This weekend my husband and I, along with two best friends, took a hike to a place so beautiful it seems not of this world. First of all, living in New Mexico, any forest that includes a lot of water is pretty darn magical. The Rio en Medio trail near Santa Fe is that, with rivers and waterfalls and greenery not seen anywhere else in the area. Secondly, there are transparent sheets of crystalline mica which adorn every rock wall. The high humidity in the rare green-belt ecosystem causes them to sparkle and shimmer, like a straight-up enchanted fairy wilderness. They flake off the rock cliffs, falling to the paths, so in places it looks like a trail made of diamonds. The tree cover is dense, dark and primordial; it feels more like the energy of the Black Forest in Germany than the typical sun-drenched landscape of the high-desert. Needless to say, we had an incredible four hours in the forest. What made it even more special were the butterflies. They were everywhere.
To add to the magic, a wondrous thing began happening deep within the forest; the butterflies were totally obsessed with my husband! They seemed to recognize a kindred spirit. Whatever their agenda we’ll never know, but they fell hard for my honey and it added to the enchantment of the day.
They followed him. They let him pick them up. They attached themselves to his back pack, his shirt, anything he’d allow. At times he just carried them along on his finger because that’s what they seemed to want. We spent a lot of time with our friends over the weekend, these friends we were hiking with. We had some pretty incredible conversations over the span of three days, one of them about the balance of masculine and feminine energy in each of us. It’s the right-brain/left-brain balance (sometimes battle) that we all carry.
When we as a species can learn to welcome all aspects of ourselves into our daily consciousness, when we no longer have to pretend that one is superior to another, masculine vs. feminine, maybe we can stop the abuses against Mother Nature in the name of conquest.
And maybe it starts with one man not afraid to love butterflies.
Beautiful imagery and insights! Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for being there, Lynn! 🙂 Love you!
I love this post – as you can only imagine. And you remember my butterfly story – which was also about integrating divine feminine vis-a-vis creativity. The swallowtail you have in the pic above is a female tiger swallowtail. Even more perfect for this post! The giant is mostly black with yellow broadway lights across the back. That morning cloak is divine as well!!! Those are some spectacular species you came across. WOW!!!
That jewel-toned beauty is an Arizona Sister (I am loving the double-feminine implications in both these butterflies – not only did he manifest a butterfly but a female in one species and one named Sister with the other – wow!) and is found in riparian zones like you were hiking.