"And when the clothes are strewn, don't be afraid of the room.
Touch the fullness of her breast, feel the love of her caress.
She will be your living end,
she will be your living end,
she will be your living end..."
January 9 marks the 41st anniversary of the discovery of the Mountain of Butterflies, the breathtaking wintering destination for millions of migrating monarchs. Protected as the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, the property, located about 60 miles northwest of Mexico City at 10,000 feet above sea level, is home to most of the monarch population in North America between the months of October and March.
Prior to the discovery, the migration of the butterflies had been shrouded in mystery. The first citizen scientists in Mexico, Ken Brugger and his Mexican wife Catalina Aguado, spent two years searching in the mountains west of Mexico City before finally coming upon millions of butterflies on the border of the States of Mexico and Michoacan in 1975. Brugger and Aguado were part of a massive volunteer effort led by Canadian zoologist Dr. Fred Urquhart and his wife, Norah. Announcing the discovery in the August 1976 National Geographic, Dr. Fred Urquhart wrote:
"I gazed in amazement at the sight. Butterflies — millions upon millions of monarch butterflies! They clung in tightly packed masses to every branch and trunk of the tall, gray-green oyamel trees. They swirled through the air like autumn leaves and carpeted the ground in their flaming myriads on this Mexican mountainside.
Breathless from the altitude, my legs trembling from the climb, I muttered aloud, ‘Unbelievable! What a glorious, incredible sight!’"
An information page for the 2012 film Flight of the Butterflies describes the backdrop of the discovery:
"Fred and Norah founded the Insect Migration Association (known today as Monarch Watch), enlisting thousands of volunteers across North America to tag hundreds of thousands of butterflies in order to track their migration route. In 1975, this association ultimately helped Dr. Urquhart determine where millions of butterflies migrated – the remote Transvolcanic Belt of central Mexico."
Long before the discovery, the location was very much a part of local culture, featuring in local legends in the area around the Michoacán and Mexico State borders. Five years after its official discovery, Mexican President Jose Lopez Portillo designated the area a national park. It went through several classification changes until 2008, when UNESCO finally named the area a World Heritage site.
Residents of the area, known as Mazahuas, have been in the region for centuries. The arrival of the butterflies coincides with the local Day of the Dead celebrations, which begin on Halloween, October 31, an end on November 2.
The millions upon millions of monarchs that fly south from states such as California and Texas settle in oyamel and pine trees. This pressure on the trees causes the branches to sag, while the brown wood appears orange. Locals have said that when the weather warms up as spring arrives, the butterflies take flight. They do so in such numbers that the sound of millions of flapping wings is reminiscent of light rain.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in February 2015 released an alarming report saying that 970 million monarchs had disappeared since 1990, a 90 percent population decline. The monarch massacre was blamed in part on herbicides that decimate milkweed, the plant that hosts monarch eggs and provides food for the monarch caterpillar. Fish and Wildlife announced an initiative to “Save the Monarch”; go here to see how you can help.
A study by the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County said that the migration of the butterflies to Mexico may be an “endangered phenomenon.” Prominent monarch conservation researcher Lincoln Brower told St. Louis Public Radio in 2014, “The species will not go extinct. But if you think about this migration, it’s a unique biological phenomenon. And that phenomenon could go extinct.”
the three goddesses who preside over the birth and life of humans. Each person's destiny was thought of as a thread spun, measured, and cut by the three Fates: Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. "the Fates will decide"
synonyms: the weird sisters; the Parcae, the Moirai, the Norns; ‘Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos’
.,
I said to the Unknown, “Thy will be done, not mine.”
Then it was as if the Unknown smiled and said, “But thy will is my will. This I tell to all that ask.”
It came to me then that the complete denial of self I had envisaged, was vanity. For that will considered all wills, and prompted each heart that offered itself, with a thought for others, seeing that the will of each, was to the better received by the world. In the end, the Unknown whispered to my heart, “Therefore, be considerate.”
“I’m lying on the moon,
my dear, I’ll be there soon.
It’s a quiet and starry place,
time’s we’re swallowed up.
In space we’re here,
a million miles away.
There’s things I wish I knew,
there’s no thing I’d keep from you.
It’s a dark and shiny place,
but with you my dear,
I’m safe.
And we’re a million miles away.”
–The Moon Song, Karen O and Ezra Koenig
i heard my name in the sounds around me upon waking,
an echo in the cadance of breath.
i want to hide behind closed doors,
where only the silence of the room knows me.
It was a beautiful day and enchantment is alive in the air here, the mountains speak their own language and one must be still and silent to decipher it. I felt the tug of sadness only momentarily; a slight flutter in my heart that works its way up to my throat and then in the corners of my eyes. I miss my loved ones, I do; but that feeling of longing is replaced with a feeling of duty to myself. A feeling that I am precisely where life requires me to be. And in planting seeds here I will blossom one day only to scatter my own seeds to the wind. I will create a change so powerful that I will inspire hope to those who yearn for its presence the most... And the change begins with me, right here, right now.
"It doesn't matter what people tell you. It doesn't matter what they might say. Sometimes you have to leave home. Sometimes, running away means you're headed in the exact right direction."
Mother moon in Cancer during the early morning of December 25 (Christmas Day) encourages us to get in touch with our inner goddess to create a loving environment of acceptance, nourishment, and togetherness as we say goodbye to 2015 and proceed to 2016. By keeping hope and the promise of abundance in our hearts, during this holiday season and beyond, will remind ourselves of how far we have come and how much we have to look forward to in the new year ahead.
"I give the thing power firstly by acknowledging its presence & then I give it life by discussing its existence with others.
I become offended when it is not acknowledged in the same way, to which it actually takes on a life of its own because it feeds upon the residue of my emotions (rage, misery, passion, etc). It becomes self-fulfilling in this way.
'All the stars may shine a-bright, all the clouds may be white.
But when you smile, oh how I feel so good, that I can hardly wait to hold you,
enfold you. Never enough. Render your heart to me, all mine you have to be.'
--Portishead, 'All Mine'
capture
:
“What did my fingers do before they held him? What did my heart do, with its love?"
--Sylvia Plath, "Three Women: A Poem for Three Voices" Collected Poems
The body is a place of violence. Wolf teeth, amputated hands. Cover yourself with a cloak of leaves, a cloak of a thousand furs, a paper dress. The dark forest has a code. The witch sometimes dispenses advice, sometimes eats you for dinner, sometimes turns your brother to stone.
You will become a canary in a castle, but you'll learn plenty of songs. Little girl, watch out for old women and young men. If you don't stay in your tower you're bound for trouble. This too is code. Your body is the tower you long to escape,
and all the rotted fruit your babies. The bones in the forest your memories. The little birds bring you berries. The pebbles on the trail glow ghostly white.
On a great occasion you may witness a sight so beautiful, too beautiful for words, and you feel an overwhelming sensation that somehow you got it right... That life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hands, that the circumstances in which you currently find yourself are curiously preordained and therefore just right. That you are exactly where you are destined to be. And it is clear that you should not question, but only move forward, one foot ahead of the other, to the path that lies directly in front of you. Don't look back now.
"The lunatic is in my head.
The lunatic is in my head.
You raise the blade,
you make the change,
you rearrange me til I'm sane.
You lock the door,
and throw away the key.
There's someone in my head,
but it's not me."
-- Pink Floyd, from Dark Side of the Moon
