On a particularly hot morning last week, I was in the vegetable garden early, facing the middle field. The sun was behind me, not yet fully risen but already gaining the ferocity of a true summer day in Oklahoma. As I knelt, twisted, reached, and stretched, pulling weeds and moving the water hose from one thirsty plant to another, dozens of frenetic butterflies hovered and danced around me. Their colors dazzled me, but so did their shadows. The intense morning sun had cast crisp, dark body doubles of these nonstop dancers all over my garden. After a while of casually noticing them in my periphery, I stood very still and gazed around on purpose, tracking the shapes and movement. I was in a blazing hot snow globe of fluttery, poetry-in-motion, impossible-to-predict, hungry miracles. Black swallowtails, Viceroys, Checkerspots, and even three stunning early Monarchs, all touching down and taking flight, over and over again, one sweet flower center at a time.
A moment to thank God for allowing a few thousand zinnias to reseed themselves this year!
I could not resist thinking about the shadows of life. Not the dark side of life, exactly, but the echoes. The second beats that follow the firsts. The ripples. Handsome and I have been talking a lot lately about ripple effects and the immense value of deep work that matters. Witnessing again the beauty of all those butterflies going about the important work of eating and laying eggs made me wonder if they noticed their gorgeous, curving shadows on the west edges of their flights. Did they see the shadows so near their bodies that they almost seemed attached, like Peter Pan? Did they see the effect they had on light itself? If they did, I love that for them. If not, then it speaks to the poetry of creation: that simply tending to the work given to us and allowing the rest of nature to do its work is how all this beauty becomes available to notice.
I’ll tell you what else I have been noticing, besides butterflies and their enviable shadows:
I notice people who care deeply about their jobs and careers, who find intrinsic value and purpose in them, beyond their paychecks and status. I notice married couples navigating scary, choppy waters with grace and romance. I notice college students figuring out whether they still want to be college students or maybe join the wild wild west of adulthood. I notice grandparents rediscovering the immense joys contained in tiny moments with their babies’ babies. I notice dogs growing old and puppies growing tall. I notice that an overbearing calendar is very nearly meaningless when life is a whirlwind of change and chaos, but daily rituals are more powerful than ever in such a season. I notice that funny movies and lightweight sitcoms are a nice buffer against the news.
Each of these has a shadow, an echo, a ripple effect.
Every single person who pours passion into their work, whatever it is that day, improves the world in meaningful ways. Every married couple that chooses to stay aligned with Love, despite life’s inevitable turbulence, makes the world sweeter and safer, and they probably inspire younger couples who are paying attention. The world is made more interesting by twenty-somethings who are on fire with independence. And the rhythms of family and legacy rely greatly on grandparents who are absolutely smitten with their new roles. We all benefit from dogs, of course. Dogs of all ages. And the echoes of a well-designed set of daily rituals cannot be overstated. Laughter is like oxygen. It is necessary for all of us. Laughter carries us from breath to breath and crisis to crisis.
The butterfly shadows are a temporary pleasure, a traveling art show with a secret closing date somewhere on the horizon. All of their glory and inspiration is meant to be fleeting. So I hope to grab as many early-morning gardening sessions as possible, to notice as many butterfly shadows as my soul needs, while I still can. I hope you do, too. And I hope we all notice all the other things in life that nourish us, including their shadows and echoes. May we stay aware of the ripple effects we all have on the world around us.
“If a ledger of the world’s gladness is maintained somewhere,
he was confident it had been credited with a considerable deposit
from all those meetings at the Fedder.”
~Allen Levi
Theo of Golden
XOXO
