This is the summer of white butterflies. Flutters explode. Bursts of wings dipping and twirling through a flat blue sky, carelessly tumbling through lavender bushes and generally floating by my path haplessly. I look up and I am a princess in a Disney movie. 

Google news alerts me the unseasonal rain and heat has given the “plague of cabbage moths” a resurgence of life. They are in fact, a European butterfly species that menaces our farmers. Of course, the Disney butterflies are a pest. 

I have a natural inclination to the superstitious, call it my Catholic upbringing and the belief the female bloodline in my family carries witch magic. 

When celebrities talk about themselves we think it is interesting. When I talk about myself, we think it is narcissism. I am listening to Britney Spears’ biography. My first audiobook really. It’s well read and well written. What I am learning from it, her vulnerability. That is the hook. That she is stating her experiences and how that made her feel. To the air signs, we do not understand. Maybe this is my new version of myself that explores my feelings, gives them voice and tells them to anyone who will listen. I had pharyngitis last week and that too, I took as a sign that my throat chakra was blocked.  

I guess, that was the opening of when I should divulge some recessed feeling. 

Excuse me, I’m new.  

Next week Valentine’s Day collides with Ash Wednesday. The celebration of love and Jesus Christ (“a solemn reminder of human mortality and the need for reconciliation with God. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the penitential Lenten season”. Thank you Father, the priest not Daddy). 

Good catholic girls begin their Lenten fast on Ash Wednesday. For (over) 40 days we give something up. It is a period of fasting, prayer and my personal favourite, penance. 

Because Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour only likes things that are hard and born of sweat, blood and tears. You know he totally got crucified, right? Like it was totally not fun if you watch Mel Gibson’s cinematic retelling of Christ’s woes. Bad time had by most.

Because Jesus likes his atonement rough and gritty, this year, let’s go meat and socials. I swear I’m not trying to get out of abstaining from the drugs and alcohol. We’re just not trying to fail the man. He suffered. Very graphically too.

A wayward teenager from a pack of great unwashed wayward teenagers feigned to steal my phone this morning. Not the first time this ‘joke’ has been pulled on me by the mentally ill.  This, I take as a big slap from the celestial ooze to give it up. 

It might be time to figure out what the butterflies mean, how to find grace and listen to the small voice of your soul trying to talk.

SJ xx