Butterfly wings on the forest floor

This #thankyouthursday, I am grateful for butterfly wings on the forest floor.

Yesterday I joined my son’s preschool class for one of their weekly forest walks. The timing was inconvenient and I was worrying about work but I went anyway and I am so glad.

I have been into the woods near my son’s preschool many times, but also not in a long time. There was a cloudy gray sky above the tree canopy, which seemed to make the bright green of the new leaves especially striking. The scene, I kept thinking, was vivid and verdant. I could hear birdsong and the chatter of small children but somehow it also felt quiet.

And then I noticed butterfly wings on the forest floor.

I noticed them because two preschoolers noticed them first. I was standing near a teacher, and she carefully plucked a papery wisp from one child’s hand and exclaimed her recognition. “Oh, yes! Butterfly wings! We found so many of these last year.”

“We have only found two,” said the other child.

“True,” the teacher replied, “but maybe you’ll find more if you keep looking.”

Yeah right, I privately thought. The brown mottled butterfly wings looked just like dead leaves, which blanketed the forest floor.

Less than a minute later the first child shrieked in triumph. She’d found another wing.

I thought about how often I’ve heard how caterpillars turn into butterflies, how many times I have taken comfort in the metaphor of transition, the knowledge that within a cocoon, a changing creature must first dissolve before it emerges as something new.

No one really mentions that butterflies die, too.

And when they do, their wings can separate from their bodies and float to forest floors, where they stay astonishingly intact, at least for a while. Long enough to be discovered by discerning and curious eyes. Long enough to light up faces, to create delight, to be treasured and tucked away for further appreciation.

Love > fear,
Christina