To Risk for a Butterfly

"Yellow decided to risk for a butterfly."

-Trina Paulus, Hope for the Flowers

 

It's been almost four months since I've posted anything here or even opened a draft, but sometimes silence is needed for words to come, and I'm excited to be writing again.  Combined with the eclipse and a new school and a new job, it's almost like a new chapter is opening up, and I hope that, as the moon passes over the sun tomorrow, there will be a shift that allows the universe to open up to better, happier, more peaceful things for everybody.
When I was little, my great-grandmother shared a story with me about one of her dear friends, Janet.  Janet had a deep appreciation for all of the beauty of the natural world--especially rainbows. When she was in her fifties, she spent a day with her mother and my great-grandmother.  It was a perfect day, but during dinner that evening, Janet began choking and couldn't breathe.  "She died," my great-grandmother told me. "But the next morning, there was a rainbow."
I've held that story in my heart with me for so long that I can find its essence in all of my writing, and I kept thinking of it when we were in Santa Fe this July to honor my great-grandmother. On the day of her ceremony, we were all outside, and it began raining.  Not enough to force us indoors, but enough for a rainbow, and I took it as a sign of my great-grandmother being there, with us, watching over us. (I know that not everyone is drawn to spirituality/religion/etc., but for me personally, I've found great comfort in a belief in spirits and ghosts and saints.)

"The Lotus and the Rose" by Dixie Gladstone

As for how butterflies figure into this . . . recently, I've struggled with a lot of anxiety.  My mum has been trying to help me with it, and I've been coming to the realization that it's okay to "let go." "Letting go" doesn't mean not working hard or giving up ambitions and commitment.  Rather, it's a way of opening up to trust and acceptance.  By relaxing ourselves and opening ourselves up instead of shutting down/closing off/becoming rigid, we're actually much more effective than we are when we live in fear and angst and stiffness.  My grandmother and my great-grandmother both believed in this, and on a difficult Wednesday a few weeks ago, I was at work and found a pile of "giveaway books" sitting on a dusty stairwell.  Stuffed beneath several math textbooks was a copy of Hope for the Flowers, Tina Paulus' beautiful, poignant allegorical picture book that's "partly about life . . . partly about revolution . . . and lots about hope . . . for adults and others (including caterpillars who can read)".  My mum used to have a copy of Hope for the Flowers herself, but she gave it away to a friend at a time when they really needed its love and optimism, and finding it felt like a meant-to-be miracle because it's not the easiest little book to come across. To avoid giving away too much of the plot, Hope for the Flowers is about caterpillars and their lives as they journey to become butterflies, and it makes a brilliant point about the courage it takes to become a butterfly.  I mean, think about it: you spend x amount of time as a caterpillar, and you get pretty comfortable, and then all of a sudden you're supposed to wrap yourself in a cocoon and put all your faith in the universe that you'll come out alright on the other end of the process. Anyone who has ever seen a dried up chrysalis with a dead caterpillar inside knows that getting into a chrysalis and hoping for the best doesn't always work out for our poor caterpillar friends; they really have to be brave.  But becoming a butterfly is worth the risks involved, isn't it?  If you want to make changes--real, remarkable, lasting changes that will make your life better--a  little risk is involved.  I'm not saying step into a place that is dangerous or that will hurt you just to "change" (there's a difference between "uncomfortable" and "harmful"), but try stepping out of your comfort zone sometimes.  I need to hear this just as much as/sometimes even more than anyone else does, and, as the school year picks up, I'm doing my best to embrace the opportunity to let go and open up. Take a deep breath.  You can do this.  You, too, can "risk for a butterfly."

<3 Frances