Ruth’s spirit came to me twice yesterday in the form of a beautiful swallowtail butterfly. As I returned home from my morning walk, she was sitting right in front of me on the sidewalk

This swallowtail was earthbound (making her easier to photograph), but later that afternoon, as I sat in front of my friend’s garden window, swallowtail appeared again, joyfully swooping and soaring, in full view, for a good five minutes.

It’s not surprising that Ruth would speak in butterfly. It’s a language she knows. She wore a beautiful necklace made of a butterfly wing. I have one just like it that we bought together at the Artisan Center in Denver.

Years ago, at the first place Ruth and Edy lived in Austin, she and I created a butterfly ceremony. The apartment was so small that there was no place for Ruth to do her healing work, so she had draped off a section of a room. (She had a knack for making even the smallest place beautiful and sacred.) We were asking the space what it wanted and her eyes landed on a lovely shadow box of embroidered and sequined butterflies one of her sisters had made. “These butterflies want to be free,” she said, and in short order we had “liberated” them from their frame, blessed them, and hung them all over the healing space . . . creating pure magic.

For me, in her uniquely fabulous, loving way, Ruth is everywhere now. For the week prior to her passing, I was blessed by her spirit playing hand in hand with mine as I was with Sai Maa, my spiritual teacher. There is joy in my every thought of her. I love you, my beautiful butterfly being!

Kea
August 13, 2014