Migration

Project Blog It

The Monarch butterflies are in the midst of their migration to northern Mexico for the winter. There, they'll stay until springtime, when they lay eggs and die. Those eggs become the butterflies that migrate north again where they too will lay eggs and die, completing a cycle across generations.

I am fortunate to live in an area of the country that sits along the Monarch's autumn migration path. In fact, the Monarchs are attracted to the Cypress trees outside of my office window. And given that I'm on the second floor, I'm treated to an amazing daily show of hundreds of butterflies fluttering by and roosting in the trees. It's truly a stunning sight, and one that I never fail to appreciate.

The Monarchs, on their long annual journey, give me pause to consider migration, the movement from one place or mode of being that is somehow marked (whether by political boundaries, climate, personal sense of self, or something else) to another, differently marked space. I've migrated a few times in my life. Not always by choice, and not always the result of good choices.

I wonder what it would be like to live the simple and directed life of a Monarch. Floating on currents, instinctively pulled across continents and then back again. Somewhere along the way leaving one's legacy and then passing out of the cycle of migration for good. Do Monarchs understand their beauty? Do they know how they fascinate us? A bit of wind and color drifting past my window. They remind me of childhood summers in the northern Midwest, the beginning and the end of their journey. There, the Monarchs marked the long days of mid-year. The orange of their wings glowing in the warm summer sun. Now, here in the Southwest, their migration marks the migration of the year itself, its own end coming closer with shorter and shorter days.

This movement of butterflies, the migration of the Monarchs, for a brief moment, shifts me out of my own inertia and stagnation to migrate with them, if only for a few seconds, before settling again into the mode of being the defines me now.


Please check the blogs listed on the right for companion pieces to this week's prompt.

Next week's prompt: Five wishes for yourself; Five wishes for the world.