I met Miskwagiizhig at a northern reservation when I traveled there to staff a conference for my workplace. When I walked into the conference room, he was sitting on the floor in the back of the room. Wearing cutoff shorts and an old, faded t-shirt, his hair hung freely down to his waist. His face looked weathered, but he had the energy of a child.
“Hello” I said as I crouched down and held out my hand.
“Oh,” Miskwagiishig smiled and said, “this must be for you.”
He handed me a piece of paper on which he had noted 7 animal medicine teachings for eagle, buffalo, wolf, gitchi saba, bear, turtle, and beaver. Below that, he had written three questions: Who am I? Where did I come from? What is my purpose? What do I want out of life?
I thought back to my long car ride to this beautiful place. It was summer, and as I drove down the roads surrounded by thick forests with my windows down, I could smell the familiar smell of cedar. A place in my childhood was similar to this, and I was enjoying the memory. That is, until my drive was interrupted by swarms of butterflies kamikaze flying into my car. I was devastated.
“Maybe you can tell me why butterflies were flying into my on my drive up here” I knelt down closer to him.
“Yes,” he said. “Butterflies are about change and you are not listening.”
I was truly not listening. I had hit a wall in my relationship and had been walking on the earth a shell of a woman. My live-in boyfriend was addicted to drugs, and after his second relapse (at least the ones I knew about) and his continued excuses, I had reached my breaking point. My struggle that kept me staying was that there had been signs when we first met; signs that I could not dismiss lightly. How could something that had been initiated by the cosmos have taken such a horrible turn?
“You are right,” I smiled at Miskwagiishig. “I haven’t been listening. But now the butterflies are dying, so that cannot be a good sign.”
His expression became gentle, and he looked me in the eyes. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, “their lives are short and ending them in this way does not cause them harm. They will be just fine. It is their purpose.”
I had my second butterfly encounter some years later while visiting a friend who was a Methodist pastor. We would get together occasionally to discuss our love for Taoism, and our passion around various spiritual topics such as whether “god” was separate or if all beings are a part of such an entity. During one visit, he told me that he was arranging for leaders from various Christian traditions to come together to do healings for people at his church.
“Healings?” I asked. I had experienced them from various traditions, but I assumed that they were long ago eradicated from Christianity. It can be a byproduct of becoming institutionalized.
“There are fundamentalist, evangelical, and other Christian traditions that have them,” my friend reminded me.
I closed my eyes and nodded, remembering a conversation that I had with a former nun some years prior. “The nuns are keepers of these traditions,” she told me. “They still exist.”
“Would you like me to do a healing for you, here, today?” my eager friend responded with a smile.
I agreed. He took some moments of silence behind his desk before he got up to rearrange the furniture in his office. It was late in the day, and we were some of the last people in the church building. I could see the sunlight from the setting sun shining brightly through the window behind him.
“Take a seat here,” he motioned to a chair that he had placed in the middle of the room.
I sat down and closed my eyes. My pastor friend began to chant in a language that I did not understand, but the words were so beautiful. I could feel his hands circling in the air surrounding my body and soon I felt sunlight all around me. He continued to chant as the energy swirled. It was then that I felt the butterflies swarming again. “Love and pain are one” the pastor whispered into my ear. At that moment, my head leaned back with my face turned upward, and my mouth opened to release a swarm of butterflies.
One year ago, early in the summer of 2024, my sweet Maya got sick. The sort of serious sick that had me crying in the kitchen while she slept. I had a terrible feeling about it. In the midst of all of the searching for answers, a butterfly appeared on the front door mat one afternoon. This butterfly was black, with orange edging on the upper side of her wings and electric blue edging on the lower side. She sat on the front door mat for hours, facing the door, fluttering her wings slowly as she stared into the house. I knew why she was there, and I was terrified. It is hard for me to say it, but I hated that butterfly.
Two weeks later, my sweet Maya started to make significant improvements. We had turned a corner, and even her healers were in celebration. Maya had escaped a terrible downward spiral. Her energy was still low, but she was celebrating too, delighting in the company of those she loved. The next morning, I got up to take her to one of her healers, but Maya was feeling lackluster. Later that afternoon, I got a terrible call. “Her heart has fluid around it, and it appears her heart is failing.”
Moments of celebration only hours before were now replaced by a crushing dread. I sat with Maya in a room at the hospital while she was on oxygen, and I held her as she gasped for air.
“They are telling me that you won’t make it home” “While you want to stay, you are the kind of sick where you won’t be able, I’m sorry.”
Maya reached her hand to my face.
“Find Drupon; he will help you. Come back to me,” I said before singing her song to her one last time and then beginning recitations of the Mani prayer. I continued long after her breath had stopped and the light in her eyes faded.
“It is important not to cry around those who have just passed,” I heard Drupon’s voice in my head. “They have important meditation to do, as they will be getting ready to choose their next path.”
As I held Maya’s dead body, I focused on keeping myself together. I didn’t want to make her path more difficult. After her body left the room, I lost myself and entered a dark hole that would last for some time. At some point, I was able to start saying prayers for her transition, while still refusing to accept her death.
A week or so after Maya’s passing, I was standing outside in the sun, and I noticed a butterfly playing with me. “Hello,” I said as I held my head up for the first time in a while. She was flying around me, landing on my head, my shoulder, and then my abdomen where she sat for a few moments before flying away. This was a different butterfly than I had seen before, black with orange and white spots on her wings. She was so joyful! Although I could not feel joy in myself at the time.
Butterflies have come and gone since then. Until a few days ago, when I was out walking. I saw a butterfly similar to the premonition butterfly I had seen on my doorstep prior to Maya’s passing. This time, however, the butterfly was in the road, and I nearly passed her as I walked by. I knelt down and offered my hand. She climbed up on it, and I stood up to take a look at her in the sunlight. This butterfly did not appear to be broken in any way; her wings and her appendages were all intact. I walked with her to a nearby patch of grass, knelt down, and offered it to her. She walked off of my hand onto the softness of the grass carpet.
“There you go, my love” I said to her before continuing on my way.
©Cardinal Speaks