Butterflies and Hummingbirds

Apparently, my mother liked to watch hummingbirds. She put sugar water in the feeder on her patio and throughout the spring and summer, the little gaffers showed up in droves to get hyped on empty calories. When my sisters and I cleared out her room last March, a Christmas ornament in the shape of a hummingbird lay on her dresser. It now lies on the end table next to her photo in the Ocean Room. Yes, I pinched it and now, whenever I see a hummingbird, I think of Mum.

When she passed away a year ago this very day, butterflies were everywhere. ’Twas the season, after all – summer had just begun and the world was bright with life in all its vibrant glory. What a magical time she chose in which to make her transition. In many cultures, butterflies and hummingbirds symbolize transformation, whether it’s a massive change in this life or moving from this one to the next. I suppose it’s natural to see significance in a hummingbird hovering outside the window when Mum has been the subject of conversation, or to startle at a butterfly flitting over the lavender bush a heartbeat after she’s crossed my mind. Some might call it coincidence, but I don’t believe in coincidence. I believe in our ability to transcend dimensions with a thought. I think of Mum and she is here. I may not see her, I may not even feel her presence ... until I glance through the window and see that tiny bird pausing just long enough to catch my eye and make me wonder.

With love,

Squirrely

As soon as I woke up on Saturday morning, my mind started screaming. “What about this?” “What about that?” “How are you going to ... ?” “When are you going to ... ?” It was like being in bed with a hysterical toddler. Finally, I gave up and got up to discover Ter was already up for pretty much the same reason. Our individual issues might have differed, but the mental histrionics were identical.

I am grateful to her for many things, but our ongoing conversation—now in its thirty-somethingth year—is always in the top five. Quite simply, we talk. We share and sympathize and advise and caution and help each other to feel better because monsters are more easily faced with a wingman than by yourself, and sometimes just naming the beast to someone you trust will neutralize it.

Imagination is not always a good thing. Oh, those sparks of inspiration can pave the way to joy, happiness and creative climax. They can also drive me to the depths of despair. I don’t just tell stories, you see. I tell myself stories. I might be mildly anxious about something, but given too long a rein, my imagination can make it into a category five catastrophe.

It’s all about perspective.

A couple of weeks ago, Ter disappeared into the Ocean Room. She retreats to that room when seeking solace from the daily grind, the (real) toddler downstairs, the loud-mouthed roommate, and/or her own incredibly powerful intellect. After a while, I joined her for tea. We chatted a little, then she told me about the aforementioned perils of imagination running down a dark road. Turned out she’d been fretting a bit more than usual about something—okay, many things, but that’s how she rolls—and it had occurred to her that, since we each create our own reality, if she continued to indulge a particular line of thought, disaster was almost inevitable. Once checked, however, she was able to turn her imagination back toward the light. By the time I came into the room, she felt stronger and more positive about resolving what was bothering her.

Then she told me what the Universe had presented as an example to put it in perspective.

After mulling the imagination thing for a bit, she’d got up from her chair and glanced out the front window. It was late afternoon and the sun had moved behind the house, and the shadow she glimpsed crawling up the neighbours’ van was a honking huge critter that looked about to swallow the vehicle whole. What the hell is that? she thought, bug-eyed on adrenaline. Then she saw what cast the shadow:

It was a little squirrel, running up a tree.

Think about it.

Butterflies

I dreamed of butterflies, last weekend. My room was full of them, in all colours and sizes, on every surface with more coming through the window, and though my mind was squealing that “they’re bugs!”, I let them land where they wanted. Eventually, I was surrounded.

The next morning, I asked Ter what butterflies mean in spirit lore. Off the cuff, they represent transformation, transmutation, joy and beauty. Deeper research revealed that they herald change, purport lightness of being, living in the moment, freedom in general, that sort of thing. All good things, really.

While Ter was hunting the info online, I came in and read her the Zen calendar blurb for the day: “The butterfly counts not days but moments, and has time enough.”

Chills ensued. See, I’ve been struggling (no surprise) with the novel. It has moments of brilliance, but overall, it’s not working and I cannot figure out what the effing hell is wrong. It’s just not fun right now. In fact, it’s become painful to the point that Ter accused me of being weighed down by it. “You’re grim,” she said. “Let it go, will you?”

Well, I’ve committed to finishing it, so letting go is a nice idea, but once committed, I have real trouble admitting defeat. So during my bedtime meditation, I told the universe that I’m setting it aside and getting out of my own way, hoping to clear the path for another story to be told. Then the butterfly dream happened. Then the butterfly quote appeared. Seems kinda obvious to me … now.

After our morning tea discussion, I asked Ter, “Why didn’t I see this before?”

“Because you’re a Virgo!” she yelled.

Monkey Do

Watching A History of Scotland has Ter shaking her head. “We haven’t evolved,” she laments, referring to the ongoing struggle of one man, any man, for power over the masses. Be it a king, a clan or a whole country out to subjugate another, the contrast is ancient and eternal. Treachery and deceit are required qualifications to build an empire, and if strengthening oneself means cutting down everyone else, then we are indeed a failed experiment.

I did some lamenting myself, during one of my morning tea chats with a friend at work. The topic du jour was online bullying or hate crimes or something (there are so many to choose from that it’s easy to forget), and I remarked to my buddy that humans are the only animals in the kingdom who treat each other so cruelly, so wantonly, and with such perverse delight in the destruction of others.

“Oh, no,” she countered, “there’s a breed of monkey in (insert jungle here) that does the same thing. They hold kangaroo courts and beat the defendant to death.”

I guess that makes it all right, then. After all, why should we be better than the monkeys? We’re only supposedly more intelligent—oh, wait. That may be the problem. Intelligence is no indication of kindness, compassion, sympathy, empathy or any sort of emotional evolution. You can teach a monkey to communicate by pushing buttons—the simian form of texting—so maybe we aren’t any smarter and shouldn’t tout ourselves to be superior.

*sigh*