TAKING WING


garden caused a ripple. Each milkweed tended, each person I encountered, each mile logged surged out. Together our efforts could make waves across continents. Across oceans.   Hundreds of miles north of Amy’s garden, I watched a female monarch navigate a garden skyline among the tower- ing buildings of Manhattan, NY. As she dipped between pur- ple blooms I wondered where she had come from. Had she  ever planted? Had she visited a school garden and inspired a young scientist? Was she related to the caterpillars I had seen in Amy’s garden? From here to there, that New York butter-     prairie to thrive. She, along with the other millions of past and future monarchs, crisscrossed the continent and linked all of our efforts. I watched the monarch drift out of sight, past the tide


of sun-soaked clouds, and I continued to wonder about her  house of someone I was yet to visit? Would she lay eggs on a road I would bike along on my journey south? Would those eggs get mowed down or would I pass them as caterpillars? The answers and the fates of future monarchs depend on us.         -


  forest where I had begun. I parked my bike at the trailhead and completed the last leg of my roundtrip journey on foot.


Walking with my head tilted back, I caught sight of the colo- ny above. A kaleidoscope of monarchs saturated the hushed forest in mute color. My gaze climbed the trees, bent with the weight of my traveling companions. There were millions of them. That winter of 2018-19 the population had grown from


its low of 1.7 acres to nearly 15 acres. There is promise in -  I had felt ditched. My return to all those waiting wings felt  equal an adventure, and many gardens equal solutions, and our collective voices create change — many monarchs equal hope. I stood silent, aware of the monarch’s tenuous future, yet committed to celebrating the now. Above me was the proof of our collective success. There are still monarchs here to be saved. We simply must keep moving forward, together. Even if it is just one slow mile at a time.


Sara Dykman followed the migratory route of monarchs, all 10,200 miles, by bi- cycle. She created Beyond A Book to con- nect students to adventure in order to foster lifelong learners, boundary pushers, explor- ers and stewards. She’s currently turning her butterfly bicycle trip into a book. You can learn more about her work at beyond abook.org.


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