What's with the brown butterflies?
Years ago a friend and I went to a festival that had a book garden- books mounted to large flower sculptures. After finishing a sound bath, we wandered into the garden because she wanted to open books to a random page to receive a message from the universe. The universe loves to send her signs. Her message was “make life worth living.” She and I had just been discussing how she needed to bring fun back into her life and the message was a beautiful confirmation of what she had felt while meditating in the sound bath. When it was my turn the message was “gambling is a dangerous habit.”
The universe rewards me when I am decisive and ask for support, not when I bypass my intuition and hope that I will receive signs. I have tested this even after knowing it to be true for me. When I have pulled a tarot card with no question in mind, I have pulled the card that explains what the deck is. I have absent mindedly gone to read my tea leaves and been left without a single leaf in the cup to read. Gambling is a dangerous habit, so I don’t do it anymore. I am specific when I ask for signs, and even then I am often met with the understanding that the answer must come from me and I must trust that I’m on the right path without validation. There is a very significant exception to this pattern: the brown butterfly.
I went through two miscarriages on my motherhood journey. I was devastated after the first one, and began to really question myself and my path. I asked the universe for a sign: when I get pregnant, and it’s going to stick, I want a butterfly to land on me. I didn’t know if I would get this sign, but I promised that if I got it, I would trust it. On my birthday, I was sitting in a rose garden drinking tea when a little brown butterfly landed on my belly just for a moment, then flew over to a rose near me where it remained for several minutes. I trusted my sign and waited until the next day to verify with a test. I moved through the pregnancy with a confidence that I did not know I was capable of. I KNEW I would meet this baby. I trusted my butterfly. I later identified the butterfly as a Silver Spotted Skipper.
It’s a very common butterfly where I live, and it has become my favorite. All the other little brown butterflies have also garnered more of my appreciation. I don’t take every sighting as a good omen of things to come, but they bolster my confidence and remind me what I am capable of. This website is not my baby, but it is still something I have built with love. I am excited to see it grow as a place where I can work and connect with people in a way that is meaningful to me. Brown butterflies are here rather than photos of the hands and planets because they represent my distinct relationship with the universe. It is not perfect or unwavering, but it’s also not something you can get from a program or AI. Intuition, as much as knowledge gained through study, is really what I have to offer. If I ever rebrand, I’m sure there will still be brown butterflies in the mix.
