Spirit Animal and Prior Work

When the concept of "what is your spirit animal?" was brought up in class I immediately had an answer- Blue Morpho Butterfly. I know it sounds a little silly, but let me explain.

From a purely symbolic standpoint the Blue Morpho butterfly goes through several life cycles taking different forms and emerging stronger and more atune to its environment. The delicate nature of a butterfly can also be viewed as how delicate and perishable we as humans are. The purpose of a butterfly is to pollenate and assist in the reproduction of plants, a truly noble endeavor in itself. Aside from being large and brightly colored the Blue Morpho has the ability to close its wings, perch on a branch and disappear completely disguising itself as nature's backdrop. The ability to make such a commanding presence and the ability to completely vanish are both equally difficult to accomplish.

We haven't even begun to discuss the flying aspect of a butterfly. Who wouldn't want to fly? The butterfly has also been mentioned in many ancient texts. For example, the Aztecs believed that the fiercest warriors came back to life as butterflies. How about that for turning gender norms on its head. Oh ya, and while I was down in the jungle of Chiapas and visiting Mayan ruins I saw many of these amazing creatures, and even had a close encounter of the Morpho kind. This picture is of my hand and was taken in June of 2010 at the Tonina Mayan ruins, this Blue Morpho decided it wanted to make contact with me.


I don't know if I would modify my response according to my situation/surroundings. I think it applies to any situation- an animal that continually transforms into beauty and takes flight works for me.

I also wanted to put up links to my prior work:

This was the second film I made- Root Awakening. It focuses on an educational community garden in a low-income high density area of Orange County, California. There is a lack of green space in this urban setting, and much of the immigrant population have little access to healthy food. This community garden allows for older generations to share agricultural knowledge with younger ones. The class was two semesters and we had Sony HD cameras and used FinalCut Pro for editing. I was the cinematographer for both of these films.

Root Awakening 22min36sec
http://vimeo.com/10369251



This was my first film, much lower quality. It was filmed with a handheld camera and edited in iMovie. This was Cal State Long Beach's first ever attempt at Visual Anthropology, and was completed in only one semester. We won an award for this film- best film by undergraduates. It is about a dog park in Costa Mesa, California and the space issues faced by dog owners.

Bark Park 6min40sec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtWXjoqZrgc