Red Admiral

On the day of my mother's funeral about twenty five years ago I was standing at the back of the church in Galway getting myself psyched up to sing.
I didn't want to be singing and crying and sobbing through Amazing Grace.
As I stood there I noticed a Red Admiral butterfly flapping its wings on the ground.
My mother loved Red Admiral butterflies. I noticed that it had cobweb around its feet and body so it was having a hard time.
I picked it up and gently untangled the web and set it free out the door.
For my own reasons I felt that that was my mother's spirit thanking me for helping her to get free in her own life. I often held her while she cried and sobbed trying to find a way out.
It was a moment I remember very clearly.
Fast forward six weeks and I'm driving through Italy in a van that needed an oil and filter change real bad.
I decided to carry out that procedure in Switzerland so we headed of up over the Alps with the van chugging away having not a great time of it. I was stressed out worrying about it .
Got to the first reasonably large town with a car parts shop only to be told that legally I couldn't buy the parts or do the work on the van myself. Some Swiss law that aimed to protect the garage industry.  Fair enough lads but my little van is not happy. Spent a couple of days in Switzerland and then headed up the Alps again to get out to Germany.
No problems there fresh oil and filter bought and I decided I'd head into the countryside to do the job so I was away from traffic.
I had the sump nut off draining to old oil out and I was leaning on the side of the van with my elbows looking into the engine my head under the hood. 
Waiting. Looking over fields of fresh tillage. Quiet. A field away I saw a butterfly meandering. I thought of Maura and all she had sacrificed for me.
It floated over the field slowly taking its time stopping at flowers. It came to the edge of the field and headed across the road , under the hood of the van and landed on my heart.
I looked down at it and started crying big fat tears.
Last night I was speaking to a friend of mine that has a very difficult and painful domestic situation at home. She was very upset and felt hopeless and broken. As so many woman do. You have to be there for the children with often no emotional or real support and then try to drag your own tired soul along with nothing often but being ignored and often much worse.
As we spoke I saw a butterfly on the windowsill struggling. An Australian Common Brown Butterfly.  Almost identical to the Red Admiral.  It's legs were wrapped in web. I asked my friend to hang on and I gently untangled it and let it fly away free into the trees.
Femininity is under attack. Gentleness,  sweetness, kindness, softness, creativity, colour, the soft natural body.  Take a breathe and see the softness that your mother showed you when you were born. That is the source of your life. The female. The thundering force that is the door of the universe.