We are part of the glorious, harmonious interconnected living system of the earth. Let us celebrate this, and live as a relative with all the beings of the world.

There is a mindset we have that thinks, “Be strong. We will survive.” But the butterfly is not hard. It does not have fangs to ensure its survival. It has no heavy shell in which to hide, no thorns as defense.

We have a mindset that rewards individual achievement (“do your own thing”). But mycelium shows us a new world can be created when you function together, in tune with environment. Mycelium earth and mushrooms remind us all: there are no separations between humans, animals, nature - there are no separations between all lives.

We have a mindset that thinks, “Humans are separate from the natural world.” But the totem makes the bridge that connects humans to all beings, to spirit, to earth, to sky.

Lead Artists Gustavo Boada and Masanari Kawahara

Butterflies

The butterfly is a world-wide symbol with many, many meanings. Depending on who’s talking, butterflies represent beauty, transformation, the soul, the carrier of a deceased soul to a next life, eternal life, the psyche, women who die in childbirth, warriors who die in war, summer, joy, longevity, fire, hearth, and witches, for instance. In this section, we highlight what we can learn from the journey the butterfly takes to become a butterfly.

A butterfly is beautiful, yes, but it arrives at its beauty through “ugly” stages and a process that involves danger and vulnerability. When it’s a caterpillar, 90% of its time is spent eating. Plumped up and slow moving, it can easily become the next meal for a bird. Then it stops eating. It spins itself into a chrysalis. The chrysalis is a shell on the outside - it looks like not much is going on. But on the inside the caterpillar completely turns to into a liquid moosh and then reconstructs its form.

Breaking out of the chrysalis, the newly arrived winged creature must wait several hours for its wings to dry. At this stage, the butterfly’s transformation is complete, but it cannot fly. It is cannot escape environmental threats - its beautiful wings can attract predators. When the wings are dried at last, the butterfly flies off. But just like humans, butterflies do not always fly majestically. Sometimes they, like we, are blown by the winds of hard times. Still, butterflies fly confidently with their winged gift to continue their mission that inspires and illuminates the path of our self-realization

We can learn from the butterfly humility: to accept where we are in our stage of growth. We can learn from the butterfly that vulnerability is part of the process. We can learn from the butterfly to trust the process. A message from butterflies to the people: We can do it! So can you! Trust the process.

Mushrooms and Mycelium

Mycelium is the vegetative part of a fungus; it is a root. Mycelia (the plural of mycelium) form huge underground colonies. Mushrooms popping up from the ground are the fruit of some mycelia. The main job of mycelia is to decompose organic compounds, breaking down matter into soil. Two hundred fifty million years ago, when an asteroid hit Earth and all creatures died out, it was the mycelium that recycled the post-cataclysmic debris fields. The same thing happened when another asteroid hit Earth and the Age of Dinosaurs came to an end. Mycelium converts toxic earth into life-sustaining earth.

Mycelium is our distant kin. Scientists have traced animals and mycelia back to a common ancestry 600 million years ago. Mycelium represents connection to the ecosystem and to one another.

As a sentient network it converts toxic into life-nourishing. Can we, as a network of sentient beings working together, do the same?

Community Totems

The totem is the vertical bridge connecting earth and sky. The real bridges of sustainability are the living bridges that connect all life on the planet. The community comes up with the images on the totem — the things connecting us all. The community totems include: Butterfly Life Cycle Totem, Elements Totem, and Seven Generations Totem. About Seven Generations Totem — it is important to think seven generations ahead in order to leave something for the future generations.