In chaos theory, the “butterfly effect” describes how a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.
On the frigid last day of February, more than 1,000 people converged on Powderhorn Park to become part of a large monarch butterfly, or what Christopher Lutter-Gardella had told us would be a butterfly.
Christopher’s vision morphed into reality in less than a month. He and his crew figured out how to arrange people into segments of orange and black wings that, when viewed from above, would form a shimmering monarch, with a pulsating heart revealed at the center.
Along with 999 other ICE-weary people, I bundled up and trudged into the park at noon sharp. I was directed across the icepocked ball field to be part of Team 15.
Team leader Terry handed us each a cardboard poster with a glossy black or orange splotch printed on one side. She showed us a chart indicating where we were in the butterfly, upper right wing, and where we should stand, defined by faint lines barely visible on the freeze-dried grass.
Those with orange signs stood in the center, facing one direction. Those with black signs lined up elbow to elbow along the perimeter, facing another. I held a black sign.
And there we stood and waited. And made jokes. And waited. And commiserated with the mother of a weeping 13-year-old who had forgone layers of down for fashionable yoga pants. And waited.
We watched the black-clad letter group practice curling up or stretching out head to toe to spell “love” in eight languages. At least they get to keep moving, we said, until someone pointed out that they were lying on rock-hard goose droppings while we stood together generating communal warmth. So we waited.
Poets recited moving words. Singers led buoyant songs. Then we were given directions we could barely hear. Team leader Terry repeated them, and we passed them along based on what we thought we had heard, a teeth-chattering game of telephone.
We were to disperse, but remember exactly where we had been standing and next to whom, so that when we returned we would be in the same spot. On cue from the stage, which we could not see, we would raise our signs and shimmer them. On another cue, those in the center, the body of the butterfly, would flip their signs to red and become the pulsating heart. Got it? Well, sort of with drones circling overhead, we dispersed, then returned to our places. Those of us in the wings shimmered on cue. After a few minutes, those in the center double-thumped on cue. After a few more minutes of shimmering and pulsing, a cheer rose and we heard Christopher shout that we had done it. Out of well-managed chaos, we had created a butterfly.
“Out of well-managed chaos, we had created a butterfly.”
We went to Powderhorn Park to be a part of what Christopher Lutter-Gardella called “a collective act of beauty and creativity.”
I don’t think any of us imagined how beautiful that image would be, or how much we would rely on trust to make it happen — trust of the vision, the process and each other. Maybe holding up a sign and shimmering, whether on the tip of a butterfly’s wing or a suburban street corner can build trust and strengthen a democracy that feels increasingly fragile. Maybe it can give us hope.
Susan Lenfestey is a regular contributor. She lives in Lowry Hill.
