Forms and Transformations in the Butterfly World

Butterflies are among nature’s most captivating organisms, dazzling us with their colors, patterns, and the remarkable transformation from caterpillar to winged adult. But what can they teach us about the deeper rhythms of the natural world? In this talk, Ryan Shea invites us to truly observe butterflies: to notice how their shapes and colors shift and transform, and to help us discover a “living understanding of nature.” He draws on an approach to nature observation developed by the German writer and scientist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, which asks us to follow what we see rather than jump to explanation.