For me butterflies represent rebirth, resurrection, transfiguration, or even reincarnation. We are all changing. I am not the same person I was a few years ago; not even a few months ago. Everything we observe and experience changes us in little or profound ways. We go through tiny revolutions of thought and feeling until we have evolved into sometimes entirely different sorts. Our basic essence, our core beliefs of wickedness and good may remain unaltered; but how we perceive ourselves and how we present ourselves to others constantly changes. The truer your observations and the more unabashed your experiences gauges the levels of yourself you shall discover and what kind of person you might truly be. And often you won't particularly like what you have found.

In this painting butterflies represent nature and the possibility of creation and rebirth of spirit. Bullets represent destruction and stand as the opposite of natural creation. The words Not and Lies are a double-entendre that represents how we should be honest with ourselves that destruction, that violence, that war is not the answer and that rebirth and the embracement of nature and creation are. We teach our children that violence begets violence. When you strike another they will strike you back, or later strike someone else. We tell our children that violence does not solve anything and that it is never the answer.

The United States of America has troops stationed in over 135 different nations, some for over fifty years. We spend roughly the equivalent of the entire remainder of the world on a military which can only truly be compared to the armies of Rome in its degree and scope. Edward Gibbon wrote, in his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, that Rome "endeavored to convince mankind that the Roman power, raised above the temptation of conquest, was actuated only by the love of order and justice." Now the U.S. does engage in massive and wondrous deeds of relief, charity, and donation. But we also give money and arms to countries in conflict and crisis and all of our charity is accompanied by military boots on the ground. Preemptive Strike, Tactical Military Attack, and Collateral Damage are all that many countries in the world know from or of us. Imagine if we closed all of our bases and brought home all of our soldiers? Imagine if we never gave guns and military aid to anyone else? Imagine if our entire foreign policy consisted of giving nothing but food, medicine and agricultural and industrial aid to the world? Imagine if every child in the world's vision of us was not a soldier with a gun in his hand, but a package of food, a blanket, or a vaccine or aspirin; with a little American flag printed upon it. Maybe even a little American flag with a smily face printed in the middle? Why would a child like that ever want to grow up to attack us?

We could change ourselves and the world if we wanted to. Violence begets violence. That is not a lie. Not Bullets, Butterflies.