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For this practice you will need the materials that you are already familiar with – white A4 paper, colored pencils, paints, colored paper, scissors and glue. Anyone from 3+ can participate. Younger participants can also become assistants with the support of their parents😊. And like all previous practices: The best place to conduct the practice will be a place closer to Nature, or indoors with the sounds of Nature, to help maintain an atmosphere of creativity. Welcome to this practice!
Olga and Conscious Creativity Team 😊
Practice “On Butterfly Wings”
Task of the practice: coloring butterflies together. For this, you will need to prepare butterflies from A4 sheets. The shape and size of their wings can be different. You can connect two or more A4 sheets to make the butterflies larger. Participants are united in mini groups of 2 or 4, one part of the group colors the right side, and the other the left. The body and head are colored together at the end. If the number of participants is not a multiple of two, no problem, a full butterfly will be created by the odd number participant. As in all practices, there are important conditions:
- no competition: “who is faster or who creates better butterfly”
- no hints or instructions like: “look to the right, then to the left”
- all sources of color are based on the colors of Nature.
- also, colored pencils or paints are better than markers because they can create different colorful shades.
The practice time is 45 minutes and more, depending on the venue, age, and number of participants. The artwork, decorated by a team of participants, will be a beautiful interior design that can become a central element 😊
P.S. In this part of the letter, we will also talk about the skills of systemic thinking, sustainability and flexibility, which are useful in any area of life. “Okay, skills are needed, but what does a butterfly have to do with it?” you might ask. A butterfly helps us see the essence of systemic thinking and besides, a butterfly is very beautiful😊.
In previous letters, we said that systemic thinking is based primarily on the concept of a system as a unit of life. The formation and life of a system are based on its properties: expediency, sustainability, flexibility and improvement. The system’s compliance with these properties determines its viability based on the direction of development: evolution or, conversely, involution. A butterfly, as a system, follows the properties of a system, maintains balance, manages its energy, collaborates, and improves what it has. Let’s dwell on this in more detail. A butterfly:
• maintains balance | The influence of conditions, both external and internal, is constantly changing, as there is no isolated system in nature. So, balance is a necessary condition for the existence of a system. The balance of a system is based on the quality of the change of the system under the influence of external and internal conditions and determines its viability. In our life, this is the balance of the internal and external, mind and heart, quantity and quality, balancing of life spheres, and on. “Okay, but what does a butterfly have to do with it?” – you might ask. A butterfly knows how to maintain balance and a butterfly also:
• manages its energy | Balance is, first, maintaining the system’s energy balance. The general principle of minimum energy expenditure* states that any system strives for a state in which the energy for maintaining the system will be minimal. The less energy that is spent on maintaining life, the more that is left for development. This aspiration of the system is reflected in the laws of physics, biology and chemistry, and is manifested in the structure of life at the macro and micro levels: the movement of planets in orbits, in the structure of atoms, chemical bonds, the formation of DNA, the behavior of animals, and in the butterfly which is already familiar to us. The butterfly also has skills of:
• collaboration | The force of action is equal to the reaction, says Newton’s 3rd law.* If we denote the force of the system as F1, the force acting on the system as F2, then if they are directed against each other, they mutually destroy each other. For example: if there is an influence on the system from + F2 (i.e. F2 ⟩ 0), then the system directs its force in response – F1 (i.e. F1 ⟨ 0) and as a result +F + (-) F = 0. And at the same time, the forces that act parallel, and in the same direction, are the sum of these energies: F1 + F2.
One of the properties of a system is that expediency will not support the system’s viability if it does not have stability, flexibility and improvement. The basis of the system’s vital activity is the unity of interaction of all its properties, which is manifested in cooperation. So, the quality of cooperation determines the viability of the system. If a system is ready for cooperation based on its properties, then it develops along the evolutionary path, if not, it collapses, since an isolated system is not viable.
More about collaboration: our system’s boundaries themselves are relative: being unique systems, we are at the same time part of a Nature as a system. We are participants in the process of Life united by cooperation. The sum of energy is united by the coordination of actions in one direction. A ship under sail considers the direction of the wind. The rowers on the boat know the rhythm of their oar strokes 😊What unites the participants of these examples? They all know WHERE they are going. Therefore, a butterfly does not argue with the wind 😊 but knows how to cooperate with it, and knows how to:
• improve what it has | The life cycle of a butterfly pupa-caterpillar-butterfly is a transformational process going from one state to another based on balance, energy management, cooperation and improvement. The quality of our life is also a transformational process, which is determined by the quality of thinking. The quality of thinking is a manifestation of the expansion of consciousness. The expansion of consciousness is the result and process of constant improvement of thinking. Improving quality of thinking is an evolutionary process.
Even if we do not have wings to maintain balance, we have a choice to determine what is good for our development and what is not. Choice determines the result. “Yes, but we do not even have a choice” – you may exclaim. If we admit the lack of choice, then this will be a choice. And even if it seems that: “there are wings but little space”, “there is space but no wings”, or “little space and no wings”. . . while changing the order of these terms, still the sum does not change.
However, the properties of a system are the components of viability: expediency, sustainability, flexibility and improvement. And if we change any of these components in our thinking, we will be able to see the choice, which means the “sum” or result may be different. The properties of a system will help with this:
- “Why?” – Why do I need this (choice, goal, decision) in my life?
- “What?” – What, of what I have now, will help me improve what I have now?
- “Who?” – Who takes responsibility for their choice and decision? A participant in the process. The process has two directions: development-Improvement and vice versa- degradation.
- “How?” – How can I use the resources and skills that I have and how can I improve them?
Thinking skills, based on the properties of the system, help develop the skills of systemic thinking. “But a butterfly can’t think!” – you might exclaim with a smile. Yes, a butterfly does not have the same thinking as we humans. It lives, creating the future, based on the properties of its system. A butterfly is in unity with evolutionary development because it maintains balance, manages its energy, collaborates with outer world, and improves what it has.
The value of the practice “On the Wings of a Butterfly” is that it helps us learn what a butterfly does 😊
- balance
- awareness of creativity
- collaboration
- improving what we have
The evolutionary process of Life is not competition and struggle for survival, but a process of constant improvement based on cooperation. The viability of a system is determined by how well it is able to organize its activities in accordance with the basis on which it arose: expediency, sustainability, flexibility and improvement. We people have the freedom to choose our thoughts. This is a priceless gift that we have from birth. Freedom of choice determines the result and is the basis of the Quality of Thinking. Systemic thinking improves quality, based again on the properties of our system. One of the most sought-after qualities of employees are qualities based on systemic thinking.
One more P.S. A “World in Me” workshop. A large, noisy hall in a huge museum. The children stood in a circle and looked attentively at what I was taking out of the magic bag that was in my hands. I took out the paper butterflies . . . We created butterflies and stories about them. And then one of the participants, a 3,5-year-old boy, spread his arms and ran around the hall laughing loudly. “I am like a butterfly!” And now a whole heavenly flotilla of butterflies is fluttering around the hall, spreading wisdom with ringing laughter that lives in each of us.
And . . . if a butterfly flies into your garden, which we talked about in previous letters, it makes sense not to run after it with a net, but simply to observe it. It, like everything in Nature, helps us learn. Observation is the basis of synthesis. Synthesis is the basis of creativity of Life as an Evolutionary path of development, including us. Or why not spread up our arms as a beautiful butterfly? 😊. . .
Resources*: – This is a general principle applied in various scientific fields. | – Newton “Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica” page 16 https://archive.org/details/philosophiaenatu00newt/page/n11/mode/ | 2 – This is a general principle applied in various scientific fields. | The post based on “Conscious Creativity Education Technology”, manuscript ISBN: 978-1-963690-77-4; 978-1-963690-74-3 | 2025 © Olga Verasen | https://olgaverasen.com/conscious-creativity/#education-technology
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