Monarch Dust & Amazing Love

I was 18. I had just come back from my first California experience and was having coffee and dessert with my best friend the day of my return at the newly opened Loring Pasta Bar, and she asked me to go to a young adult church camp with her a few days following this meeting. I remember thinking how odd it was of her to ask me that while we were surrounded by what I felt to be a page out of some psychedelically illustrated Alice in Wonderland book, but nothing about Nikki is not odd, and she knew like her intuitive self does, that I needed that weekend in some course.

Well, I have never been the one to follow religion, but she was (and still is/does) my bff and I like spending time with her and encouraging her to expand her interests. Also the idea of forest immersion always gets me and I was already missing a panoramic landscape of redwoods and the way sea salt wasn’t going to be affecting the tread of my favorite pumas for some time, so I said yes I will attend this weekend event in the North Woods of Minnesota.

Who knew going to church camp would change my entire perspective on spirituality, friendship, life and The Universe.

Sure, there was some praise Jesus songs sung around the campfire I didn’t know the words to and probably wouldn’t have join in the tunes had I known the words anyway, and some group Bible discussions where I asked questions no one could logically or scientifically answer all the while attempting to draw the texture of birch bark. As well as some confusing ways to play games in the activity center, and the most uncomfortable bunk bed I had ever sort of slept on.

We did find a disposable camera in between a bunk and a wall with half the pictures already taken that we ended up taking the rest of later during our stay, and even later developing the already taken photos and the photos we took of things that were so hilarious that we laughed about many more times than once ever since.

The Enlightenment as I used to call it, but now think of as essential awareness happened on the second day. It was quiet independent worship time in the early afternoon and we were supposed to grab our good books (my sketch book right) and find a place to spend with God and work on our relationship with him. Any sort of god or Universal bliss that could possibly exist revealed its wonderfulness to us that day, and later on for me that night.

I had cigarettes. We wanted to smoke them. We needed to wander pretty far off as not to get caught. Even though we were all adults, it was still not allowed. We did wander off, passed all the cabins, passed some trees, passed a little clearing of picnic tables, and into the woods. When the coast was clear, or to be more accurate I’ll say when we were clear out of sight, nicotine happened and we got little buzzes from it as it had been a couple days since either of us had inhaled it.

We were chatty, we were happy; we were making our way back, when out of nowhere, when out of everywhere, when out of the Earth we were surrounded by hundreds, maybe thousands of monarch butterflies!!! We were in complete awe… Lepidopteron Paradise!!! We stood there quietly for quite some time. My memory of the time is more vivid than most so as far as I’m concerned we stood there for what seemed like forever. Forever in paradise.

This moment in time, this forever brilliant moment absolutely encapsulated our friendship and the essence of how we both live our lives in the different ways we live our lives but yet are always aligned and encompassed by beautiful spectrums of color, graceful flight, and extraordinary encounters. I truly love. I love this Earth. It is my home, it is your home too, and it is filled with glorious.

So after the incredible daze that lasted throughout the rest of the day, we decided to go for another smoke after nightfall. Remember the clearing of picnic tables I mentioned, yeah, we did too and thought that was far enough away without risking bears or other nocturnal creatures we’d have trouble identifying through the darkness. The picnic tables were not dark. They were lit by limitless starlight. It was the brightest sparkly sky I had ever seen in my whole life!

We sat on the table, rebels of the night. I started pointing out constellations. I was seasoned, I was knowledgeable about the astronomical and mythologies associated, so I was connecting the dots as I lied back on the weathered wood and recited the stories of our cosmos to Nikki. In that moment I realized what a dot was and that I was one, and I felt so small considering the Universe, and I said fuck the Greeks and the Romans and began verbalizing my thoughts, considering the Universe and the vastness, and possibly infinite beyond that, feeling small transformed into feelings of boundless beauty and another tour of magnificent awe…

Now I’m going to link a video that I know some of you may have seen before, but I’m placing this link here because it explains more eloquently than I ever have what I found that night in the sky at church camp almost ten years ago. It’s fifteen minutes long, but if you have any interest in me and want to continue our relationship, whether it be as friend or reader I’d appreciate you taking the time to watch this, as the sort of things you will find in it I bring up in some way in most all my conversations, and well, in just the way I live my life.

Since I believe in the entire Universe as fact and growing fact, I am not too worried about my dearest friend being terribly ill today. Yes of course the thought of her ever not being so physically present in my life totally freaks me out, but I’m not worried for her. She is amazing. Everything she has ever done and will do is amazing, and she has always been and always and forever will be amazing energy, life, and a star, and the greatest love of my life so far.