September means many things to me: back to school, football, hoodie sweatshirts, last-minute beach days, and most importantly, feeding the Monarchs as they come by from Canada on a trek back to S. America. Ever since my naturalist days in Kentucky, I've paid attention to perennials that attract butterflies, and as my last cherry tomatoes get picked, I love stopping by my summer lilacs, Buddleja davidii, to watch the orange and black wings feeding on the purple blooms, dodging bumble bees, wood nymphs and buckeyes as they juice up for their flight and long travel back home. It's an origin of three life cycles...every year the great grandkids return.
The bushes are loaded and I like to think I've done my part helping them on their way.
Starting in August to the last weeks of September, I know that I can look out my kitchen window and see the winged sprites slurping the energy they need in hopes they can make it to their final congregation in their Danau erippus fashion. On a good day, I can see 30 to 40 of them stopping by on the bushes, and for a little while I have a little hope.
In college, someone bought me a t-shirt with a caterpillar-question mark on the front, a cocoon at it's bottom, and a monarch on the back. There were no words. Just the three stages. And with that t-shirt, I had a philosophy of life.
Today is an important historical marker in world history (as most days eventually are), and I use my bushes to keep my attention on what matters most - not the idiocy of our species, but the miraculousness of others. Beauty is nice when we have it. It's simple, actually. Cathartic.
So, for today, I am focusing on them. Last year, this time, I kayaked to Charles Island and back, underneath swarms of Monarchs and with bluefish swimming alongside me. I arrived to find bald eagles sitting in a tree. It's a moment I want to cherish for life. Why? It was life. That, I'll never forget.
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