sun infuses their wings and in a blaze of golden brilliance the transformed souls of the ancients rise over the cool forest floor.
They whisper past us— a purposeful stream down the mountain. Once again noble warriors, infused with the power of the sun, are transmigrated from a distant past to a new generation.
Indeed, they are the embodiment of the sun. Each, who has made this journey through countless generations, pulses with the fire of life— a fire needed for the odyssey that will eventually return their great-grandchildren to this Olympus at El Rosario— a cycle that mimics the birth and death of the earth itself.
Fluttering upwards, surfing on the wind, sipping nectar and, above all, mating and creating new generations, these winged warriors journey steadily north until, in April, they find their destination. There, they again participate in the endless loop of life— butterfly to egg to larva to chrysalis and back to butterfly. Toward the end of summer, the spirits begin to long for their ancestral home. Slowly, inexorably, the Monarchs gather and the journey south begins anew. By November more than 100 million will alight on the same trees on the same mountain their forebears left eight months before. A pre-Hispanic poet said:“ They are flower songs, they are butterflies of song.” Another said:“ Sweet-smelling flowers are scattering among the butterflies. All come from the region of mystery.”
A butterfly lands ever so lightly on my cheek. Its wings caress my eyelash, and I think of the whimsical idyl, of the flowers scattering among the butterflies and it seems that the ancient poet had dreamed it too. With the gentle velvet touch on my face, I watch the Monarchs scatter from this region of mystery, each truly a song to the flowers.
The ancients believed in the birth and death of the earth itself— an endless cycle. The Monarch lives its cycle and we live ours beneath a circling sun. From life to death and ashes to ashes, the roots of all living things are tied together— interlocking spirals revolving through eternity.
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