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"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’
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Posted by Leanna - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - 3:03pm
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.”
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Posted by Leanna - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - 11:58am
“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.
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Posted by Leanna - Saturday, January 2, 2016 - 11:54am
