walking with butterflies💛

and biplanes… and yellow bell peppers…

something special is unfolding. the symbols and images and poetry that spring up naturally from deep connections with other humans are the cosmic delights of this lifetime.

images and poetry fill my visual world, my dream world, my waking and sleeping worlds as i am open to and engaged with connections to loved ones that transcend time and space, that transcend even perceptions of earthly life and death.

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white winged biplanes.

a yellow butterfly. again and again.

luscious yellow peppers.

a fellow author across the world.

a troupe of ecological mermaids.

my dying grandfather.

my dead grandfather.

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around 5 pm on a sunday martina and i walked into rock crossing campground, a back country national forest campground that had just days before opened for the season.

i had been dreaming of crispy skinned chicken thighs (the all too common subject of my culinary yearnings) and martina had, for weeks or years perhaps, been longing for an american style cookout hotdog…

we’d hiked up the mogollon rim and were now walking on extremely flat forest terrain and, despite the forecast’s exclusion of storms, it was extremely stormy. gale force winds ripped my tent from its stakes in a gust that sailed it across the campsite.

as i retried my setup, a friendly guy approached from a site nearby and invited us to his group’s bbq just across the way. he could tell we were throughhikers and was excited to share his beers and fresh food with us.

upon joining steve’s merrymaking group of bbqers, we were pampered with comfortable (and warm!) chairs and snacks and drinks galore. we quickly learned of the group’s magical affiliation : they met through a network of scuba diving mermaids who clean trash from arizona’s rivers and return lost treasures to their rightful owners – they even run a facebook group that pairs retrieved river finds with those who’ve lost things there.

i was (and am) so blown away by their magical hobby – they try to dive at least twice a week! we exchanged stories of our throughhiking escapades for theirs of diving and exploring arizona. one merman asked if we had crazy rain stories… i told him of minutes that felt like hours with lightning so close that it illuminates your whole body from the inside – even with eyes squeezed closed, tight body fetal position wrapped in sleeping bag, praying for dear life.

as we laughed and gabbed and snacked and communed, their resident chef gingerly tended a sheet pan over the bonfire teeming with plump skewers of meat, getting crispier by the moment, and a mound of glistening jalapeños and yellow bell pepper quarters, softening and charring on their edges.

not yet having tasted the meat skewers, i already planned to ask the chef how she’d made them. i couldn’t quite wrap my head around what the skewers were or how they looked that way : one version looked corndog shaped, the other like a long rectangular sausage impaled lengthwise on bamboo skewers.

i commented on how delicious the vegetables looked, gleaming and olive oiled perfectly, and a merman begged to differ. he launched into a story about how he hates vegetables and has never eaten them all his life.

he shared this story – a series of stories, consolidated, really – about how he would line his pants pockets with napkins as a kid before dinner and keep watch of his family’s focus during their meal and sneak all the veggies into his pockets when his parents weren’t looking.

i could feel the anxiety and stress of his veggie hating in my body while he told this story in a lighthearted way. in a rather humorous way even. his friends had all heard it millions of times already. they listened and laughed again. his lifetime of vegetable trauma was so normalized and laughed at… that’s all there is to do sometimes…

but then when encouraged, he had a bite of a yellow pepper his wife held to his lips. he said it wasn’t that bad – which felt like a huge improvement from the stories i’d just heard. he asked what was on it to make it taste good. someone told him garlic salt. he may have even said he liked it.

someone next to me, a merpeople affiliate, said “uhhh yeah that’s how you get food to taste good, you season it!”

i also knew that the chef’s love helped too.

the veggie guy told of how he got caught eventually when some green beans lingered in the toilet, not totally flushed after his nightly disposal ritual. his parents were upset and forced him to stay at the table for hours to finish the veggies after that. eventually he returned to the pockets method and began going outside after dinner to dig holes to bury the evidence.

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my author friend, terra brooke of “becoming a butterfly”

continually exchanges voice memos with me about life and writing and nature and god. in and out of cell service, we get each others’ notes and respond in due time.

terra’s blog is full of blue butterfly imagery and i always picture her butterflyness in my mind as being blue, a pale but brilliant blue, like the blue of chefchaouen or the culture-spanning evil eye protective image. i often see terra’s name in my visual world after talking with her, embedded in the name of a bar or furniture store, a bottle of soap or a significant landmark. sometimes i see blue butterflies too.

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but this time, this week, terra was a yellow butterfly… flying next to me on trail as i walked.

we were talking a lot about home. my home on the trail and terra’s quest for somewhere to call home. a poem bubbled up in my mind as i trail ran (my pack was light and the trail was flat as i approached town) and exchanged my thoughts with terra. i sent it to her :

i am walking with butterflies

i am running with butterflies

i and walking walking walking

i am always walking

i am always with butterflies

i am a butterfly myself

we all are dying and burning again and again

we are all borning again and again

we are all butterflies running and dancing and sucking sweet nectar from the most beautiful things

we are all caterpillars and butterflies in every stage all at once

we are ever evering (until we’re not!)

we are the chrysalis and the morning dew

we are the wing dust and the nectar too

we are the food and the eater

the ashes and the flames burning wood

we are all flying each other home

home is here

home is everywhere

home is we

home is

home

home home home

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then there was yellow pepper merguy who finally liked a veggie, seasoned well and cooked with love.

as i walked to the flagstaff post office to retrieve some mail i’d sent to myself from the last town, my eyes met a miraculous mural that stopped me in my tracks :

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everything – “here and now” – is obviously one

          (and when we’re here and now

           we should

                 be     

                here

                now)

(there’s nothing else but everything)

zero is indivisible by zero.

one divided (/divined) by one is one.

illusion makes all divisible

     by whatever number

     you choose to be illuded by

but in matter, it’s all one

beyond that is the un-isness of zero.

but here, we are all one.

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as we said our thank yous and headed back to camp, at last i asked the chef how she’s prepared the succulent skewers that turned out to be layers of chicken thighs, half bacon wrapped, half cilantro lime. she laughed and told me she just threw them on the grill. i said what do you mean? i have to know how you prepared them… they were some of the most special grilled chicken i’d ever tasted. she laughed again and said another mermaid brought them : the other mermaid told me she got them at costco, 4 skewers for $5.