The Butterfly Island Story

If you think about it, we live our lives very much like the butterflies... The butterfly begins it's life as one tiny nameless egg among many. It hatches into one small caterpillar and spends it's fragile existence like all of it's generation trying to survive, to grow up and reproduce in a hostile environment. Many do not survive the onslaught of those first few vulnerable hours or even days that follow. Each one desperately competes for leaf space upon which they feed insatiably as if it is their last meal. For many it is! Many are eaten by birds and small rodents which are never far away. Survival is indeed low, and yet against all the odds and within the very 'genes' of these little creatures lies dormant so much explosive potential for growth, for beauty and ultimate freedom. Many of these little 'grubs' never really get past being caterpillars, living out their short lives in limitation and relative darkness, then 'snuffed out' long before their time has come. And yet a remnant do survive, hanging on as they desperately move towards the sunlight into the next 'sleepy' stage of their development. Weaving tiny cocoons around their frail bodies as one preparing for burial, they disappear from sight to begin their last desperate act to liberate themselves from all that's gone before. For some indeed it is the end of the road, and they disappear and remain incarcerated in their self-imposed 'tombs', before being blown away by the wind back into the very soil from which they spawned. For them there is no 'resurrection'. And yet for a few it is this final sacrifice, this natural and yet extreme willingness to embrace radical and absolute change which brings about the very 'miracle of life' itself. Inside their cocoons and out of sight these creatures slowly change and then finally burst into the sunlight as butterflies. They have finally reached their intended destination, they are now so beautiful and they are free! After all the uncertainty, the dangers, the growing pains, and yes, towards the very end of their very short lives, a few of the caterpillars have become what their peers could only try to be - they emerged as butterflies ... triumphant! The story of "Butterfly Island" is therefore about our individual and shared experiences as we journey through life - the struggles, the hopes and dreams, the successes and the inevitable failures, the relationships, love both lost and found. It's about winning, losing and yet surviving through it all, persevering and then 'breaking through' against all the odds. It's about love, life, passion and the deep silent cries in the hearts of those who long to see change. "Butterfly Island" sets out to display something of the human condition. It poses "the questions of life in song" from the early tender years of childhood, into young adulthood, into maturity and then towards the 'sunset years' as each generation moves one after the other slowly but surely towards the finishing line...