpose. Soldiers have to hold onto a greater purpose. Vets …hold onto it not being pointless
• How painful to feel the pointlessness, how much it meant for dad to be recognized by his Semper Fi hat; soldiers recognize that
• Father always said, “when I was 18 I was shooting;” his pain wasn’t acknowledged by his kids
• Can be free from the pain of never being acknowledged by my dad.
•Heavy Russian writers. Would dress like Cossack, Russian blouses, pants up to here (knee). I had whole Russian thing going on. Melancholic.
•The Hurt Locker ( movie)
During the C3
• Worked hard to help her father heal his pain so he would see hers
• My own pain has taken a back burner, it’s less significant because I’ve found compassion for my father
During the C4
• Suffer a lot when see others suffer
Butterflies:
During theC1
Arms feel like wings
During theC2
• Wants a butterfly bush
• Butterfly, black with orange rimmed wings, a lot of butterflies
• Butterfly kisses, wished I could have played it at my wedding ( if I didn’t)
• Flower power- 60’s, butterflies - LSD, transformation
During the C3
• Butterfly kisses, Faith Hill and Brett Carlisle song “Butterfly Kisses”
• I have to do something but it’s too late, I’ve never known what to do, just let it go like letting a butterfly fly off
• Have to hurry up before my father dies, like a butterfly, short life
Clothing:
During the C2
• How much it meant for dad to be recognized by his Semper Fi hat
• Would dress like Cossack -- Russian blouses, pants up to here (knee). I had whole Russian thing going on.
• Bell bottoms, Ziggy Stardust, clogs
• Fashionable, first to have bell bottoms, clogs.
• Was first in high school to get clogs and wore them with bell bottoms. Also tie-dyed shirts I made myself.
Dream about wedding dresses (see below).
Physicals:
During the C1
Head/Face/Nose/Eyes/Mouth
• Headache across forehead
• Pressure in head and behind eyes
• Pain in eyes, shooting pain thru one temple to the other, thru eyeballs; worse Left temple pressure
• Eyes really itchy
• Numbness tongue and roof of mouth
• Numbness lips
• Bitter taste in mouth
• Pressure & sharp pain in Left eye
• Seeing wavy lines
• Left ear ringing
• Nose runny
Stomach:
• Instant tingling upon touching substance, feeling of stone in stomach, of heaviness, very local but hungry at same time, a little right of center
Chest/respiration:
• Chest pressure
• Tingling from chest outward to shoulders, arms, finger tips
• Sighing, difficult to get a deep breath
• Yawning a lot
• Tightness in upper chest
During the C2
Head/Face/Nose/Eyes/Mouth:
• Stabbing pain in left eye and through temples, left to right but not all the way through
• Bitter taste on tip of tongue, sense of burned tongue, as if shiny
• Achy in right lower jaw (from root canal?)
• Nose running, itchy
• Nose burning and itchy, tongue is sore
• Lots of tingling, roof of mouth, tongue as if roof of mouth and tongue are burned
• Headache in same place as before, across forehead
• Upper jaw left side soreness as if clenching teeth up in the joint
• Itchy nose
Throat:
• Strange feeling in throat, prickly feeling, like she swallowed a horse chestnut, throat feels smaller and prickly
• Sore throat when swallowing
• Really sore throat
• Voice sounds constrained
Stomach:
• Hungry
Chest:
• Pressure in chest
Extremities:
• Achey thru shoulders
During the C3
Head:
• Headache in front of head
During the C4
Head:
• Pain in teeth and jaw
Extremities:
• Shooting pains in the left shin, foot and big toe (during the night?)
Dreams: (the night after the trituration)
Dream: #1
Husband woke up and went to the bathroom on the way there something looking like a rat ran across the floor and jumped up and bit him under the arm. He yelled and shook it off. When it landed on the ground it shook itself into a woman. He said, oh it’s you. She shook herself off again and white ash flew off her and started the house on fire.
Dream #2:
My son and I were in an open-air fun house. I lost my purse and went back to find it. I entered through a small door and it was the inner workings of the funhouse. I was riding on the gears, slide down a ramp and landed outside the funhouse. There was a guard saying what are you doing you cannot be in there. I told him I was looking for my purse and my son was still inside and I had to find him. He said no, you cannot go back in.
Dream #3:
A client of mine asked me to clean out a room where she was going to have her wedding reception. I said ok and found mannequins lined up in a row dressed in the evolution of her wedding dress. I look at my watch and it is time for the wedding. When I get there my client greets me with a glass of champagne. She is dressed in the final iteration of the dress. We hug and she tells me it is time for dinner. I take a seat and they are serving sushi.
Conclusion:
In homeopathy, butterfly remedies are associated with childhood and adolescence and with a reluctance or inability to fully take on the responsibilities and complexities of adulthood. The butterfly may be seen to be the “puer aeternus,” the eternal child, flittering and fluttering, on the edge of sexual and emotional maturity. There is also a romantic and magical quality to butterflies – at least to us—because of their vivid beauty and life story of transformation. Many of the butterfly remedies also have to do with protecting children.
These known qualities of butterfly remedies were borne out in this trituration, and most particularly, being an adolescent, romance and sentimentality, and the issue of loss of protection.
But this butterfly proving reflects a heavier, sadder, more grief-stricken aspect:
•Fathers fighting in war; fathers dying in war
•Children grieving their fathers who go off to war: “what will I do when my daddy’s gone?”
•Grief, loss, sadness, guilt, a sense of unfinished business with the father
•Identification with the father’s trauma
•Romanticizing the relationship with the father
•War and all its sufferings, pointlessness
•Nostalgia for the past
Because all three provers were women, it is hard to know how far to take the “daddy’s little girl” theme that emerged in the proving. The song “Butterfly Kisses” was a topic of much discussion while we triturated. In the song there are stanzas written for the father’s voice – which could be an aspect of this butterfly, a kind of mushy, un-boundaried and romantic attachment to the daughter. It was striking how deeply the provers took on their fathers’ pain from the war. We think this is very important, the identification with the father’s pain and the sentimentality around it. What a came up in the trituration was not just grief at the loss of the father but an emotional intertwining with him. This remedy could be very important for daughters who take on their father’s emotional states, live out their father’s dreams, etc. (The sentimentality expressed in the song “Butterfly Kisses” is the most extreme manifestation of this. In fact, women have posted responses to the song on various websites that express a kind of over-the-top, almost desperate attachment and grief).
Yet we suspect that this remedy would also address the needs and issues of young boys who have lost their fathers in war, and who then romanticize and become obsessed with their missing fathers or with the military.
The loss of parental protection is a significant part of this remedy, again in keeping with other butterfly remedies. One of the provers dreamed about being separated from her son through the action of an outside authority and the anguish that went with that. This also might be a great remedy for women soldiers who have to leave their children.
The abundance of this butterfly is not surprising, considering how many people suffer the effects of war.