I was born in the middle of the famous Brazilian Rainforest and did not even know it - semi temperate and semi tropical Mata Atlantica, seemingly always on the verge of disappearance.
My best memories from childhood are linked to the Mata, inside the mined mountains of Minas Gerais, with the hunting of rats with Father in the corn stalls, with being scared by spiders and vipers, sliding down the mud, learning to swim with the frogs. As a teenager, I left for the coast, the ocean and the state of the Holy Ghost. There, at twenty three, I left the forest behind and the Country for good.
How can I enter this land to see if it is still necessary to vigilate it? So I imagined to build a garden up there made for butterflies. My good friend Roberto R. has a wild and beautiful farm up high in the Mata and he generously supported my adventures.
I imagined the world of butterflies because, like me, they respond badly to environmental hardship and can be indicators of health. Like frogs, they tell tales of degradation.
I like them because they are flighty, because I wanted to learn a bit more about their territoriality. Mechi Garza, a Cherokee elder from my syndicate of women writers, the IWWG, told me once I belong to their clan. Armed with my Cherokee name, Laughing Cloud, widowed, tanned white, born Brazilian, raised Gringa, feeling seriously lost and trying to find my way out of the loneliness of recent widowhood, loss of parent, sibling, country despair and job...
I landed in Passarada, where birds fly more freely than we do... The farm lies deep inside the Mantiqueira mountains, about two and a half hours drive northeast from the big city of Sao Paulo. The last urban frontier is the village of Pião, one of the very early settlements left from the days of the Bandeirantes, the European explorers who came hunting for gold in the interior of Brazil, back in the 18th century.
High up, inhabited by forest spirits, fountainheads, ferns, bromeliads, good for nothing sticks, natives, invasives, wild cats and during evening fire chats, even a soul from the dead and werewolves. The roads are terrible in the rain, you may get stuck going there or you may get there and never leave (willingly). There is talk of improvements, both at the private landowner level and at the Municipality of Piracaia.
The Atibainha river runs by it, and it is fed by two or three pristine water sources. It is part of the Cantareira water system that eventually quenches the thirst of almost 60% of the Sao Paulo city region.
It is a place of unexpected discoveries and goose bumps. My best story thread is to continue to fetch drinking water from the brook, at dusk, a few minutes away from the house, year after year. I was afraid of snakes and dressed in high boots, in the beginning. Now, I am aware of them, I still wear high boots, but am more impressed by the walk, the water and the gifts.
I share here what I learned there and what I learn now. There are some fascinating new guides for ornamental plants, for invasives, birds and trees in Brazil, but not for butterflies. So I worked with American material I have been collecting, I took photos, I talked with the folks that live at the farm.
Out of this experience, well, I opened up this blog, I have a new digital camera and I now read books again, from cover to cover. Necessary practice while I waited patiently for yet another almost perfect moment to photograph these elusive creatures of light.
The forest is not ending yet and I am witness to the vitality of the creatures that live inside it.
What may be ending comes, not from the forest, but from the outside.
The butterfly garden is as ephemeral as their flight.
And butterflies, well, they continue to be symptom, diagnostic and remedy, all at once.
I like this piece. It is a lovely magazine article. Those photograps are beautiful and the text moves between the real and the dream. You are a most excellent journalist.
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