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Saving a Beautiful Butterfly's Life

A Drying Flying Flower

By Chris Dunmire, CurrentLiving.com

I was running late that morning. Everything was wet from on-and-off rain showers the night before. I pulled into the parking lot of the place where I work on Tuesday mornings and quickly exited my car. As I turned to walk towards the center I noticed a small blue piece of paper plastered wet to the ground next to my car. It was unusually bright colored.

I stepped closer and realized that it wasn’t paper at all — it was a butterfly! A soaking wet butterfly that resembled a wet leaf crumpled on the blacktop. Poor butterfly. It had to be dead. I knelt down towards the delicate creature and smiled at its artful beauty. Its wings had other colors in it besides blue — it reminded me of tissue paper stained glass.

Dead or not, I couldn’t leave this beautiful being lying in the parking lot to get run over, so I gently lifted its wet wing from the pavement so I could move it. Its leg twitched. Is it still alive?

Excited, I scooped the butterfly up and walked it over to a big rock next to a flower garden where it could safely dry out in the sunshine. As I gently positioned it in the middle of the stone I watched for more signs of life. Nothing. I said a quiet prayer in my heart hoping that Source would help the butterfly heal and allow its life to continue.

A half hour later I had to get a pair of work gloves from my car trunk. On my way out to the parking lot I saw my blue patient still drying on the rock. My hope was fading. How did it end up plastered on the blacktop? I wondered. Did it get caught in the rain? I retrieved my gloves and went back inside to do some more work.

An hour later I was back outside. Again, I looked towards the healing stone and expected to see the lifeless blue paper. The butterfly was gone! My heart leaped as I hurried toward the rock to make sure the wind didn’t blow it away. It wasn’t windy and there was no sign of the flying flower anywhere.

In my heart I knew that the butterfly's wings had dried, and it had fluttered away. •

© 2007 Chris Dunmire, CurrentLiving.com. All rights reserved. (07/28/07) Please do not duplicate this article elsewhere without my permission.

About the Author | More by Chris Dunmire
Chris Dunmire is creatively engaged in life as an artist, writer, humorist, and publisher of the popular Creativity Portal Web site. She's trained as a creativity coach with Eric Maisel, Ph.D., and Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching founder Jill Badonsky. Chris develops Web-based projects and playbooks to encourage creative thinking, artistic expression, and imaginative play in people of all ages. Learn more about Chris's books at CreativeSlush.com.