SYNCHRONICITY? COINCIDENCE? SERENDIPITY?

                                                                 WHICH IS IT?

Looking over some of my recent blogs I noticed that my favorite topic seems to have been insects--Is it coincidence then or maybe a case of synchronicity that while reading a book on the Colors of Provence (Michel Biehn) the seemingly unrelated subject of the "Traditions, Recipes, and Home Decorations from the South of France" there were several passages related to the silkworm and in an earlier chapter a fairly long discussion of the metamorphosis of the Cicada from eggs through  many transformations until it emerges as a cicada
   

   Cicada Cocoon                                                

                                                         Cicada Hatch

                                                                 Cicada

                       where it has a very brief 2-3 weeks making music to attract a female--

 After reading these pages and realizing that I had blogged about caterpillars, moths and a butterflies several times, I started thinking that perhaps it was a case of synchronicity, or was it just coincidence? My first step was to look for a definition of synchronicity--One definition states synchronicity is: the simultaneous occurrence of events that appear significantly related but have no discernible casual connection--further browsing brought me to several articles about Carl Jung who it seems coined the term and definition of synchronicity; he relates the story of a patient who was so logical and rigid in her thinking that she was so caught up in her head, she made no progress in her therapy--in a session with her she talked about a dream she had the night before about someone giving her a golden scarab, a valuable piece of jewelry--at that moment Jung reported that he heard a tapping on the office window and when he opened the window a scarabaeid beetle flew in**-- a situation he defined as "Synchronicity"--

I went down the list of articles under the term of synchronicity and found post by Paul Levy entitled AWAKEN THE DREAM: Catching the Bug of Synchronicity!!Some would argue that it was just a case of coincidence that I blogged several times about insects and came across references in some of my reading of silkworms, cicadas and scarab beetles-- As I am examining all these possible explanations I decided to consider another, that of Serendipity: "the act of finding something valuable or delightful when you are not looking for it" ??  I guess I am no closer to figuring out if it is a case of any of these, but it certainly gives me something to ponder

**Jung caught the beetle in his hand and gave it to the woman stating: "Here is your scarab"

LIFE CYCLE

                                   

A few days ago my Granddaughter and I were in the kitchen when she exclaimed "Gross! There is a disgusting bug on the window"! I turned around to see a big American Dagger Moth on the outside screen--not long ago I had seen the Fuzzy Yellow Caterpillar that would eventually become a moth and it started me wondering, what came first, the chicken or the egg? Since caterpillars can "over winter" in a cocoon stage,  I didn't really think that this moth could  have come from that particular caterpillar so quickly, but did that mean that this moth emerged from the cocoon in the spring? Some research on the Internet told me that adult moths lay eggs, which "hatch" to become a caterpillar which will later cocoon and emerge as the moth and the cycle starts all over again--but how could I see a caterpillar in late August or September and a few weeks later see the adult moth?The answer is more complicated that I imagined, can vary by species and even within a species--it can also be affected by latitude, the time of the year and weather conditions and to make it even a little more bewildering, there can be one or more "flights" (a generation of adults), a spring flight and a summer flight--a summer flight can "overwinter" and emerge in the spring!!  I think that this moth was from a summer flight, but then??? I am not sure! The more I looked at the information I found on an Internet search, the less sure I became!

While all this is not very important given the state of our world, it reassuring to know (with a little caution) that you can find the answers to just about anything you want to know just by typing a question or word or statement into a search engine--I am not even going to relate what I found out about the sex life of the Dragonfly! Let's just say that 50 Shades of Grey has nothing on the Dragonfly--