The Butterfly Effect

Part I

From 12:01AM of the birthday itself, I set out to make this year of my life the one in which I left nothing behind. At 44, a duplicate of my lifelong favorite number (and one considered divine within segments of indigenous communities), I was going to make this a year to define my self. I even made a deal to “Celebrate my Being” on a daily basis.

There were several magickal moments during my last Forest adventure that became part of my Being forever, but one of them stood out as a singular source of inspiration. At the beginning of Forest a butterfly home, containing cocoons, was placed in the Nest, a giant weaving of branches, spacious enough to contain a couple dozen people, in the middle of the Forest. The plan was to watch the butterflies emerge and, on the last day, open the home and release them into the world as new and changed creatures.

That final day, many of us gathered to witness the release, and we watched in awe as the moderator opened the home, reached in, and revealed to us a perfect life form. The home was filled with them! Additionally, and interestingly, they were in no hurry to leave.

So a couple people moved in and encouraged butterflies to climb onto their fingers, and from there they showed them to the rest of us, and one by one the butterflies took flight. At some point I found myself with one on my finger as well. One of the few left. Like me: not just a late-bloomer; the last-bloomer.

As I stared at it, mesmerized by the vibrant colors of its wings as they seemed to wave at me, I felt a profound sense of awe. The magick of metamorphosis, yes, but also the overwhelming presence of raw beauty, of delicate existence, and the peace of wild things. There it sat, opening its wings slowly, unmoved by my odd stares and their affiliated apelike contortions.

After a few minutes, a girl in a colorful outfit of her own approached, her eyes mimicking my hypnotized rapture. She stared at the butterfly on my finger, smiling, mind wrapped in wonder.

I noticed the unnamable delight in her eyes, and I asked if she wanted to hold the little friend. She did.

Gently we put our fingers together.

In the breeze of the Nest, under the shade of the pine family, an electric spark quietly filled the microscopic space between her finger and mine, and it migrated up through my body and into my brain, and for a second a great sweeping peace, unlike anything I had ever experienced, reigned supreme over me. Home indeed.

Without a word of encouragement from either of us, the butterfly picked up its tiny legs, one at a time, and crossed the verge between beings and stood upon the girl’s finger as her satisfied smile broadened to a gleeful grin. There it sat, perched, waving its vivid wings in slow rhythm, its magick a silent song for all.

I walked out of the Nest a changed creature, myself.

Six years later.

The butterfly experience had shone in my mind and nudged the direction of my life in innumerable ways since that day. I had broadcast the tale of its splendor across space and time, and I had filled my life with images and music and metaphors to match. I took time to commit thought and attention and care to not only butterflies themselves but other humans with an appreciation for them. I supported the Save the Monarch Foundation and nurtured milkweed, I widened my circle of loving-kindness to embrace the smallest species of ordinary moth, and in almost every instance of noticing one of the winged creatures within a scope of vision, I almost exclusively stopped anything I was doing in order to bathe in the moment, detecting an ever-increasing growth of the same magick that took up residence in my heart on that day in that place. 

Once thought of with merely a wry smile and an “Oh, cute,” before moving on to suck on soda and kill things in video games, butterflies of all brands had grown to be a focal point of my understanding of the universe, a symbol of change and growth, and an integral source of quiet aesthetic iridescence in a society growing with unkind defilements and unhealthy distractions. A reminder of Nature’s pure magickal processes.

I had come to love butterflies!

So when the first reliable adult job familiarized itself in my world, and the configuration of my life seemed to favor a possible return to the Forest, I instantly thought of the butterfly experience. With no exterior assistance, no one to go with, still no vehicle, and an added timestamp of desk career and age upon the knees, the journey would be a spectacular challenge, so I debated the effort.

Additionally during this six-year space I had also been steadily (and not so quietly) enhancing and deepening my relationship with the sublime divine through other means. With alchemical and Hermetic treatises as a foundation, I had already been studying Craft work since 2004, engaging in studies of Buddhist scripture and breath-meditation since shortly thereafter, and I had also managed to, at long last, properly begin healing from the horrific abuse heaped upon my mind and spirit by religious cultists (with the help of some fine friends who revealed to me the profound power of the invocation “Hail Thyself!”). Meeting Nature and its mysteries on even terms through gardening and herbwork was already common, as well; chakra exercises were always productive; Tarot, on the other hand, was a relatively recent supplement.

But it was proving to be a true force of one, as the deck that I had been waiting my whole life for was at last revealed to me in fitting timeliness, and I immediately went to work practicing and making connections, up to and including regular participation with an online Meetup group. The deck, called the Wildwood, draws from a great mixed pantheon of nature spirits, Celtic archetypes, prehistoric sites of pagan worship, and Jungian dream interpretation, and I instantly fell in love with its art as well as the subliminal familiarity of its characters and settings.

A great and motivational selling point for wanting to return to the Forest. Imagine the special circumstance, to put into practice the magick of the Wildwood within the wildwood! A wildwood you already inherently consider sacred! What an opportunity!

But I was still not completely convinced. The knees. The hips. The insurance’s out-of-state PPO copay rates. The threat of random workplace drug screens.

Biting my lip, determined to let the music make the decision, I checked the lineup for the year’s Forest gathering.

My favorite genre-specific artist of all time, an inspiration for the past 15 years and 90% of the reason I had previously completed another of my life’s most major accomplishments - C25K - was going to be there. And I had never seen them live.

I sprinted for a ticket. Damn the details.

Part II

The first thing I did was train. I hopped off my bicycle and began walking to and from work. I wore heavier-than-usual hiking boots to acclimate my feet to the stressors of long distance meandering. I purchased new camping gear and exercised the forgotten art (and eventual forced pleasure) of sleeping on the ground. I strategized pack setups and put new gadgetry through tests. Adriene dragged me painfully through some yogic stretches that I adapted to my own obstinate and overweight body (Rrgghh! Adriene!!). I even gave myself the benefit of the doubt by taking a separate trip 6 weeks out, a much more muted but still adventurous excursion - just to see if I could still enjoy the travel process itself, to gauge if it would be as much fun now to tour a forgotten thing called civilization, with its amazing concepts of public transportation, live music, reliable internet, and alcohol sales on Sundays, as it had been before the pandemic.

And oh boy, was it.

Enter the Charlotte Chronicles, ten days of exploration and discovery, music and magick, sound baths and Scottish fantasy power metal and a beautiful Beltane shared with the very group who had been teaching me Tarot online, climaxing at a weekend festival to top the charts, sun setting perfectly behind and strobes birthing ahead as I celebrated my Being alone among thousands on a perfect spring evening, power-charged with enthusiasm for the future. And even more so for the now.

So by the time Forest arrived, all engines were at full power, all systems go. And from the onset there were challenges. Wayward luggage, unscripted Chicago cold, and a shuttle dropoff in Michigan that was miles from where I needed to camp, with no directional guidance provided. But also from the onset, something else was present, something that had previously only peeked out of the shadows from time to time. Something fundamental and persistent, like an infection that doesn’t want to heal - except that it felt benevolent. Warm. Deep.

I sensed it as I trekked, hauling unknown pounds of equipment across the dusty alien ground, aimed in the general direction of vehicles in the distance under a burning sun. I stopped at one point to ask a nearby RV party if they had any water - bless you guys, and bless your fez - before forging ahead.

In a previous life, something might have stopped me here, or at least imprinted a stroke of dismay upon me, tugging out tears. But even while suffering I couldn’t stop smiling. The thing inside praised my labor. It cheered my commitment. It celebrated my Being for me, even when I struggled, and as it championed my every step I found my smile broadening to a grin, and a different flavor of tears began to emerge. It would be the first of many such strange and unplanned outbursts.

Eventually I found where I was supposed to be, just outside the venue, and that’s where the real process began, both physical and emotional. There was exhaustive work yet to be done, but I was back where I belonged. I had made it, and this was already paying off. The Forest had welcomed me back.

I only had the chance to really explore the grounds the following day, but when I did, I quickly made a fantastic discovery. The designs within the Forest had shifted and grown, adapted in some ways and outright changed in others, but there was one thing I found that utterly took my breath away.

There was no more butterfly release. In its place, however, lived a butterfly statue.

An icon of art, a construct with rhythmically expanding wings, and upon seeing it I melted. My butterflies had left their mark here as well. Look at the power of their influence! It was even situated near the Shrine, a grove marked sacred, complete with poetic pleas to treat it as such.

I knew where to practice my Tarot.

The hammocks in the pines. In this special space. Near the spirit of the butterfly.

Yes. This was it. Home again, indeed.

And so I took my deck and my manual and I meditated. I searched my soul for what I needed the most power for in this realm, feeling my way with energized fingers and an opened heart to the card, the archetype, the focal point that called out.

One presence leaped forth. A familiar card, one I had flirted with before, the entity that represented, above all others, what was missing in my life, an energy that had always been short. Nodding my head, knowing, I wrapped my hands around her in an embrace and asked her to be with me. Exist, said I. Show me Divine Feminine energy. Demonstrate the power that you carry, the perfect primal nourishment and unconditional support and deep, dynamic wisdom. Acknowledge that I am worthy of your love, a love cosmically superior to the personal one of which I have been deprived.

This motherless b*****d worked hard to claw his way out of the caverns of cultists, abandoning the comfort of an entire family in the process of pursuing the brilliant beauty of a larger Universal Art under an infinite blue sky. But portions of the magnificent portrait have always been incomplete, and there is still a compulsion to escape the remnants of the suffering inflicted by those I’ve lost. Green Woman, Empress, ancient Sovereign sword-bearer of kings, comfort me. Help me to let go of those who are gone, and those who were never there.

Nurture within me an incorruptible faith in your compassion.

Part III

Dixon’s Violin.

The heart of the Forest, and the most stirring emblem of creative self one can find there - and indeed one will most assuredly find him there, every year, many voices from one. His magick infuses others and guides them to their own unique city of heaven. As he strummed, regaling a courtyard of souls intoxicated on the artistry of self, a host of folks took to their toes and danced in the dust.

I had seen him last time - three times in one weekend, actually - and it had become something similar to the butterfly effect, a magnetic trance that begged my presence. One man, one instrument, one moment, and all the pleasures of transdimensional harmony fully attuned to the pure ether. The chords, multilayered with meaning and melancholy, reached up into the trees and touched the stars, a cry of communion.

And I noticed a breeze.

And I noticed a bee.

The bee stuttered around me, diving in and out and up and down and in between me and my neighbors. A small but determined bumblebee, several times as it darted among us I felt an unusual curiosity hum in my mind alongside the effects of Dixon’s symphony. The bee left and came back, left and came back. And while I have always liked bees and never had any reason to fear them, the fact of that concept became suddenly clear to me. Was this creature… dancing… too…?

And then I looked up again at the trees, swaying almost in rhythm to the music. There was a breeze, but… Were those creatures… too…? Was Dixon’s magick potent enough as to bring everyone’s ears so close to harmony that you can’t help to join in, no matter what form of life your soul inhabits?

That’s when I looked back down into the courtyard and saw, in a single blessed glorious instant, a creature for which there was no equal. Clothed in grasses and hemp, barefoot below with antlers up top, a primal, unpredictable entity weaving a silent songlike movement, she produced something in me I had never felt in all my time and travels. It was as if she was channeling something, embodying a life force, carrying immortality, an energy beyond her own, producing an invisible ethereal tonic and feeding it freely to anyone fortunate enough to realize what they were witnessing. It was a private dance, but on display before the spirits of the Forest and those of all in attendance. And I realized with a chill that of all the people who had surely noticed her among the many others celebrating their being, I alone was likely to sense the aura - there was something truly divine working the magick of its pure spirit through her body…

(I did mention challenges, correct…?)

Obviously clothed in a unique garb of my own (profound social awkwardness and a level of timidity reserved for monks and hermits, even despite being a divorcee who had raised a stepdaughter-type to 17 - or perhaps because of it?), to approach a strange girl was the rarest of extremes - especially after Dixon had completed his set and the girl relaxed with a group, one of whom was a clear male partner, and all of whom were probably half my age. This was way worse than dealing with my air mattress having failed on the first night.

But I thought, if I don’t do something, say something, I’m going to regret it for the rest of my life. I have to. This nature spirit might be here because of me, or at least within my line of sight because I asked for it to be so. I cannot allow her to leave without facing my fear, even if facing the fear is the only purpose and the only result. Goddess help me.

I stood up and went to her.

She was pleasant, and she called herself Raven, and when I asked her what she was doing, if she was in fact summoning something ancient and essential, she claimed she could have but that she didn’t know. It just felt natural, she explained. It had just happened. Then she drew from her own deck of miniature Tarot cards, one she felt needed to be with me (Ace of Swords). And her male partner, equally pleasant and named Luke, handed me a piece of his own magick, a perfect origami lotus the size of a q-tip head. And as I stood there encapsulated by bewilderment and my new friends bid me farewell, I again sensed the pulse of the thing inside, steady, persistent - and now committed.

Part IIII

At this point, there was no stopping it. I didn’t know it, but there was no stopping it. The check was in the mail, the rights bought and sold. I had completed the test, been escorted above and beyond the threshold, and into unknown celestial territory.

I just didn’t know it.

First there were bonus challenges. Sunburns, body pains, all manner of toxic dust plumes, and finally a sudden and violent squall line that forced all 60,000 of us out of the venue mere hours before the planned showstopper of a peak, the performance of my heroes fifteen years deep. But the storm passed, and as I emerged from my tiny tent, escaping the built-up heat of hope (i.e., not to be impaled by a flying canopy stake - have you ever camped out in a one-person tent during a storm on the Eastern edge of Lake Michigan!?), and we all lined up to go back in and finish strong, I watched the sun curve slowly into the horizon on this final, glorious night. And I knew near the end that, like you reading this lengthy diatribe, this was all worth it.

Listening to the laughter and joy of glowing strangers all around me, enhanced to euphoric levels as they freely passed along a slap-sore bag of warm wine, my satisfaction urging me to tears all over again, the odd unshakeable feeling inside swelled once more. And this time I started to attach an awareness to it. It was akin to the sunset. It was a light.

Effervescent.

Warm.

Deep - and suddenly rising.

Mine, all mine, and yet somehow not all mine. Like a gift, or a piece of something, a reflection perhaps, or a seedling from a greater producer of seeds. A small but powerful spark was alive inside my chest, and it was growing, sprouting. More importantly, I kept feeling it. Like a heartbeat within a cocoon. Its power - and my awareness of its power - was the very force that kept making me cry since day one. It wasn’t my imagination; my tears were real. This force was real. 

The night unfurled with wondrous unpredictability. Wandering among the slowly darkening Forest, I followed little to no plan beyond catching the great ending act. I made one last stop each at the library, the Shrine, the Nest, Main Street, the glowing piano, the art station, the Bubbleporium, the Carousel Club, all the dark nooks and colorful corners, and somewhere along the way I found myself fixated upon the art displays with intensity for the first time.

It was one painting in particular. A scene of a path. In a forest. With a beaming light emanating distantly from the center. And subtle, radiating waves announcing outwards from it. I couldn’t look away. Like glimpsing the antlered Raven, I was meant to be here at this moment, to see this. It spoke directly to the new glowing energy inside.

A young woman noticed me and asked me something - I’ll never remember what, now - and then my world found a foundation, a stable balance from which to define all that would happen from that point on. Not the artist of that particular painting, but an Artist nevertheless, interrupted from the act of creation, possibly scripting the very scene of which we were both players, she spoke to me with a freedom of spirit and a purity of heart and a bravery of will to eclipse my own. A blessed, inspired child and mother, my soul’s amniotic sister, and the most extraordinary energy I’ll ever know the pleasure and privilege of having shared a moment with.

Our easy and mutually mindful conversation spanned generations and sailed across hemispheres, and as we sat under the protective power of the Forest during that one brief but timeless night, we traded traumas, laughs, and the deepest of all vulnerabilities as fluidly and compassionately as drinking from a fountain of crystal water, savoring every second - as well as exchanging insights into the striking similarities of our respective journeys. Also seeking incomplete sections of divinity, and also scarred by merciless cultists, but with a living life force that remained - not only remained, but thrived, shimmering with the same crystal sparkle of eternally revitalizing waters - in spite of suffering, and in the process had found a foothold of faith in her own power and worth, she revealed to me the most profound and melodic secrets I’ve ever heard emanating from another human’s Being.

She had come full circle, uncovering wisdom within the very spiritual cave-creatures that were still haunting me. There was radiance hidden behind some of what they preached, she declared - perhaps far behind, deep in the depths of the caverns, but enough to give it reason to explore. Enough for a hungry seeker or true lover of the world to ignore their own emotion and look closer.

Breathe in your suffering, she demonstrated, closing her eyes and dipping fascinatingly into a deliberate trance and extracting knowledge at will, as if directly accessing the well of Source from within her self. Breathe it in, embrace it, and then let it out. You have a divine right to be here, to live your life. You have a DIVINE RIGHT. It is all you need.

I love this, I cried. But you’ve been through the cultist camps. How did you overcome that, and find such extraordinary faith in the divine feminine, a concept deliberately buried by endless campaigns of patriarchal subjugation?

She smiled with her whole being, her body radiating pure peace. Surely there is a heaven, and surely this is it.

If you know me well, you’ll believe that I’ve been called a spiritual guide more times in my life than I can remember, but this girl was among the very few creatures I have encountered that clearly represented such a guide for me. As if I needed further proof in this moment that my pleas to the Green Goddess had not only been heard but answered and delivered, in full-color primal generosity, this wondrous human smiled at me with quiet electricity igniting her eyes, branding this sole memory of her into my psyche with a bittersweet permanence - but also with undeniable unforgettability. As if witnessing a miracle.

“I studied a bunch of different spiritual paths, and I practiced yoga, and eventually I discovered a light inside my self,” she presented, instantly pouring into my opened heart more unconditional love in one moment than I’d known in a lifetime. The wings of the divine descended and held me, like a gift, in its arms, as her words harmonized with new thoughts in the act of birth. “Like the light in my child's eyes, I realized that light is our connection to Source. It is pure, and it comforts us, nurtures us, and loves us. Nobody can tell us it’s not real. Because once we find it, we feel it always. It is all we need. It is our DIVINE RIGHT.”

The End of the Beginning

A story. A story of how I trekked northward against the odds, following a compulsion, driven by a celebration of Being and a lonely but determined heart, across the country and into the Forest, losing my mind to find my soul. The story of how I came to know divinity, and one of its most powerful truths: that you can never predict when and where you might witness a miracle.

The Artist says everyone is just looking for god. I say everyone is just looking to find home. I’m sure we’re both right.

How we find and define god - and how we find and define home - is unique to each of us. The vision is all ours. And yet, it is not all ours. A reflection, perhaps. Or a seedling. A fragment of a whole, given to us as a passport to life, a permission slip for joy without measure, and for wisdom above law, and for imagination beyond boundaries. A license to love and be loved. An invitation to fall, and to rise again. A welcome mat to the house of heartache, and a compassionate hearth beside which to recover. A stamp of approval for suffering, and an instruction manual for weaving it into a wardrobe, and for welcoming the change and growth it offers. A map of the cave, and a compass to lead us out onto the perfect blue canvas of infinite possibility.

“Let’s suffer!!” we shouted with laughter into the night, embracing our pain, after which we breathed out the remnants, collected an air of peace to replace them, and then embraced each other with the sincerity of siblings. For we understood that this shared existence is a precious treasure, no matter how fleeting, and our Being is meant to be celebrated, from the brightest corners to the darkest nooks, whether going Above & Beyond for the tenth time or the first.

It is a dusty path of discovery and adventure and surprise, stocked with magick and music and meaning, friends we meet and family we make and fantasy we manifest down to the smallest iridescent bubble, and no matter which route we take through the Forest, in the end the light that guides us - the only one that matters - is a sprout that we nurture within.

Not through ritualistic obedience. Not through joyless recitation and horrible haircuts. But through work.

Through creative self-expression. Through inward contemplation and outward action. Through education and meditation. Through serious study. Through observation and connection. Through sensitivity and openness and trust and courage. Through loving-kindness. Through allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, make mistakes, fall down, get injured - and then again through perseverance. And through the passion to forge forth in alien lands under a burning sun to an unknown campsite.

Home. Anywhere. Indeed.

At last, Goddess be praised, the bleeding has stopped, and my wounds are sealed. I have a divine right to be loved.

And so I am.

I can feel it always - wings hugging me, protecting and nourishing the infinite light inside. Warm. Deep. Expanding. Free to anyone who notices the true nature of its private antlered unfurling in this distant secluded Wildwood.

Bless the brilliance of your once-in-a-lifetime shooting Starseed soul. Artist of healing, your magick wand an ancient alchemical gift treading a palette of ethereal waters, teaching others to remember themselves - their divine selves - by echoing the most blindingly beautiful parts of your own.

And bless you, bless you, magnificent butterfly.

And to the workplace: Go ahead. Drug test me. You’ll find sunlight and stardust and a story of sobriety you wouldn’t have the faith for.