Art Studio 87 & 1/2, LLC

Prologue to Caterpillars Never Die

    By Lynn Harvey Tilson

On May 10, 1994 an exquisite Summer Azure butterfly lights on a leaf of a Wild Cherry tree. 



Harriette has found the perfect place to lay her pale green eggs.  The underside of her chosen leaf is fairly close to the ground and leans over what appears to be some natural formed tree house.  Her offspring should be safe here.  Out of the way of predators and adventurous weather changes.

She has always been most fond of the Wild Cherry.  Its leaves and flowers were her favorite when was she was young and as an adult she preferred its nectar above all others available to her in the garden.  

Harriette has been searching for exactly the right spot all afternoon.  She will take a nap and begin to lay her eggs under the new moon.  Her instinct tells her that her mother probably did the same thing.  The darker night will keep other animals away from her.  At 8:30pm she watches the sunset.  It is a beautiful one.  She has never been able to see enough of them she hopes at least one of her offspring will be as enchanted with them as she is.  

A bit after midnight the new moon peers over her shoulder.  




Harriette begins laying her eggs as soon as she feels the moonlight on her wings.  

She places the eggs with care.  While giving each one a kiss and a name in a soft whisper, she sees an egg much larger than all the others.  It must have two baby caterpillars inside!  Harriette gives this special egg two kisses and two names - Harry and Carrie.  It's just a guess that one is male and the other female.  In any case, if she is wrong, Carrie can also be Carey which is a male name and Harry can be Harriette.  Harriette, of course.  She smiles feeling confident that all the bases are covered.  She may even have passed down a family name!

After all the eggs are carefully arranged, named, and kissed she falls asleep next to them.  She will be gone before sunrise and will spend her last few days flitting around the garden, woods, river, and park where she has spent her youth and adult life.  She will not live long enough to see her children.  This is the way of her life as a butterfly.  She has loved every moment. 

When she wakes up from her slumber the moon that guided her earlier is barely visible in the dark sky.  Harriette wishes her children love & happiness before she takes her leave at twilight.

She whispers an extra wish to the twins.  Something tells her they will be special!  Harriette’s saddened face turns away from them as she takes wing toward the approaching sunrise.

1 October 2011 -  A 1st draft is finished - mostly  Two CDs with a playlist of 40 songs have also been added to the book - it is 300 pages with the art.  A Yuma, AZ artist Rosemary Hawkey has done the art. Yay!

Blue Butterflies To You,  Lynn

I have been editing/writing, since  August 2009, the book my father wrote for my daughter (soon to be 36) when he was in Bombay 14 January 1976.

I have had his hand written story, in the 3 note books he bought there, for quite some time.  I can't remember how or why I have them.  But in my desire to clear my space  I found them again.

Using Naturally Speaking to put the book into the computer was easier than typing it all in. Then I began to edit/write.  He did not finish it so it is left to me to do so.  I have been in a hurry to finish feeling a lack of time for some reason.  But my father won't let me or is it the book that won't let me or is it the fact that what I thought was going to be just a preservation of his writing for my daughter and her twin girls began to evolve into something else?  I don't know.  But I do know the book is driving me.

I now see it as an animation film.  So the details that my father did not include are very important.

The book is called Caterpillars Never Die.  The story revolves around Carrie and Harry twin caterpillars.  We follow the 9 days they are in this stage - then into the chrysalis stage - then into their emergence as Summer Azure Butterflies.

They each have their own adventures which they share with each other at the end of each day.

My father did not write much for the difficult chapters; Cosmology, Philosophy, and Religion & God.  So I have been doing a lot of research as well as writing.  Studying the life of the Summer Azure Butterfly - the host plants - the nectar plants - ants that look after them and on and on.  Of course - there is Kant - the only philosopher my father mentions.  Well you get the idea.

I did not know the significance in many cultures of the blue butterfly as the symbol of the soul as it leaves the body.  Even though I had the stone cutter place 3 of them on Papa's tombstone.  The number three I did not catch either at the time - that was 1994.  I was well into the Naturally Speaking dictation when I ran into James's office and said , "Now I know who the third butterfly is!  My father!".  He immediately agreed.