I have to share one more animal love/magic/lesson this week.

The same friend I wrote about yesterday once found a group of nesting catepillars in a parking lot where we worked. Afraid they wouldn’t complete their journey of transformation in that cement-covered place, Michael took them home. He built an enclosure of wire around a carefully arranged plant sanctuary and fed them fresh parsley daily. I loved to watch them munching away.

They cocooned, hatched and he released them out an open window. But one butterfly decided not to leave. For 3 days, he stayed, often sitting on his shoulder. This amazed me, of course, since I would even see it sitting at the open window ledge, seemingly oblivious to its opportunity for “freedom”. My friend finally encouraged the butterfly to “stretch his wings” and he left.

(Michael is searching for the pictures he took, so I’ll share them soon.)

Both of these stories are affecting me especially deeply right now because I’ve been hearing others complain about birds nesting outside their houses - one woman even said she was going to put the eggs in the garbage disposal rather than deal with bird poop on her deck.

Sigh sigh sigh. I hope we can continue to teach each other about our connection to nature, rather than continuing to move away from it.