Butterflies and Feathers


My friend Kalika and I walked through Soulscape gift and bookshop in Encinitas, CA, admiring and commenting on all the unique little groupings of items. The shop was permeated with the smell of scented candles and sticks of incense. The tinkle of wind chimes, played like background music. The sun on this warm September afternoon crept across the mosaic tiled entranceway, catching the crystal prisms and stained glass window decorations to trail a rainbow splash across the opposite wall.


We ooded and ahhed, touched and sniffed our way around. We stopped at a display of mugs, reading the inspirational words encircling their outsides. Kalika gave a short intake of breath as she raised one cobalt blue mug with white printing that simulated handwriting. She recited in hushed tones the quote on the mug. “Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly. Anonymous.”


“Oh,” she exclaimed, running her fingers across the raised print, “I have to get this mug.” I personally thought the quote was sweet but nothing that stirred me to bring out my wallet. I moved over to the refrigerator magnets.


After she paid for the mug and I paid for a box of Nag Champa incense, we left the store.


“I’ve told you the story about my mother and the butterflies, right?” Kalika asked, as we got into the car. I shook my head. As if to highlight the importance of this tale, three white butterflies circle danced along the sidewalk as we drove out of the parking lot.


“During the last few months of my Mom’s life, when I went to spend time with her, I always took her for a walk in her wheelchair.” Kalika shared. “ Mom was blind, so along the way I would describe all the lovely flowers and plants. One day three white butterflies fluttered by. After I related to my Mom, how playful they were, she announced ‘I want to be a butterfly’. We both laughed,” Kalika recalled, “and I told her, I thought that would be wonderful.


One day after Mom passed, I was missing her very much. I was sitting in my car with the windows open, looking at the ocean and crying. All of a sudden, a little white butterfly flew in the passenger’s side window danced along the dashboard, flew past my nose and out the driver’s side window.” Kalika turned to me for emphasis, “how often do you see a butterfly come in a car window?” Since Mom passed, whenever I see butterflies, especially three white or yellow ones together, I know it’s her.”


Kalika’s purchase of the mug now made sense to me. And her belief that each time she sees butterflies, her mom is sending love down from above, warmed my heart.


After my husband, Jack passed; a psychic told me that Jack would send me feathers, to let me know he was near. I had scoffed in disbelief. “Feathers!” I thought. Feathers made no sense at all. During his lifetime, Jack had not been a birdwatcher, wore a boa or owned a parrot. I couldn’t see what the connection was. But the psychic stated that spirit on the level of a loved one that has passed over, is limited in their ways to communicate. Using objects such as feathers, embodying the essence of a living creature or having a favorite song play when we least expect it, is within their control.


“Okay”, I thought, “Feathers it is.” I left the psychic’s with a bit of the ‘prove it to me’ mentality. Actually, I dropped it from my thoughts. The session took place within a month of Jack’s death and I was too overwhelmed with grief and how I was going to find joy in life without my best friend at my side.


One day, soon after, frustrated and feeling alone, while walking through the catacomb like hallways of the employee area of the Hotel Del, where I worked, I silently called up above, something along the lines of “Jack, why aren’t you here when I need you.”


I wound my way along the windowless corridor. Half way through in a section that never sees the light of day, a medium sized gray hued feather lay on the ground. A surge of longing suffused with comfort warmed my body. I chuckled to myself.


It wasn’t a feather from a hotel pillow or from a piece of clothing sold in one of the retail shops. It was a perfectly formed bird feather possibly from the wing of a seagull. How did it get in the underground walkway? I whispered my thanks. My mood lighted. I felt confident that the choice I had been pondering was the best one for me.


Since then, whenever I’m faced with a decision, I find feathers wherever I go. If it is along an outside walkway, as if to prove that it isn’t just a random bird dropping a no longer needed tail feather, there will be lots of the them. Sometimes the feathers have been placed like a line of Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbs.


“Find your way to your heart,” the breadcrumb line of feathers, whispers to me. I know it’s Jack’s way of saying “Yes, You’re doing fine. Go home, go inside your heart that is where the best choice lives and so do I.”


Butterflies and feathers, symbols of connection, metaphors for relationships that last well beyond the end of life on earth.