Wordless Wednesday

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

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Music Monday – Brand New

Tightly bound

beautiful creature being remade

on the verge 

of life brand new 

 

© Julie Rehnelt 2019

 

Having just had a birthday, I’m sensing a bit of this in my own life. (Here come all the butterfly metaphors 😉).  Or maybe it’s because of being on the verge of autumn here.  Autumn isn’t exactly ‘life brand new,’ but it’s oh so beautiful, and it makes me come alive! 🍁🍂😍

 

And because everything reminds me of a song…

 

Brand new day, brand new week – may yours be beautiful!

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Monarch Monday

My daughter has been fostering monarch butterflies this summer and I’ve been privileged to be able to experience it in part with her.  It’s been a truly moving, enriching and “transforming” experience.  Here are two of the beauties I got to watch emerge just the other day…

It was absolutely magical, you guys!  Like, I know that we have all heard the inspiring and philosophical sayings about caterpillars transforming into butterflies, but witnessing first hand, the complete life cycle of these unique and amazing creatures that my daughter has fostered has brought me to tears on more than one occasion.  I’m truly in awe…

She hadn’t intended on fostering Monarchs, it just sort of happened.  You can read more about her journey on her Instagram account at  https://www.instagram.com/wolfehartwoods/ where she has captured beautiful photos and amazing videos throughout the process – starting with the mother butterfly laying the eggs on the milkweed right outside her front door.  If you do plan to take a look, I would recommend scrolling to the very first post and going from there.  Her videos of them hatching from their eggs, munching on milkweed, crawling around, and then pupating and emerging are really amazing!

(As a bit of a side note and a proud mom’s shameless plug: Wolfehartwoods is her secondary Instagram account, she also has https://www.instagram.com/rachaelswiregarden/ for her business where she shares the exquisite and unique wire wrapped tree of life pendants she creates.)

But back to the butterflies…

Interestingly, the most moving and meaningful part of the process for me personally, was watching the caterpillars transition into a pupa.  It looked extremely uncomfortable and difficult, and on some strange level – I related and resonated, and empathized.   Here are a few photos of one of them I witnessed…

Eventually the chrysalis hardens and then becomes transparent as the butterfly gets closer to emerging.  Here are two next to each other that are at different stages…

The chrysalis’ are absolutely beautiful!  You can’t really tell from the poor quality of the above image, but there are gold metallic dots and a gold line on the outside, it’s super cool!  It’s also super cool to realize what is happening inside those little pods.  Just wow.

Just a few moments after I snapped the photo above, it started to emerge…!

It happened so fast!  I tried to take a video of it, but it didn’t really turn out.

And here she is unfurling her new wings…

A few hours later we took her and the other lovely girl (who emerged at the exact same moment!) outside, where I took billions of photos.  Many of which turned out blurry in all of the excitement oops! 🙃

But it was completely and utterly delightful!  Especially because it was experienced with my daughter and my precious grandchildren.  Sorry, not sorry, for sharing all of these…

As you can see, my sweet granddaughter fully enjoyed the butterflies!  😍

At 9 months, my grandson was only mildly interested in the butterflies, and seemed mostly intent on examining the grass and the Creeping Charlie (as you can see in the background in one of the photos above), but here he seemed a bit more interested…

So much more interested, that five seconds after I snapped that photo, he made a grab for it.  Thankfully my daughter was alert and her hand was quicker than his.

But he was barely aware when one of them was exploring his head.  But just in case, my daughter was ready if his hands happened to reach at his head…

Such an adorable little head…

💙

Neither butterfly was in a hurry to leave and even when they finally took flight, they came back to where we were in the yard and one of them landed on my hand for a little while before she took to the air and eventually disappeared from view…

Such an amazing creature.  I appreciated her special little goodbye.  ❤

And I appreciate my beautiful daughter.  I love her so much…

She’s always had sort of an affinity for butterflies and I feel like the universe wanted her to have this experience. She’s been a wonderful foster mom and hopefully with her assistance 13 little monarchs will have a better chance.

🦋

 

Happy Monarch Monday! Wishing you all a beautiful week ahead!

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Wordless Wednesday

 

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

 

Silent Sunday

Ordinarily I would only share a photo and not write anything when I entitle a post as “Silent Sunday,” but I just finished reading this book and somehow it still felt fitting…

It’s a book about silence, hence the ‘Silent Sunday’ – get it?  😉

I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned to you guys that I work in a library.  Many various books pass through my fingers each shift that I work and this one literally shouted at me when I came across it.  Funny that a book about silence would “shout.”  But seriously, the vibes – I just knew I needed to read it… the feel of it in my hands, the soothing color, simplicity and minimalist design of its cover, and the smooth, creamy texture and thickness of its pages, all spoke to me.  (If you also have ‘a thing’ for books, you might relate to what I’m talking about there.)  But it was the subject matter that called to me the most…

Earlier this past spring I had been feeling an almost desperate need to escape and get out of the noisy city.  It’s one of the reasons I arranged several different little adventures for this summer.  (Except, after the extreme heat and high humidity we’ve had this summer, I have now decided that I’d prefer the majority of my future little adventures to be in the fall instead of summer.)  Although my adventures were mostly out of the inner city and out in nature, I still didn’t really feel like I escaped all the noise.  Traveling creates its own sort of ‘noise.’  But I did have little moments along the way when inner silence found me.  And that’s what we’re really talking about, isn’t it?  And that’s the main point of this book.

The inside front jacket cover reads: “What is silence? Where can it be found? Why is it now more important than ever?  In 1993, Norwegian explorer Erling Kagge spent fifty days walking solo across Antarctica, becoming the first person to reach the South Pole alone, accompanied only by a radio whose batteries he had removed before setting out.  In this book, an astonishing and transformative meditation, Kagge explores the silence around us, the silence within us, and the silence we must create.  By recounting his own experiences and discussing the observations of poets, artists, and explorers, Kagge shows us why silence is essential to our sanity and happiness – and how it can open doors to wonder and gratitude.”

It’s a different book than I’ve ever read before.  I’m not even sure how I would categorize it – I think I would call it philosophical more than anything else, and I enjoyed it very much.  It’s a short book, but one to read slowly, as to absorb all of the profound little nuggets of insight sprinkled throughout.

I had an interesting experience happen to me at one point while reading it.  I’m not entirely sure if it was related to what I was reading, but I suddenly experienced what I can only call a heightened sense of awareness.  I was reading it out on my patio – so, in this noisy city, when suddenly my sense of hearing changed.  All of the city noise became muffled and subdued, almost like my ears were plugged or I was under water, but it was only the ‘noise’ that was muffled.  It’s hard to explain… I could still hear completely clearly – the sound of the rustling of the trees was as clear as ever.  So I guess it was more like a shift in my awareness rather than a change in anything audible I was hearing or not hearing.  And there was an acute awareness of the plants in my garden, almost like I was sensing their life energy or something.  The big, heavy leaves of my zucchini were waving to me in the light breeze as if they ‘saw’ me.  I know that sounds weird haha!  I’ve had that happen to me one other time with regard to the trees.  I may have shared it here, I don’t remember, but it was a profound and deeply meaningful experience, and I was excited to have something similar to that happen again.  Like I said, I’m not sure if it was related to what I was reading or not, but it could’ve been.  Ya never know.  It could also just be that I’m weird…

Anyway, so I guess for this “Silent” Sunday I’m giving you guys a bit of a review on a book about silence.  And perhaps also a little insight into my weirdness!  🙃

 

Wishing you a wonderful, beautiful, blessed day!  May it be filled with moments of silence and peace.

 

My zucchini says “Hi!”

😉

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Sunrise Sunday

Sorry I’ve been a bit absent from blogland lately, I’ve been off having lots of adventures this summer.  I hope to have the chance to share a little about them with all of you sometime soon.  But for now, here’s a lovely sunrise over Lake Superior that I was fortunate to witness the other day…

My heart is overflowing with gratitude – for so many reasons…

❤

 

 

Hope yours is too!  Wishing you all a beautiful, blessed day!

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Wordless Wednesday

 

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿