Wings And a Prayer

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Butterflies Are Free

Hundreds of millions of monarch butterflies spend the winter in central Mexico.

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The group is silent. She continues: "When you lose a child, you've got to look for life where you can find it. Butter-flies are a symbol for something. We know what it is, but we don't know how to put it into words. They're life and death and the cycle." She pauses for a moment, then says, "They're hope."

Paul, visibly moved, says, "We'll have a lively day tomorrow."

Janet gives him a weak smile and assures him, "Really, just being here is enough." The way she says it makes it sound almost believable.

THE PATH TO THE EL CAPULIN MONARCH SANCTUARY is hidden between a white house and a wooden hut surrounded by banana trees and grazing sheep. It is not a place you would easily find on your own unless you were a butterfly, and maybe not even then. Here, just outside the village of Macheros, monarchs live at the top of Cerro Pelon, or Bald Mountain, a dormant volcano.

The scramble for horses here is not as frantic as it was yesterday at Sierra Chincua. The vaqueros in Macheros simply stand by their horses waiting for us to choose one. I approach a milky tan horse with a black mane speckled gray. She is short, what I've been hoping for. Her name is Flor.

As Flor and I climb, the brush gets dense, the path steep. I begin to wonder just how far up we're going, so I ask a nearby vaquero who's accompanying us on horseback, "How much longer do we have to ride?"

"Two," he says.

"Two minutes?" I ask, hopefully.

"Two hours," he replies, amused. I resolve not to ask any more questions I don't really want the answer to.

Somehow, Flor and I begin to take the lead, but it's not long before we reach a point in the path where Flor refuses to climb. I look up and see a stretch of unearthed cantera stone so precipitous that the trail appears to have a switchback pattern, as if we're being asked to crawl up a downhill ski slope.

Paco is riding behind me. "Andale!" I hear him shout. Let's go.

"Andale," I say to Flor, and she begins to move.

I lean forward until my body is pressed against the hard horn of my saddle. The trail is so coarse, so difficult to negotiate, that Flor is starting to sweat. I can see the hair on her neck begin to clump. To our right is an endless green chasm. If I was nervous before, I am absolutely fearful now.

"Everything is okay," I tell Flor softly. "Todo esta bien." I repeat this as a mantra to placate her, to placate myself. The path is narrowing. My shoes scrape against stone and tree trunks. I can hear horses clamoring behind me, but I cannot turn to look at them.

Finally, we reach the top of Cerro Pelon. The sun is coming out just as I dismount Flor. When I first see the butterflies, there are more than a dozen at once, and my enthusiasm grows with their numbers.

To see 100 butterflies against a blue sky is fantastic. Seeing 1 million monarchs swerving and flitting and soaring above you, and realizing there are more in the trees waiting for the right moment to open their wings, feels like nothing short of a miracle.

Paco calls out and instructs me to cup my hands behind my ears. He says, "Escuche." Listen. And, as we stand there together, I can hear the butterflies. Their wings against the air sound like a light rainstorm falling on a verdant forest. Some of the monarchs are missing part of their brilliant orange appendages, their wings like flags tattered and torn after a battle. Monarchs are valued for their beauty, but what I find most beautiful about them is that they are survivors.

At this sanctuary, there is no rope, and there are no machetes. We have free rein over this small area. Only three colonized trees are visible from where we've dismounted, though there are more butterflies resting in the understory. I am standing under a tree filled with monarchs when a cloud passes to reveal more sunlight. Bunches of butterflies above me begin to let go of the branches they've been clinging to and pour into the sky; they brush against my face and fall into my hair. The cascading monarchs make the tree branches look like ever-expanding arms reaching down to embrace me. They are live orange confetti setting the sky ablaze.

In the thicket, I can just make out Janet sitting against a tree trunk. Her face is tilted toward the sky. In her hand she holds a butterfly that's batting its wings to prepare for flight. The males will die here, but the female monarchs will move north in spring. There they will lay their eggs, and the cycle will start anew.

Emerging from the woods, I find Dan lying on a patch of open ground, playfully calling out for the butterflies to cover him. I look down and notice that the monarchs are casting a shadow on the earth.

As I overlook the surreal mountaintop scene, Dan says: "Think of how many days we take for granted in our lives, but this is one day we will never forget. We will never be able to take this for granted."

To our right, millions of butterflies glide over the abyss.

Leigh Ann Henion, a freelance writer, last wrote for the Magazine about the World's Longest Yard Sale. She can be reached at lahenion@gmail.