My next Fascinating Insect post here is a collection of shots from just a little over a week ago.
I wrote a long philosophical stream of consciousness article about finding this butterfly, and the psychedelic experience that preceded it's hatching, but I'm omitting most of that here, as this group is focused on the insects. That article can be found on my personal steemit page.
I'd been writing music on the piano in an altered state, and I heard a fluttering which I didn't stop playing investigate, simply assuming that it was a bag rustling near my fan.
It wasn't until I was getting ready to sleep that I saw what was really making that sound:
The source of the fluttering sound I'd been ignoring was actually this pipevine swallowtail, which I watched fly around my room before settling on this sheet.
I joke with myself, in awe. I haven't seen one of these in a long time. Here she is, a physical manifestation of my angel. A subtle tongue-in-cheek sign to reaffirm what I'd seen in my trip. Dressed in royal "cerulean blue", my mother's favorite color, based on the crayola crayon by that name. Seeing as she passed when I was 10, the memories I have of her are... well, they are the memories that a young boy would have of his mother. I don't know what it would be like to know her as an adult, as a peer. But I have little memories of things like this... of raising butterflies with her many times, and of the crayola crayon that we agreed was our favorite color that matches the blue on these wings.
I just smiled and took pictures of the swallowtail.
I just grinned and followed it around, geeking out, in awe of the amusing coincidences.
It was February, Thursday last week. An odd time of year to see a swallowtail butterfly anywhere, especially in your bedroom after an intense spiritual experience. But it is not as odd for me as it may be for someone else. After leaving home to travel, 10 years after my mother's passing, I resumed the tradition she and I had of raising butterflies. I made a sort of business out of it, but all of that is to be explained elsewhere. I had some chrysalises I'd raised from caterpillars years ago, leftovers which I long ago assumed dead, since they hadn't hatched seasonally and had remained pupated for more than a year. It was one of these that coincidentally hatched that night, the first one that I've had hatch in many years. So there is an explanation for this creature being in my room, but it was still the last thing I expected to find that night.
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