Sympathetic magic

Last week, Kiley and Dawn released one fully fledged monarch butterfly outside our Superior Avenue store. Its wings still slightly soft, its movements tentative, it landed on Dawn several times before taking flight. This past Sunday, orange and black velvety wings fluttered from Marcie's fingers into the urban jungle of the parking lot behind our Lee Road store. The remarkable thing about releasing monarchs is that they always seem to turn and look at you before they flutter off, their scratchy legs catching on the miniscule ridges of your skin. It's as if they are taking mental note of the being that gave them their freedom.

The last chrysalis of the summer is hanging inside a biscotti-jar-turned-butterfly-incubator at the Lee Road store. Luminescent emerald green, with metallic gold stripe and spots, it would look appropriate as an elegant pendant or ring in a jeweler's case. And it only gets more spectacular as the chrysalis skin turns transparent and the jet black, deep pumpkin orange and crisp white of the soon-to-be-wings shine through.

Marcie said she almost cried as the monarch flew off. Indeed, the first time I saw one hatch, I did cry. Inviting this incredibly delicate incarnation of life force into our lives proves to be a powerful demonstration of nature's intelligence. What sympathetic, seemingly magical transformation can the butterfly awaken in us?

"[This Principle] embodies the truth that there is always a Correspondence between the laws and phenomena of the various planes of Being and Life. As above, so below."