The Butterfly Project

Early on in the planning stage for Julia's memorial service, I knew that I wanted for there to be a live butterfly release. I've learned that butterflies are a common image used to represent people who have passed away, and babies and children in particular. Their delicate beauty reminds us simultaneously of both the breathtaking miracle and very fragile nature of new life. Some years ago I visited a "butterfly pavillion" which is basically a huge greenhouse where hundreds of butterflies live their natural life cycle and freely fly about, landing on you as you admire the flowers. After doing some research I determined that I was ready to purchase monarch caterpillars, caring for them throughout their cycle of pupating and emerging in time to be released into nature as part of our remembrance ceremony for Julia. I carefully consulted with the company that I purchased the caterpillars from, to ensure that the approximate timing of the emergence would be roughly a week or more before the memorial date.A large glass tank on our porch became out butterfly nursery. Branches of milkweed in bottles of water provided the food source. A length of sheer netting provided protection from possible predators, and the roof over our porch allowed a safe location and good vantage point for providing their care.

The impossibly tiny, and very hungry caterpillers....

We were off on our exciting adventure, and suddenly I was quite scared. Would I really be able to take good care of these little things?

Why Bookmarks?

We give so many things to our children and grandchildren. They inherit our hair color, the sound of our voice, our tendency to procrastinate. Some of the things they get from us are like a beautiful gift that they get to keep for their whole life, and other things are more like a weight around their neck that hopefully they will figure out how to shed. I don't know if it has been scientifically proven or not, but I think that we can also inherit things like a love of reading, or artistic talent, or an adventurous spirit, from our parents and grandparents and all the others who came before us. It's probably half Nature and half Nurture, but I do believe that we each carry a spark inside us of what made our ancestors such interesting people.

I am a "maker" at heart. I have loved messing around with ALL of the arts and crafts materials that I've ever encountered since I was a toddler. When I was a tiny kid I used to draw pictures in the mud with a stick, and it's just escalated from there. I am also a very avid reader since the age of 4 1/2.

Crafting and making art has always been a good thing for me to do when I'm in a lousy mental state. I especially get into repetitive motion or assembly line types of projects. There is something very calming about just focusing on a tiny detail, or one aspect of the assembly, and I can sort of loose myself. Then I come back to the outer world and realize that I've just made 20 bookmarks.