Believe...

While I was walking around the Makiki Community Gardens, I would see butterflies dart by in the intermittent strong winds. None stayed still long enough to get a photo nor landed on any flowers. Once, awhile ago, I had an opportunity to take a nice picture of a large Monarch butterfly who had just emerged from a cocoon and was drying his wings in the Sun but I didn't have my camera on me at the time. That was last year. But this time, I saw a Monarch fly over to some purple flowers on the other side of the gardens and land several times on the bright purple blossoms. I quickly made my way over through the narrow garden passages and actually ended up scaring an elderly Korean man who was tending to his plants. The look on his face when I came up behind him and said "Hi!" was funny but I felt bad for really startling him. So I apologized as I kept on moving to the purple flowers. When I arrived the Monarch shot up into the strong gusty wind and was blown all over the place about twenty feet up above me. I felt hopeless that she was gone for good and another missed opportunity. But then inspiration came to me.

I looked up at the butterfly being whipped around in the wind. I watched her and quietly and audibly said, "Please come back down. Please. So I can take a picture..." not really expecting anything to happen. But then she shot down and landed, not on a flower, but on a leaf, right in front of me on a giant tree like bush. She was perfectly sideways. The wind stopped. Literally. And I shot this photo. Then in an instant, she took off and the wind started whipping everything around again. She was gone. I was in disbelief. I sometimes don't believe in the powers out there despite how much I talk about it. It was the spirit. The Angels. The kupuna. Ke Akua. So beautifully simple. Pure magic. Love. Believe...