Looking out of the town of Ouro Preto, with it~s double-towered yellow churches on each hill top, an enormous monolith stands on the horizon, el Pico do Itacolomi.
As soon as I got to town, and as I was drinking beers on the cobblestone streets and dancing to samba music in a low-cieling bar, I was thinking about it.
I have been in New York City for eight months, and although I~ve loved it~s driving atmosphere, and I~ve bustled with the relentless hustle, I miss mountians, ache for them, would pine for them like Penelope weaving if only they would come back to my life.
Sometimes, on the Q-train over the Manhattan bridge, I would squint at Lower Manhattan,and imagine it was a mountian to climb.
On a rainy day in February, with Miss Ava Rose Heller, I forgot all about the city for five hours, in the Museum of Natural History. The highlight of the day was the Butterfly exhibit, where we walked through a room full like a living snowstorm of brilliant butterflies. Some where bright red, others yellow, some tiny and some large. One, the Hurcules Moth, doesn~t have a mouth in it~s adult phase, so it slowly dies, living to reproduce in its due time. Ava was overcome with a longing that is more and more common in our modern world: the feeling of being detached from natural cycles of life and death. "I wish we had such a simple cycle," she sighed.
And although I went to bed past 4am, under a crescent moon and the southern cross, I woke up at 7 energized to climb. Itacolomi waited for me like it waited for tapir hunters 20,000 years ago, and for gold prospectors in our time.
The trail left the highway near the hospital, and carved upward in what began as a dirt road an quickly became a washed-out bed of rocks that I assume was at one time a mining road. The sun was strong by 11:00, and I was quickly sweating pools into my eyes.
I often think of James Redfield´s book The Celestine Profecy when I~m walking, because he said that if we truly look at the things around us, we will see tue beauty glow in things, and this glow can act as a guide. have trusted such a glow on many occasions, and I~ve often been happily surprised.
A jet-black songbird with a crested head looked at me from a branch, and when he flew, his tail flashed snow white. Another bird, hidden, sqeeled with such sustained agony that I felt the need to befriend it.
And as I realized that my 2 liter bottle of water was going to disappear quickly under this humid sun, I felt a cool breeze brush up my leg, as if coming from the earth itself. There, almost unnoticed, was a tiny trail down into the brush, and I did not hesitate in diving down it. Shadow covered me, and I looked up to see wide purple flowers that somehow seemed forlorn. The ferns and broad leaves got thicker as I continued up the small opening, and then I could hear the hushed trickle of water. I ducked my head under a tree that was weighted down with hanging red flowers, like sleeping bats, and when I looked up, a heart-shaped grotto breathed cool air into my face.
The water was flowing steadily down a 10-inch waterfall into a pool the size of a hot tub, and about as deep. I closed my eyes and smelled deeply. I could smell mud and plants and flowers and wind. I imagined I could smell the animals that must have drank from this pool, and the people who, perhaps for thousands of years, had come here to swim.
And when I opened my eyes, I could not believe the sight, and I stumbed backward, unsure if I was still firmly on earth.
Butterflies.
So many butterflies turned and fluttered in the air above the grotto, turning and falling like a brilliant snowstorm. Alive, thoughtful.
This one was bright yellow, with squares bordered with black. This one was tiny and blue green. That one absolutely white, with rounded wings and the flight of a child folding paper. This one was a neon sign, advertising with yellow and red bars.
And then, time stopped. The king entered the room.
In a pace meant for elephants, he opened his eyes to me. Speaking like a master, he said not a word. Clocks quit. Breath held time. And the Blue Morpho stepped into the grotto, to open and close his wings, slowly, without hurry, without fear. That blue is the Celeste that comes before prophecy. It existed just before the big bang, and it will put us to sleep on the last day. That blue could calm the seas if they had eyes.
And I was naked and in the water, with the cool stream around me, and like trickling down through fern and flower, and the butterflies just flew and watched, and came and went. After I dried off, I thanked the earth for cold days in New York, and for hot days in Brazil. I thanked the water for cleaning me, and I thanked the butterflies for playing host. Then I shouldered my backpack and headed out of the thicket, looking for a bird to befriend.
