Butterfly Story
Late in September 2007, two Monarch butterflies appeared in my Annapolis backyard garden, fluttering among the last of the Fall garden flowers, sipping nectar from the radiant orange blossoms of the Mexican sunflower. I was awed and transfixed by these magnificent creatures.  They sparked something inside me.

Till then, the idea to build a home in paradise was just a dream I shared
with my mother.  When the butterflies flew into my life, a name came to mind for the project: Casa las Mariposas—in deference to the Monarchs—which I knew flew to Mexico to overwinter.  The emerging theme excited me.  When I told my mother, she smiled.  “The name of the road in front of our newly purchased land is Retorno de las Mariposas, Return of the Butterflies”.  We were stunned at the synchronicity.   

As I learned about the threat of Monarch extinction and their millennia-long
migration, I was drawn to their plight.  Monarch habitat loss has been
occurring at alarming rates in the U.S. from depletion of milkweed, the
Monarchs’ only host plant, due to chemical use in agriculture and human
overdevelopment, and in Mexico from deforestation of the Monarch winter
sanctuaries.

My growing awareness that the key to human and planetary survival lies in every blade of grass, led me to form a nonprofit in 2007 with the mission of affirming the interconnectedness of all life, through Mindfulness in Nature programs that inspire aliveness and sustainable actions in humanity. Today, the Monarch Effect seeks to help us rediscover the powerful connection between humans and Nature, with programs that hasten our awakening to the universal truth of our existence. To learn more about the Monarch Effect and this emerging movement, visit www.themonarcheffect.org