Unimaginable magic waits in the wings. Here’s proof.
So many of us are hardwired to need proof. As a creature that’s conditioned to live from our neck up, it makes sense that many humans crave data and facts. I’ve lived that way for most of my life—comforted by science, trusting non-fiction, rejecting sci-fi fantasy—but the mysterious inner workings of another world keep edging in!
There are some things science can’t explain. Wildly beautiful things that will never be figured out in a lab, a magic that could never be tidily explained or contained in a textbook.
Take the monarch butterfly. For many of us, it’s the only butterfly we know by name, but have no sense of what unfolds under that divine orange and black veined dress.
Brain the size of a pinhead. Perfectly engineered, yet outweighed by a feather. So dainty it could be accidentally crushed in the most gentle of hands, but somehow flutters against whipping winds you’d think would swallow it in a heartbeat. They enchant the two-legged, the four-legged, maybe even the eight-legged! But these little knockouts are not mindlessly lingering in our backyards waiting to be noticed. These seemingly mindless insects are on an epic migration, one of the most remarkable.
No single butterfly makes the complete migration on its own. It takes 3-5 generations. That means it’s a family team effort to make it from the fir forests of Mexico, up to Canada, and all the way back to Mexico. They lay their little eggs on one specific type of poisonous plant along the way (milkweed is the only leaf picky monarch caterpillars will eat!) ensuring that their young will continue their journey and carry on the species after their life ends. And here’s the wildest part: even though the “great grandchild” usually completes the final leg to Mexico, a creature that’s never even set foot there, it will return to the same tree where its great grandparents lived. Incomprehensible.
We haven’t even touched on the other wonder of every butterfly's story. Who can deny reworking your innards (brain! heart! gut!) from a chubby caterpillar into that divine silhouette isn’t pure magic? We hear the word metamorphosis and notice these creatures in the background of our day to day, but when you pay closer attention to the reality behind their life story it’s so insane it’s hard to grasp.
So if fact is king—structured, organized, logical—then maybe mystery is queen—enchanting, magical, messy, unexplainable. And maybe even more undeniable and convincing because it’s a truth we cannot make sense of with our heads, but feel instinctually. You can’t deny chills or stop your heart from skipping a beat. And that wisdom is just as sacred as anything your rational mind can attempt to unravel.
To hijack the words of W.B. Yeats, “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” Another I’m obsessed with from Paul Éluard, “There is another world, and it is in this one.”
Katie xx
PS: As I was jotting down notes for this piece, I got a text from an old friend. She said she thinks of me often and just woke from a dream where we were playing in a monarch grove.
Katie Losey works at the intersection of business and conservation. She is a director at Fragile Earth, a company focused on deploying life-changing innovations to help rebalance our planet. Previously Katie worked at a travel company connecting others with the world’s wild places in an effort to protect and champion them landing her with orangutans and pygmy elephants in Borneo’s ancient rainforest, gliding alongside sharks in Cuba, and chasing orcas in Antarctica—mind-expanding experiences to explore life’s inexplicable magic! She has been a member of The Explorers Club since 2015 and is pursuing her Biomimicry Graduate Certificate. Katie lives in NYC’s West Village and tries to get off the grid as much as possible!
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Get in touch: losey.kate(at)gmail.com
The Future of Innovation is Here: 8 Inventions from Nature’s Lab (Katie Losey for the Biomimicry Institute, 9.10.19)
