We sing and dance in praise of the butterfly— translucent blue, gilded wings, dances— all its life from orchid to cacao, ceiba to banana and fig, tying invisible strings that hold our home in the sky. --Ana Castillo, "A Amazônia está queimando"
photo credit: Erik Karits, Pixabay
Hello Lovelies—
Buckets of gratitude for reading A Woman’s Place Is In the Wild. I appreciate all of you who support these weekly meditations. I have been inspired by Stephanie Land who writes compellingly about getting paid for the words we put out into the world and for the work we do, particularly as women. So I’m asking you, if you can afford it. to please subscribe (for as little as $6/mo). Your financial support of the writing I am doing here helps me keep the lights on. I appreciate it.
This week, a reprieve.
The winds die down and the sun pops out and that impossibly blue Colorado sky returns. On the mountain, the thermometer reaches 60 degrees while down in Boulder, some 3000 feet below, temperatures leap into the low 70s and hoards of young bodies dip and sip on the banks of Boulder Creek.
I open windows and the French doors in the bedroom to let the spring chase stale winter air from the corners of the house. Then, I sit outside on the deck in the sharp angle of afternoon sun, and let my beyond pale winter-white legs reveal themselves at last.
The ground out back, a grassy expanse bordered by forest where foxes regularly lounge, is beginning to reveal itself, while the cascading beds out front are still piled high with crusted-over snow.
Although most of the trails through the woods that surround our house are still inaccessible, I feel the urge to visit them, ambling toward the route where River and I walked almost every day of his life on this mountain. Although Greg and I manage a weekly ramble elsewhere, I confess grief has prevented me from pointing my feet in this direction since River’s passing in February.
The earth here holds so much memory.
I walk the road first, noticing deer and moose tracks in the mud, a newly upended pine, thinking of River running up ahead or stopping to sniff a newly upturned part of the embankment. It does feel strange to walk alone, without a leash thrown around my neck or treats in my pocket, without my eye cast ahead for the roving dog.
I reach the woods, but they are still so thick with snow along much of my usual trail, so I decide to bushwhack parallel to the path across a neighbor’s more open property—what he calls “the farm,” a wild patch with a huge green house, an old stable, and a yurt.
Melting snow reveals patches of dun-colored earth, thick with hairy mold. If you look closely you’d see a kaleidoscope of browns and greys and tans: broken stems of grass and dried leaves mixed with dead pine needles and twigs and animal dander. The newly exposed ground carries its own intricate beauty.
I walk uphill toward the place where an aspen grove crowns a hill and count more newly fallen trees, remnants of last week’s wind. I only crash knee deep through snow once. The air smells of pine sap. Above, two chickadees call back and forth in their slide-whistle of a mating song. Fee bee, Fee bee.
I stand at the crest of the aspens and look over in the still snow-filled gulch where my path usually takes me. I haven’t put on the right shoes, nor do I want to post hole a path.
How many times have River and I climbed to the top of this hill from that very path?
Hundreds probably. I’d often let him hunt and wander while I lay on my back in the sun watching aspen limbs filter languorous and puffed summer clouds.
As I turn to wander back down the hill toward home, something black flutters across the hillside off to the right.
A Mourning Cloak. The first butterfly of spring.
Miraculous for its ability to hibernate through the long cold winter at 8600 feet by burrowing into the hollows of trees or beneath detritus on the forest floor.
I watch the small miracle with its velvety, yellow-tufted wings dotted with blue iridescent points glide over fallen trees and the snow-pocked ground. I watch it for as long as I can before it rises up and disappears.
The Mourning Cloak is named for the colors of its wings, but to me the sighting is neither sad nor somber. Instead a I feel a thrill of joy.
What beauty, this world.
Mourning Cloaks are said to represent rebirth and change. Change is certainly upon me in this new season of growth but it exists still as a question that has not yet been formed in my mind.
I think, instead, of the poet, Ana Castillo, who praises butterflies for
tying invisible strings
that hold our home in the sky.
Everything is connected—the decision to walk on this day, spring and the season of change, this butter fly, even the absence I feel. As I walk home, the sadness lifts.
A long time ago, I gathered this quote from Jack Kornfield’s book A Path with Heart:
Still will I gather beauty while I may.
For years, I had the quote written on ribbon draped over my alter. It helped me in the aftermath of the fire that burned my cabin and all of my things, in those years when the work of beginning again was heavy and cruel. For years I said I wanted to tattoo it on my forearm or wrist, a reminder of the way I want to live my life, of how, no matter what, my purpose is beauty, even in the most difficult times.
Thank you for reading.
Big love,
Karen
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I desperately need another book from you. And I walked with you in your grief for River. As always, stunning writing.
This is so beautiful Karen....as your writing always always is....