Was sitting in the swing this morning, eating breakfast, pondering on my day, and hoping the swing didn’t fall while I was drinking a cup of hot coffee. It’s 79 degrees! Perfect for porch sitting and bird watching and cloud watching and butterfly watching. The sky is blue, lots of summer white clouds floating by. Later in the afternoon the wind set the bamboo forest to dancing to the sounds of distant thunder but Mother Nature only sprinkled us with rain. She did lower the temperature, though, and made it perfect for a cup of coffee in the swing after supper. The sun set quietly tonight in her golden yellow nest with pink hued clouds above.

I’ve been observing this brilliant orange-red monarch butterfly this morning, flitting around my million bell blooms in the big concrete urns on the porch bannisters. Thought about getting up with the camera and chasing the butterfly all over the yard, like a fool for a photo, but then I decided to leave her alone. So I just sat swinging and enjoyed watching her flit from flower to flower. I tried not to disturb her while she was enjoying her breakfast nectar. She danced all over the dark violet and fuchsia blooms from one side of the porch to the other, tickling the plants with her slender black legs, fanning them with a soft kiss from her four beautiful wings. I snuck over to catch a good glimpse to see if it was male or female butterfly. Course he or she didn’t sit still long enough for me to look for the bottom wing black spots of a male.

I sat back down in the swing and watched the butterfly for several more minutes. When I looked away at the cardinals for a moment, the monarch butterfly flew over and landed on my leg. I could barely feel her tiny feet dancing on my knee. The monarchs taste through their feet and like to land on us when we’re sweaty and salty. I think she graced my presence because I didn’t disturb her and intrude on her morning breakfast flights. These wondrous insects fly 2500 miles from the United States and Canada to the forests of central Mexico where they hibernate. Most monarch butterflies live from two to six weeks except for the last generation of the year. These last generation butterflies hibernate for six to eight months and then start the cycle of life and migration all over again.

Some consider monarchs the most beautiful of all butterflies, the kings of the butterfly world. I love their earthy colors and I anticipate fall and the changing of seasons when I see them flying around in my yard. Monarch butterflies represent life and strength and hope. If the monarchs are born in the summer they’ll have a brief life on this beautiful planet we call Earth. Monarchs know that death and life are an essential part of their journeys and migration. They don’t fear death, they just flitter their days away from bloom to bloom, pollinating the plants, and fulfilling their place in the migration. Death is as important as life in their migration process.

Butterflies can remind us to be patient and to wait for the good things in life that take time to transpire. Butterflies teach us to embrace change and be willing to be transformed. They remind us to not take life so seriously, to be free and enjoy our spontaneous moments in the sun. And like the monarch butterfly, our death is inevitable. It’s just a part of our brief journey on planet Earth.

We never know what tomorrow will bring. We should live our days with our fellow travelers with hope and love, treating them as we want to be treated. We need to learn to “get along with each other” as my mama used to say. We have to be a caterpillar before we can become a butterfly. Butterflies remind us, like the beautiful sunsets, there is beauty after pain, rainbows after storms.

“Love is like a butterfly, the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder,” Henry David Thoreau