October 11 – It was a warm October day in Northwest Wisconsin. I saw a monarch butterfly on cosmos. It was a male. I saw the trademark of two black phermones on hind wings. The butterfly was sipping nectar. I went up to it while the butterfly was engrossed in sipping sweet flower dew. Lightly grabbing its closed wings I was going to pick it up. I noticed how strong its little legs were clinging to the flower. Instead I bent down and kissed its wings and then let go. It immediately flew off. I wish the butterfly would have stayed with me a little longer. He probably thought I was a predator and he escaped.
October 12 – I saw a young monarch on the property in Minong. I was starting to worry because I didn’t see any other floral blooms except for a few African daisies. I knew if the temperature dropped, the butterflies would have a time leaving if the temperature dropped below 55 degrees Fahrenheit. It didn’t appear that the butterflies were part of the migration south simply because they looked so fresh and colorful. I suspected they were late emerged monarchs. We did have at least a glorious week of extended warm temperatures. It was a perfect Indian Summer week.
October 13 – The day is cold. Temperature today was 56 degrees Fahrenheit. Tonight it is dropping to 40 degrees Fahrenheit. I brought the film Blue Butterfly to the Spooner Health Center and shared the film in the nursing home activity room which is attached to the hospital. I have a lot of old friends there and I don’t speak about age as much as I speak about some of the residents because I knew them in their healthier years about in community. Many of them know me as butterfly woman. Some even know about the Monarch Butterfly Habitat in Shell Lake that our nonprofit environmental organization created in 2008.
I want to speak about the film and some of the reactions of the elders. One nurse’s aide came in to take one of the residents out of the room. She spoke up and questioned, “Why is it you always want to take me away when I am enjoying myself?” She did make her point known. She said, “I want to watch the movie.” The nurse’s aide let her be. I can’t tell you what a delight it was for me to realize the film was reaching her inner child. She wasn’t the only one.
Jackie would laugh at different situations in the film and ask, “Do you know what butterfly that was?” Of course she was referring to some exotic species that I had never seen even though I lived in the Amazon jungle for months on end when I lived in Peru and Ecuador.
The point of the movie is to show how positive thought can manifest into healing. It is more than this too. I don’t want to spoil the movie for you if you haven’t seen it yet. I recommend the film for those who listen and act from heart center. A review of the film follows: A dramatic adventure about courage, redemption and love being filmed in the rain forests of Costa Rica, and in Montreal. The movie was produced in 2004.
Next month I will bring in an antique platter that has the blue morph under glass. I didn’t bring it today because it was raining out. My sister Ronnie found it in an antique shop in Massachusetts and sent it to me after my husband died. Butterflies are magic and the symbol of transformation.
Be well insectamonarca friends where ever you are.
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