The Butterfly Story

The Butterfly Story

Let me tell you a story about a girl who turned into a butterfly.

Once, in a time not unlike our time, Ella and her friends lived a normal life in a normal city. They played in the parks and playgrounds, learned their lessons in school rooms, argued and fought and laughed and joked. Every winter they lit the menorah candles and every spring they had a Passover meal.

Ella loved stories and even when she was thirteen years old, she always asked her Mother to tell her a tale before bed.

Inside you is a city with walls so high that no-one can climb them and walls so thick that no-one can break through them. There is only one gate going into and out from that city, but it is always open. The city is such a wonderful place to live. Everyone smiles and talks to their neighbours; everyone cares for one another and no-one locks their doors for there is no need.

 
One day, a shadow fell over that city. It was as if the sun was blocked out. People grew afraid. They began to lock their doors and instead of talking and sharing news, they whispered words of mistrust and fear. The strangest thing of all was that no-one did anything about it – they just locked the gate up tight and hid behind iron bolts.

There was just one boy, one young man who watched what the grown ups were doing and shouted, “NO! What are you doing? We have to face this thing – we have to find out what has happened to the sun!” But no-one listened to him, because he was just a kid.

On a dark night, he decided enough was enough. He waited until his father was fast asleep and crept out of the house and into he street. He was going to face this problem himself. As he got to the great gate, his heart was pounding in his chest. He took a deep breath in and pulled the iron bolts back and pushed the gate open.

Standing outside the city, its great head blocking out the moon and stars and sun was an enormous monster. It had iron nail teeth and rock fists, flaming eyes and a deep roaring rumble. The boy took a deep breath in and walked towards the monster. One, two, three steps.

Then something very strange began to happen – the monster seemed to be getting smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller until it was so small the boy could pick it up in his fingers.

“What’s your name?” said the boy.

“Fear,” said the tiny monster.

The boy put the monster in his pocket and went home. By the time he reached the city, the sun was high in the sky pouring its golden light into the streets and houses. In a matter of moments doors were unlocked and people began to smile and chat once more.

There were other times when a shadow fell over that city, that city inside you, but there will always be a brave little boy to remind us that our fears are not as big as we think when we face them with courage.

 
When the story was finished, Ella’s dreams were full of colour and life.

One day, a shadow fell over Ella’s city – a monster made of men with a mouth full of hate and flaming red armbands. When the Nazis arrived, life began to change. The children watched as doors locked and neighbours turned their backs. Some of her friends disappeared overnight and there were whispers that they would never be coming back. Behind her Mother’s smile, Ella saw fear.

What else could Ella do, but face her fear with courage in her heart – it won’t seem so scary soon.

In November 1942, Ella and her friends were told they would be leaving. The Jews were being moved to a ghetto in Terezin. Ella’s mother checked and rechecked their bags – weighing them carefully. Inside were clothes, candles, soap, blankets and some simple tools.

“Why do all the Jews have to leave? What’s a Jew anyway? Who’s fighting the war?” Questions from the small children rang through the streets.

‘How close to I have to get before the monster starts to shrink?’ Ella wondered.

The next morning, Ella stood in a great hall filled with frightened people wearing yellow stars. They queued for hours. They were given numbers. They waited.

Ella and her family were transported to a city called Terezin.

It was a walled city, with one gate leading in and out. Walls too high to climb. Walls too thick to break. It was grey, cold and full of hungry faces and tired eyes. Here and there the monstrous men stood staring, with hard, uncaring eyes.

Ella and the older children were separated from their parents and led to bunkhouses, where hey slept on dirty mattresses and cramped wooden bunks.

‘How close do I have to get before the monster starts to shrink?’ Ella wondered.

“We’ll see you tomorrow darling. We’ll see you tomorrow,” called her mother.

And so began their shadow life in Theresienstadt concentration camp. 

Queuing for food. Always hungry. Always tired. Breaking rocks. Fleas and flies. Illness and dirt. It seemed to Ella that the sun never shone and the stars never gleamed; they had been blocked out by the enormous, towering monster made of men.

In the empty hours of darkness, Ella heard the sobs and sorrows of the grown-ups.

When the children dreamt, their dreams were grey and hungry. When they drew or wrote, their pictures and poems and trapped in the city walls.

“When a new child comes

Everything seems strange to him.

What, on the ground I have to lie?

Eat black potatoes?
No! Not l! I've got to stay?
It's dirty here!
The floor - why, look, it's dirt, I fear!
And I'm supposed to sleep on it? I'll get all dirty!
Here the sound of shouting, cries, And of, so many flies.
Everyone knows flies carry disease. Oooh, something bit me!
Wasn't that a bedbug? Here in Terezin, life is hell
And when I'll go home again, I can't yet tell.
"Teddy" 1943 (http://nonduality.com/terezin8.htm)

 

Then, the teacher arrived. She sat with the children in their bare classroom and opened her suitcase. From inside, all the colours of the rainbow seemed to glow and shine – pencils, pens, paper, charcoal, paints and brushes.

“What do you see on the window sill?” the teacher asked. The children looked at the square, bare window letting in a cold light. Nothing.

“What do you see on the window sill?” the teacher asked. Ella stared at the window. She looked as hard as she could, screwing up her eyes so only a tiny sliver of light got through. Then, suddenly she could see!

“A sparrow!” she cried.

“A vase of flowers!” came another voice.

“A pile of my Mother’s books.”

“A glass of clear, cold water.”

“A cake!”

“I see green hills and blue sky!”

Day after day, they painted and drew. Day afer day, the teacher asked them to look a little closer, to find the wildflower growing from the stone walls and slowly, it seemed as if the sun began to shine once more.

Birdsong

He doesn't know the world at all

Who stays in his nest and doesn't go out.
He doesn't know what birds know best
Nor what I want to sing about,
That the world is full of loveliness.

When dewdrops sparkle in the grass

And earth's awash with morning light,
A blackbird sings upon a bush
To greet the dawning after night.
Then I know how fine it is to live.

Hey, try to open up your heart
To beauty; go to the woods someday
And weave a wreath of memory there.

Than if the tears obscure your way

You'll know how wonderful it is to be alive.

1941 Anonymous (http://nonduality.com/terezin8.html)

As day turned to week, month, year, Ella’s dreams were full of life and colour once more. When they were told by the monster made of men that they would be leaving for another place, far from here, Ella knew she should feel afraid. She heard the grown ups cry and scream and knew she should feel afraid, but for that moment she could not feel afraid – she was dancing with a yellow butterfly, fluterring and flying in the cool, spring air just outside the window. 

Once upon a time there was a little girl who faced a huge, terrifying monster with teeth of broken glass, smoking chimney fingers, a hate filled mouth and a flaming band of red on its arm. She stood outside the city gates and walked towards it. But this monster did not shrink away -  this monster grew and grew. The monster bent down to pick up the tiny girl and crush her in its jaws, but just as he grasped her she transformed into a butterfly, flew past him and away.

 

From a cold, grey prison, a yellow butterfly flew.

The prisoners watched, eyes upraised,

Until it disappeared into white and blue.

They were trapped,

But the butterfly soared free,

Over deserts, mountains, fields and sea.

A golden reminder

From a prison far away.

A yellow butterfly - a child’s song

Bringing us hope today.

COPYRIGHT ABIGAIL PALACHE 10/09/2014
Poems 'Terezin' and 'Birdsong' from the collection of poems found in Terezin.

 

***

The Jewish Music Institute approached me a few weeks ago to create a short, educational workshop based on their beautiful work Drawing Life. This opera devised by Sophie Solomon was inspired by the drawings and poems of the children of Terezin - a concentration camp in the Czech Republic used during WW2 as a 'model ghetto'.

Full of Jewish composers, musicians and artists, this walled city saw an outpouring of creativity as the prisoners waited at the gates of hell. When the Red Cross visited Terezin in 1942, the Nazis installed fake shop fronts, fake water taps and led the visitors on a strict route to show them how well they were treating the Jewish prisoners. In reality Terezin was dark, dirty and 33,000 inmates died of disease, malnutrition and a lack of clean water. 150,000 people were sent to Terezin before being sent to Auschwitz, Dachau or other extermination camps.

There were also 15,000 children who lived in Terezin under the Nazis. They were required to work but also had an education programme to give as evidence to the Danish Red Cross who inspected the camp. Artist and teacher  Friedl Dicker-Brandeis was sent to Terezin and filled two suitcases with over 4,000 drawings by the Terezin children before she died in Auschwitz. It is these surviving drawings and poems that inspired Sophie Solomon to create Drawing Life and in turn inspired me to create the following story to give a glimpse into what life was like for the children of Terezin.

Rolihlahla - First Draft

In the summer months of 1918,

far south in the depths of winter 

a baby was born named 

Rolihlahla - troublemaker.

In the Yuletide month of 2013, 

far south in the warmth of summer 

an old man died 

named Nelson. 

He was named Nelson by a woman who was not his mother 

or grandmother 

or sister 

or aunt 

or cousin

or friend. 

He was named Nelson because his skin was dark.

Because his skin was dark they painted his name white.

A teacher painted him Nelson 

And the world liked the colour- a nice, white name for a clever black boy. 

But underneath the layers of lacquer, Rolihlahla lay 

quietly (at first). 

Troublemaker. 

Nelson Mandela, Mandiba Mandela was a hero, a great man
And so much for than that.

He was Rolihlahla - troublemaker. 

Today I remember the whole man. 

I strip off the layers of polite speech and sound,

Benevolent words from world leaders, 

Who wanted him wiped away when he was trouble

But who rub what's left of his life into their own suited skins 

Now he is Nelson.  

I strip away the thickness of quaint image,

Smiling with the Spice Girls,

Soft white hair, soft hands, soft folds of skin around his eyes,

Smiling, always smiling. 

And slowly,

As the paint is peeled back

There is a gaze of steel, 

Forged from his iron name

in the flames of division. 

Rolihlahla.

The one we don't want to see. 

We don't want to see the whole man. 

We don't want to see the fighter, the work, the anger, the pain.

So we look at an old man's smile,

bask in the comfortable shade of his painted name

and avoid the steady stare beneath

That challenges us to stand up 

For that which we know to be true

and change the world. 

That challenges us to to stand up 

For that which we know to be true

and be destroyed.

That tells us that we must stand

We have to stand

If we want a better world. 

But we are afraid to cause trouble, to wash away the layers of paint and find what burns below. 

We are afraid. 

"A great light has gone out in the world. Nelson Mandela was a towering figure in our time: a legend in life and now in death - a true global hero." - David Cameron

We call him Nelson - a nice, white name for a clever black boy.

We call him hero, champion, a great light. 

But his name is Rohlihla. 

Today I remember the whole man
And challenge myself to stand.

******

Rejected verses that I quite like, but haven't found a way to fit in... yet!

Nelson Mandela was a great man.

No. He was so much more than that. 

He was troublemaker, aggressor, adulterer.

He was stubborn, determined, inspiring, powerful. 

Nelson Mandela was a man who did great things.

But great deeds are so quickly destroyed in death

Not in the loss of life but in the passing of the flame. 

His legacy burns white-hot.

Don't dampen those flames with empty sentiment and heroic language. 

Don't dampen those flames by calling him a great man 

As if what he did could only be done by him and not by us because he was great and we are not, so we can go to bed at night in the comfortable knowledge that he had something that we don't have and because he was great, and we are not, we don't have to act or move we can just stay at home and watch television whilst riot and revolution rage outside.

Copyright Abigail Palache 08/12/13

Some Collected thoughts

The Universe begins with the breath.

Inhalation. Breath in.

Cold air warmed by the fire of the heart.

Breath in.

And the universe is born on the outgoing breath; once upon a time and the colours form - yellows and greens and blues....



***


The land remembers much; the mind of man forgets. Listen to the trees - they have wonders to tell.


***

Us and Them

What does it say about Great Britain that within hours of a brutal murder, everyone turns so quickly on their neighbours? Why is it that if a white man goes on a shooting rampage we single him out as a lone nutter, but if it is done by a man with dark skin and who might have said something Islamic it is terrorism and we must all be afraid?

Have you stopped sending your children to Catholic schools because of the extensive child abuse committed by Catholic priests? Have you stopped your daughter going to art classes because of Rolf Harris’ arrest? Do you judge white Yorkshire men by the acts of the Ripper or British people because of the horrific acts of oppression in India during the occupation?

It’s incredible how quickly people are prepared to shut their doors on their neighbours. How this is a terror attack instead of a brutal murder seems to me an inflammatory act by a weak and flailing government. Children are systematically stabbing each other over postcode territories, but we don’t start shutting out our nieces and nephews; they are not classes as terrorists although they are using terror to get what they want.

To those of you who are liking the RIP Woolwich Soldier page on facebook, please look carefully at who you are joining with. This poor nameless man was murdered a few hours ago. It is not fair that his death is being hijacked by racist nutcases who think that being British is synonymous with religion and skin colour. Nick Griffin has already asked people to wear Help for Heroes badges to ‘resist Islamist terror’ instead of supporting Help for Heroes to HELP soldiers! Hate doesn’t help anyone and it is disgraceful that a wonderful charity is being used to imply that soldiers are standing up for racism. This poor man’s family now has to stand by helpless while hundreds of thousands tell his son to Rest In Peace whilst preaching hate. How can he rest in peace with this tirade of violence from the mouths of strangers?  

Muslims aren’t terrorists and, if these two men considered themselves Muslims, it is as irrelevant as it would have been if they were Christians. I know Catholics who do not consider paedophile priests to be Christians and we seem on board with that – my Catholic friends have never felt the need to apologise for their community and have never been shut out because of the acts of their religious leaders. Why should we see these murderers as Muslims? Islam is a religion, just like Christianity, that can be manipulated to violence or to beauty. Why do we see two men committing a murder for their own twisted reasons and blame an entire religion?

This is how it starts every time. The acts of the few stains the many because, if we are honest with ourselves, we realise that (just like has happened before) it only takes one act of horror and barbarity by The Muslims to make us believe that all whole of ‘them’ are against the whole of ‘us’.

We have to be better than that.

A thought for an old school friend who I haven't seen for many years and who I won't be seeing again and old friends in Dorking, Australia and around the country who are feeling heart-broken today.

Too many good people have passed away too soon in recent times and, although I understand that loss is a sad fact of living, I sometimes find it difficult to accept that the world just keeps on turnin...g. Even when you are not close to them, even when you are far away and even when you have not seen them for many years, it seems like the world should stop and take stock.

We would only need to pause for a minute - to take a collective breath and breath a deep sigh.
A moment to remember and a moment to be sad.
A moment to witness another's sadness and our own sadness and to remember that deadlines, data, bills and the need to buy and sell and buy and sell is not what life is really about - it is not what life is really for.

Maybe one day the world will stop and the cars will stop and the people will stop and we can breath and be calm and stand together in peace and quiet and remember those that can no-longer be with us.

Love to old-friends.

They were just like us, but we don't have to be like them.

Holocaust Memorial Day 2013

I have a picture like this from when I was at school. Friends, laughing and joking and squeezed together to CHHEEESSEEE for the camera.

They were just like us, but they stand in the shadow of the Holocaust.

The shadow of shoes,

                                 of hair,

                                       of clothes,

                                                  of bags,

                                                         of broken, twisted metal that was once a building, that held people that looked like shells of people that were once bodies of women and children and men and doctors and surgeons and shop-workers and rabbis and wives and husbands and aunts and uncles and teachers and writers and chemists and artists.

I say "Never Again" and "Not in My Lifetime".

I light candles and shed tears.

I paint and write and try to understand how it was and how it was not.

We shudder at pictures of Hitler and Goerring and Goebbels and Eichmann and Mengele.

We raise statues to those who we can never reclaim from the fires.

We stand in the shadow and try to see the sun.

I found an article in the Sun archive "Relatives of Nazi Germany's Monsters talk about How They Feel".

Monsters do not exist.

It would be much easier if they did.

6 million people were murdered in factories.

These factories were designed to reduce a human to dust.

And it happened here.

This happened in Germany, in France, in Poland, in Italy, in Czechoslavakia (as was), in Hungary and in every other country that Hitler's forces invaded. 

The American government did nothing.

The British government did nothing.  

And in 2013, we "who live save in our warm houses",

We who "returning in the evening" find "hot food and friendly faces"*,

I light a candle to those and go to bed,

With Primo Levi's book resting under the bedside lamp.

*Primo Levi - if this is a man

This is not enough. This will happen again if this is all we do. 

This happens again everytime that this is all we do.  

It is easy to look in the mirror and see a victim or a survivor - it is easy to read their stories and to see ourselves - our mother - our father - our children.

We are so quick to see the humanity in those who suffered.

It is much harder to look in the mirror and see the perpetrator.

The actions of the Nazis were monstrous, but they were not monsters.

They were men and they were women.

They were mothers and fathers. 

They were aunts and uncles,

doctors,

surgeons,

teachers,

musicians,

artists,

writers,

chemists,

shop-keepers,

factory workers,

farmers;

they were just like us.  

“The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together.”
― Hannah Arendt

Today, I remember those who were lost. 

I light a candle in memory of the 6 million gone.

I look at the pictures of the camps and see the person inside the skeleton.

I look at the pictures of the Nazis and see the person inside the monster's uniform.

They were just like us.

Young women and men from the Nazi party on a training trip in the German mountains.

But we don't have to be like them.

A ramble through Wondertales and Women

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, when trees could talk and fairies danced in the sunset, so long ago that I was a lad and my dad was too, east of the sun and west of the moon, there was and there was not a storyteller. And this storyteller was often asked a question – “Where am I in these stories? They are all about beautiful princesses locked in towers, who are rescued by a handsome princes and lives happily ever after. I am not beautiful. I am not a princess. I don’t want anyone to rescue me and I don’t want to marry a prince.”

Wondertales (more often referred to fairytales) are strange beasts. They are stories that roam through the subconscious, long after the teller has finished telling. They are stories that invite us into the realm of the soul and when we are there, ask us questions in a language that we cannot quite understand, but definitely remember from somewhen long, long ago.

And then, to our deep irritation and our deep revulsion, these magical, ancient tales offer us pictures of beautiful, slightly pathetic, princesses locked in towers by evil, ugly witches. The modern woman feels slighted, forgotten and maybe even insulted by this picture of woman-ness. Between the beautiful& good and the ugly&evil, we are at risk of finding ourselves absent from these magical stories. And so we ask the question – Can we change them? Do we, in fact, have a duty to change them? Switch the genders! Make the princess ugly and the witch beautiful! Do we want our daughters and granddaughters to wait for a prince to save them?

And part of me - the same part that refuses to be the first to say “I love you”, the same part of me that is determined to keep my own name if I marry and has a tingle of jealousy when a beautiful woman walks into the room - clamours to join the cacophony of objections.

“I am not a princess! I don’t need saving! Why should the princess have to be beautiful anyway? Why can’t the princess save the prince!”

But, then my stomach turns and churns and heaves as if sailing out on a stormy sea with the thought of taking one of these ancient stories, one of these magical, dreamy fairytales and imposing my conscious, head-driven want upon it.

When I read a wondertale, I remember that these are not the finished article, but a frozen moment in the history of that particular story. And then, as I read on, the stormy sea calms as my head begins to know what my stomach tried to tell me.

My head criticises the princess in the Goose Girl for crying when her maid refuses to get her a glass of water, but then I see that it is at this moment she realises she is alone. I remember that moment when I realised that I have to make my own decisions now and that it was time to look after myself. It is a frightening and moment, that is well worth the tears of a princess.

 

My head is angry at Briar Rose for having to wait for a Prince, for the kiss ‘of true love’ to wake her, but then I see that it was never part of the deal that she be woken by a kiss. It is rather that a worthy man just happens to show up at the right time.

 

My head is furious with the princess who kisses frogs because they are to turn into handsome princes, but then I read that this never happened. The Princess threw the frog against the wall, because she did not want him in her bed. The violent act was the key to unlocking the transformation.

My head was so busy and overflowing with images from TV, film and Disney Ltd. that I had forgotten to the real stories.

And then beauty.

Why do we get so angry with the constant stream of beautiful princesses? The words ‘beautiful’ and ‘fair’ have become so culturally loaded that we seem terrified of them. We don’t want to offend; we want to offer our children a ‘reasonable’ mirror in which to find themselves, not this idyllic princess figure with her beauty and her fair-face. Listening to stories of beautiful princesses will surely reinforce to our young people that beauty is equal to worth. Won’t they?

Two thought sbegin to clamour for attention as I write:

The first says that we are storytellers and we conjure and create these stories as we speak. They only really live as we speak them, so why are we conjuring a beauty that is based in the physical? Surely that is the kind of beauty we object to – the physical obsession that makes us feel inadequate, unwanted and unloved. We cannot surely be objecting to one who is truly beautiful, in the proper way – the way that shines out of whatever shape we are in. So maybe we must practise conjuring princesses with our breath that are not physically attractive, but are truly beautiful. What we perceive as beauty is beauty – we can create what it means to be beautiful each time we tell.

Beauty is a characteristic of a person, animal, place, object, or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure or satisfaction. Wikipedia

And then the second thought begins to rise. Why don’t we see ourselves mirrored in the beautiful princess? Is it her beauty? Is it because she can’t do everything herself? Is it because she needs rescuing?

This thought sits gently in my mind, asking myself why I don’t think I’m a beautiful princess, who sometimes needs rescuing. I don’t have the answer yet. I do realise one thing, however – I am stronger when I am with others and I am stronger when I am comfortable within myself and so, I am happy to find myself in the girl who needs support from others to find her full potential. We are nothing when we are alone; everything is connected.

I am a drop in an everlasting sea.

A story is a current flowing through and flowing from the millions of drops that surround me.