River of souls

Day 3: Monarchs nectaring at El Rosario Sanctuary

I went on pilgrimage to a sacred site. In search of the winter home of my beloved Monarch butterflies.

Monarchs fill me with wonder and delight. They carry happiness on their wings. In summer, whenever I glimpse the flash of orange wings through a window, I rush out into the garden, like a child, to greet them. 

Entranced, I watch them circle and float on radiant wings. I pay close attention to which plants they prefer, how long they stay to sip nectar, whether or not they visit the milkweeds. When they leave, if they return.

Like everything we open our hearts to, the Monarchs speak to us, and teach us. 

Monarchs and their epic journey south speak to the wild, abundant, mysterious presence of life on this being we call Earth. 

Some see Monarchs as a symbol of transformation, and of the soul. Mexican peoples have believed for centuries that Monarch butterflies represent the souls of their ancestors who are returning to visit them, when they arrive around November 2, on Dia de Muertos. Children of the sun, they call them. 

A caterpillar miraculously dissolving, then reassembling itself inside the chrysalis to emerge as a butterfly: this is one mystery.

The billion Monarchs who fly for two months to arrive in the fir forests of Michoacán have never been there before. Yet, somehow, each migrating generation knows where to fly — how to find this precise place in this wide Earth — where the guardian fir trees protect them from intense heat of the sun, rare snow storms, and cold winds that would otherwise kill them, and end their ancestral migration. 

Another mystery. Monarch upon Monarch, mystery upon mystery. 

Day 1: El Rosario Sanctuary

When the sun came out, then we witnessed the most spectacular sight: thousands upon thousands of Monarchs left their trees and took to the air. I no longer had to look at them through binoculars. They were here, zooming just above our heads as we walked down the mountain.

I walked silently, in a dream, amid the surreal magic of tens of thousands of Monarch butterflies winging around me, pouring down the mountain like a river of joy. 

A river of souls, speaking truths to us.

Whispering that our souls are alight. 

That our souls co-exist among millions of souls — all striving, all invisibly connected past present and future by a great web of life that flows from and around this planet into the universe. 

That our souls understand mysteries that our minds do not. 

That our lives are ephemeral, yet beautiful beyond words. 

Day 2: Sierra Chincua Monarch Sanctuary 

See now through my eyes...

Here, resting inside these many mysteries, millions and millions of Monarchs crowd thickly over the fir needles. 

Large clusters of butterflies cling to branches, literally bending them downward with their collective weight. They roost on trunks among the lichens and mosses like dense ruffles of stiff taffeta. Like rust-colored leaves that never fall to the ground.

I saw this. This, I saw with my own eyes. 

The sight was so vast, so strange, and beautiful, and astounding, and overwhelming, that it was difficult to encompass the reality, even as I stood looking at it. 

I looked, and looked, and looked, at the millions of Monarchs roosting in the silent, enchanted trees, or flying very high, black against the bright sky, and it still did not seem completely real. 

On the third day, when the temperature rose, and the sun came out, that was the day the Monarchs came to greet us, their relatives. Then they began to fly in great numbers, accompanying us along the path, flying just above and alongside us as we walked down the mountain. 

Are you my soul guide? I whispered as they flew past. Are you the psychopomp on my journey through the Underworld? 

Then, at last we came to a place where there was an opening, a corridor among the fir trees. And that is where I experienced the wonder, of a river of monarchs, a river of souls: the loveliest sight I have ever seen. 

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The journey: I flew across North America, rode on a bus for three hours, up and up into the Sierra Madre Mountains, to the small town of Angangueo. The next day, we took a 20-minute drive in pick-up trucks to the sanctuary entrance, then half-an-hour on horseback up the mountain, followed by a 15-minute hike to the viewing area.

Long shadows

What do you look toward, when you are fearful, sad or anxious?

On days when you have to make yourself do too many tedious things that you do not want to do, but since you are an adult, you are expected to do them anyway?

On days when you fear your life is going to waste, or your path has disappeared, or that this is all there is and it is not enough?

The only thing I can think of to do right now is to look outside of myself and into the garden.

Nokomis Naturescape, Minneapolis

That's it. My one answer. I feel a little dose of joy each day when I see the first butterflies and bees of the day nourishing themselves on flowers I planted there, for the express purpose of feeding them.

In my very mundane life, that feels like a gift and a wonder to me. To look up and catch a glimpse of an orange-winged treasure flashing in the golden light, gliding down from that vast summer sky to circle, climb, circle again to finally land on the perfect flower from which to drink, on this infinitesimally small bit of planet earth.

All the more precious since their population is threatened by humans, as everything on this earth is threatened by humans, except for the very occasional things that are helped by humans.

Like the butterflies who visit my tiny waystation, and I hope many many other waystations as they make their way to Mexico.

So heartfelt thanks to the butterflies for bringing a smile to my lips and un-furrowing my furrowed brow for a moment each day during the many weeks of summer. They feel like companions to me.

Gratitude to the goldfinches, who now hide in the tall serviceberry next to the house and make speedy garden forays, gripping with their feet the seedheads of hyssop, coneflowers and bergamot as they eat one tiny, pointed seed at a time.


[no photo, but they are a darting bright yellow and olive yellow, with handsome black and white stripes]


Oh bringing love love love to drive off despair and violence of every sort, disrespect and destruction, leaf blowers and the weeping of the world. I am far too small to feel all that love...but the right size for the timely presence of a butterfly to still fill me with joy.

And there are lakes, and clouds, and wind-blown blue days that smell like the wildness of creation.

Earthly gifts are the ones that have weight and substance. That feel real. That feed us, the people.

(Not humans—the people. Humans are biological constructs, the people are body-and-spirit. This is what I've just decided.)

Earthly gifts are sacred gifts, and oh how this world needs more protectors of the sacred.

What if I pared away all the parts of my life that feel like junk food.

That deplete rather than replenish life and health. Would it help?

What would be left?

I don't know. Where is the center? What holds it all together?

I read about Hope Bourne, a wild soul of a writer who moved to Exmoor at the age of 52 to live off the land in an old caravan. She wrote:

“For money, you sell the hours and the days of your life, which are the only true wealth you have. You sell the sunshine, the dawn and the dusk, the moon and the stars, the wind and the rain, the green fields and the flowers, the rivers and the sweet fresh air. You sell health and joy and freedom.” 

Everything in me responds to this. It is what I most fear! My heart nearly breaks just to see it put into words, the commodification of our lives and the great loss of our birthright: the light of day, freedom to move, to experience the life of the planet.

But I almost feel crazy sometimes, because I do not know anyone else who feels this way, and our society does not support feeling this way either—far, far from it.

What this society supports is work and work and work, and feel grateful that you have a job, don't expect more than work, and you are of no value and irrelevant as an individual unless you are working.

And even THAT doesn't make you of value, unless you are rich. Because those are the people a money society values.

I feel the grief of this so keenly at this moment. Our lives are commodities that only we can value at their true worth. But once we know their true value, how do we live as if we honor that?

How do we get our lives back?

What—or who—do we have to leave behind in order to do it?

Windows wide

We beckon summer winds and rain to enter our house through windows that stay open night and day, even when it rains. Not wanting to shut out the cool, fresh air the rainfall brings, I'd rather mop up afterward than close the storm windows.

This small thunderstorm poured down for eight minutes just before sunset, leaving dappled clouds and a neon rainbow in its wake.

Other sunsets sing a softer song, slipping by in a silence broken only by a cardinal calling me to come out and fill the bird feeder, it is dinnertime.

On Independence Day, we biked over to Historic Fort Snelling, only ten minutes from here. The old fort was built high on a bluff over the place where the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers meet. The landscape still is a place sacred to the Dakota Indians.

The Minnesota River has flooded the whole river valley, and is wide as a lake. It laps at the lower branches of full-grown trees. I picture carp and catfish swimming through the branches upon which birds and squirrels usually perch, exploring a strangely leafy new world.

This is one channel of the Mississippi:

Back to the fort. We watched a mock battle between the Americans and British from the War of 1812, climbed the Round Tower, wandered through the store, schoolhouse and smithy, asking questions of the costumed interpreters. (That is my role. I always ask a bunch of questions, whatever the situation. Lee just soaks up the knowledge.)

I tried to capture the feeling of these low-chroma still lifes, lit only by natural light falling through the wavy glass. The simplicity and integrity of the objects and the materials from which they are wrought brought me such a feeling of satisfaction: Iron. Wood. Brick. Ink. Paper. Tin.

I like the variety and shapes of them; each unique, handmade, fashioned for usefulness.

Each also laden with a long story in human history, each given a simple name. (Bowl, from which human persons eat. Bucket, in which we carry water. Barrel, in which food is stored through long winters. Bellows. Chair. Plate. Spoon. Latch.)

After a picnic lunch from the food truck, it was time to bike home, on a path that ran through swaths of waving grasses and wildflowers.

Out there, in this field? This is where the chokecherries are putting down roots.

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A monarch butterfly flitted by the porch window yesterday and out I rushed, just in time to see her touch down on one of the butterfly weeds in the butterfly garden. An affirmation, I thought. "Certified Wildlife Habitat" is not very meaningful without the wildlife, after all. But now my humble plot has been awarded the Butterfly Seal of Approval.

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There comes a time each July when summer takes a fierce turn, and open windows do more to heat the house than cool it.

So it was today. A hot, humid wind gusted from the south. Overnight the air, heavy with moisture, wilted a couple of greeting cards tucked around a window frame in my room, making them droop upon themselves like plucked daisies.

As the morning progressed, Stazi Lu deserted her window perch and retreated to the basement to find a cooler spot for napping.

Juni trotted over every time I cracked open the refrigerator, poking her head in the door, ready to climb in and take her chances.

And this northern girl, who loves nothing more than a cool, crisp day in the 60s, said UNCLE.

So Lee lugged up the air conditioner from the basement.

(A ritual chore always carried out when temperature plus dewpoint add up to "steambath of the damned." O noble husband, Keeper of the Coolness and Bringer Home of Ice Cream, we thank you.)

Summer, you keep being summer. Keep shining that golden sunset light through my west windows, open or closed. Keep bushing out the butterfly flowers and feeding the meadow grasses.

We shall rest in the shade, stirring only when the sun sinks to the horizon, then take to the streets at dusk like Italians, the better to admire your golden-edged clouds, your gentle evening breezes that ruffle our skirts about our legs softly, like a goodnight caress.