Born Free.... Or at least set free pretty soon thereafter.

Milkweed in the 1st and Elm Garden

Resilience is a funny thing....  You learn that lesson in gardening and it shows up in the strangest of places.  Sometimes I feel that much of my adult life has been lived in survival mode - that I have had to be (exhaustively so...) resilient.  And, I don't really think of it as a pretty thing.  It feels from the inside just a brutal, dark, and lonely thing.  

Of course, most of your garden is set up for survival mode.  Even the way seeds are designed enables them to grow in the harshest of conditions.  But, in our garden it isn't just the plants that have a singular goal and the potential to have it tough....  We are a "Monarch Way-Station".  What that means is that we are officially a garden which contains what is needed for Monarch butterflies to set down, eat, and reproduce.  The biggest element of that is milkweed, which, as I understand it, is the ONLY thing Monarch butterflies eat.  Boring, but at least pretty!  So, at certain times a year, we gardeners are delighted to see a gorgeous little chysalis hanging from one of our plants or attached randomly to some garden decoration.  We always hope that means eventually we'll encounter a butterfly crawling across the garden stretching its bent wings before it can fly.  And one always hopes they make it to that place before the cats find them - the Monarch's version of survival mode.  Occasionally, however, we harvest the plant first and then see the chrysalis.  So, with fingers crossed, we hang the chrysalis in a safe place and hope...

   

It can be brutal business for these butterflies:  there are cats and heat and the aforementioned gardeners.  Including me. 

Last week I cut some celery from the garden and brought it home for lunch.  It wasn't until later that I realized on the underside of one of the huge celery leaves, there was a beautiful green chrysalis.  Like all of them, it had what appeared to be a gold thread woven through it - like some kind of delicate ancient talisman.  I felt terrible.  I placed it on the windowsill and committed to taking it to the garden the next day.  But, I've been sick the past few weeks and day after day I would forget to bring it with me or not have the energy to visit the garden.  After a week, I gave it up for dead and thought I'd spend some time just photographing it with the macro lense.  Maybe its little Monarch life would have been sacrificed, at least, for some art piece...

 

On Thursday, the most amazing thing happened.  My business associate was here for what was the first meeting of a new venture for me.  It was a little nerve wracking and a little exciting.  As we prepared for the meeting, I suddenly heard her exclaim, "You've got a butterfly on your floor!"  My little chrysalis had hatched!  I mean, right there on my windowsill.  She must have been in our world for a little bit of time because she had already pumped enough blood to her wings that they were flat and free of wrinkles.  I knew she wouldn't be ready to just fly out of our seventh floor window and I wasn't sure, but I thought she was probably hungry and needed some milkweed!  We looked at the clock and decided to make a run for it to the garden.  Held gently in a paper towel, we walk-ran with the Monarch hoping we could give her a chance at survival.  When we got to the garden, we placed her directly on some milkweed and wished her well in her life.  I hoped that her determination to survive would give her a life of delicious milkweed, sweet breezes, and her own chrysalis entombed offspring.  I hoped she was one of the ones that got to migrate and fly free.

A monarch from my garden in the past.  This one a male, notice the spot on his wings...

It made me think about where in my life my reward has happened for the survival mode I've been in... the people that have picked me up and placed me on my own version of milkweed...who fed me and nourished me with their love and companionship and made it just a little easier to face the challenges.  I thought of the cool breezes that have connected me to a higher power, the tasty food I've eaten and the beauty, health, and wealth (all kinds) which I am lucky enough to have around me.  I reflected on my own thought process about my life...  I don't know that I can change my fears around the lonely and challenging parts of my life.  I had worked hard over the past few years to be more accepting of where I am and to try to be satisfied with each day.  I had come to love a good portion of my life.  - the home portion.  That didn't mean my mind and soul didn't stray to what I had wished my life had been or could be, but I did love who I was with and where I was.  I found joy in it.   But, I admit that I have a tendency to let the survival mode get me down.  So, maybe I need to take a lesson from my butterfly friend...  Maybe I must savor the milkweed a little more intensely and be grateful that it is possible for a beautiful ending to the survival story.  That on the other side of it, you can be born free.