Phenomenal: A Hesitant Adventurer's Search for Wonder in the Natural World Read Free Page B

of the lower trail leading to the monarchs’ hibernation site was flanked by trees with very little underbrush, likely due to grazing livestock. The evergreens’ trunks were impossibly straight. As Flor and I climbed, the brush got dense, and the path got steeper.
    I began to wonder just how far up we were going, so I asked a nearby
vaquero
accompanying us on horseback, “How much longer do we have to ride?”
    “Two,” he said, making a peace sign.
    “Two minutes?” I asked, hopefully.
    “Two hours,” he replied, amused.
    I resolved not to ask any more questions I didn’t really want to know the answer to.
    Somehow, Flor and I began to take the lead, but it wasn’t long before we reached a point in the path where Flor refused to climb. I looked up and saw a stretch of unearthed stone so precipitous that the trail took on a switchback pattern, as if we were being asked to crawl up a downhill ski slope.
    Paco was riding behind me. “
Ándale!
” I heard him shout.
    “
Ándale
,” I said to Flor, and she began to move.
    I leaned forward until my body was pressed against the hard horn of my saddle. The trail was so coarse, so difficult to negotiate, that Flor was starting to sweat. I could see the hair on her neck beginning to clump. To our right was an endless green chasm. My life and Flor’s were intertwined. If I had been nervous before, I was absolutely fearful now.
    “Everything is okay,” I told Flor softly, “
Todo está bien
.”
    I repeated this over and over to placate her, to placate myself.
    Flor pushed on and it was all I could do to hold tight. The path was narrowing. My shoes scraped against stone and tree trunks. I was holding the back of my saddle so tightly it was digging into my skin. I could hear horses clambering behind me, but I could not turn.
    “
Todo está bien. Todo está bien
.” I said it until everything really was.
    Finally, we reached the top of Cerro Pelón. The sun was coming out as I dismounted Flor. When I first saw the butterflies, I saw more than a dozen at once, and my enthusiasm grew with their numbers. It took a few minutes to realize the extent of what I was witnessing. To see one hundred butterflies against a blue sky was fantastic. Seeing one million swerving and soaring above me, realizing there were more in the trees waiting for the right moment to open their wings, felt like nothing short of a miracle.
    Paco called out and instructed me to cup my hands behind my ears. He said, “
Escuché
.” Listen. And, as we stood there, I could hear the butterflies. Their wings against the air sounded like a light rainstorm falling on verdant forest. All of those paper-thin wings had traveled as many or more miles as we had, but I was still surprised to see that some of them were a bit worse for wear. They looked like faded flags, tattered and torn after a battle. Monarchs are valued for their physical beauty, but what is most beautiful about them is that they are survivors.
    Only three colonized trees were visible from where we dismounted, though there were more butterflies resting in the understory. I was standing under a tree filled with monarchs when a cloud passed to reveal more sunlight. Bunches of butterflies above me began to let go of the branches they’d been desperately clinging to and poured into the sky; they brushed against my face and fell into my hair. The streams of cascading monarchs made the trees’ branches look like ever-expanding arms reaching down to embrace me.
    I was filled with an inexplicable surge of energy that made me want to laugh and cry at the same time. The butterflies were live orange confetti setting the sky ablaze. They were the beauty that cultures try to capture in stained glass windows, the elation people seek in religion.
    They were an embodiment of hope.
    The ancient Greek word for butterfly is
psyche
-
, the same word for soul. The Greeks believed butterflies were souls seeking reincarnation. All over the world butterflies have