Unicorns among the pines

They're small and nondescript, California Tortoiseshell butterflies. Like the unicorn, they are usually unseen -- until the mind perceives them.

Then they are everywhere, flitting like small Halloween hankies through the forests of northern California. What their business is, in the snappish cool weather of October, I don’t know. My guidebook says the species is noted for wild fluctuations in population. Some years none are seen in Lassen Park. Other years they actually cause hazardous driving conditions "because of plastered windshields and slickened pavement.”*

But these butterflies please me. They please me, not the least because I can see them, small unicorns of the forest. They peep from behind the massive, corrogated trunks of old cedar trees, they flap and veer through dry grasses. Perception is all. They tickle my soul.

*“Discovering the Butterflies of Lassen Volcanic National Park,” by Laurence L. Crabtree, 1998