Written by Megan Ryssman, WWF’s Annual Giving Growth Officer, and Monica Echeverria, WWF’s Director of Media and Exterior Affairs

Visiting the monarch’s overwintering grounds in Mexico is an expertise that phrases can hardly seize. It’s a second of awe, reverence, and recognition that we’re witnessing one of many true miracles of nature. Every year, these unimaginable monarch butterflies journey as much as 3,000 miles from Canada and america to Mexico, utilizing a mixture of environmental cues, the place of the Solar, Earth’s magnetic discipline, and an inside compass of data from earlier generations to navigate a journey they’ve by no means made earlier than.

Someway, they at all times discover their method. When spring arrives, the identical monarchs undertake one other 1,000 miles heading again north, reaching the southern United States in search of milkweed; the one plant the place monarchs lay their eggs and caterpillars feed from. 

© Courtroom Whelan / Nat Hab

A Pilgrimage to the Monarch Sanctuaries 

Our journey took us deep into the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, as we visited two sanctuaries: El Rosario and Sierra Chincua. These forests, designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Website, present one of the best microclimate and shelter circumstances for tens of millions of monarchs looking for refuge from the tough northern winters. The monarch butterfly reserve is managed primarily by the work of native communities with technical and monetary help from WWF and native companions. At each sanctuaries, we hiked by means of towering oyamel firs, guided by the smooth whispers of butterfly wings overhead.

Throughout a artistic writing train, our group was guided to mirror on the sights, sounds, smells, and emotions we skilled whereas visiting these unimaginable sanctuaries. Since it’s so troublesome to elucidate the sensation of witnessing the monarchs in all their splendor, I’d prefer to share a number of the poetry that was written by the journey members.

Monarch butterfly landed on someone's jacket with Nat Hab and WWF logos

© Courtroom Whelan / Nat Hab

Certainly one of our fellow vacationers, Lindsay Dearborn, captured the essence of our time at El Rosario together with her lovely phrases:

El Rosario

Excessive forest scent, smooth breeze  

Orange, black, white wings 

Rising and falling 

Dwelling, dying 

Wordless awe 

A fragile universe surrounds me. 

There’s heartbreak in these mountains. 

– Lindsay Dearborn  

A close up of monarchs

© Valerie Van Griethuysen / Nat Hab

Our information Daniel, who was a part of the group guiding us by means of Mexico, mirrored on the unimaginable monarch butterflies in his poem: 

Butterflies 3.2 

Fluttering, gliding 

specks of gold 

Mesmerizing hope 

Stunning magnificence 

Forest alive, a sky 

affected by magnificence. 

A cloud passes by 

and the forest shivers, 

branches quiver, butterflies 

alight and the sky 

is speckled with orange. 

 

Butterflies 3.b&c 

One thousand, a million 

fluttering wings 

whispers alight, flashes 

of coloration 

Floating messengers of hope 

huge expressions of levity. 

The insufferable lightness of being 

Lifted, transported 

inhale- grounded 

exhale- taken away (and vice versa) 

 

At the moment I sit  

and as I breathe in, 

I come extra into being 

I dissolve, I’m animal 

My spirit, the spirit  

of the forest lets itself be heard 

Alerts and messages come- 

not unworldly, however as  

chilly, onerous, intuitive fact. 

As I exhale, I enable myself  

to turn out to be free. I’m 

reminded by the butterflies 

I’m my very own blessing. 

I’m my losses; I’m the void. 

I’m the fantastic thing about a thousand butterflies. 

– Daniel Behn 

In mild of the excellent news in latest monarch numbers – it’s heartening to have so lately visited the monarchs and seen the enjoyment and sense of marvel they carry to all who see them. Having the chance to see this firsthand and course of the expertise by means of poetry is actually an expertise I’ll always remember.
 

The marvel of a monarch 

The whispering monarchs surrounded by immense shades of inexperienced 

Flying by means of the cool mountain air as individuals whisper with unbridled pleasure 

An array of crops and delicate flowers body the orange beauties  

As they solar themselves on a department, I really feel overwhelmed with marvel. 

– Megan Ryssman 

Group photo for WWF donor trip to Mexico monarchs

© Courtroom Whelan / Nat Hab