"It is astounding how little the ordinary person notices butterflies."Vladimir Nabokov

I think you would have to be pretty extraordinary not to notice these Monarch butterflies, just arrived in Mexico after migrating from Canada for the winter. The butterflies don't live long enough to repeat the journey, yet they arrive each year in the same places that their ancestors left the previous season, finding their way to 'familiar' homes they've never seen.

I found these photographs via model Denni Elias on her blog thechicmuse, and she kindly gave me permission to use them here. Denni sat in silence among the butterflies of the forest in Michoacan, Mexico. "The only sound I could hear was the beating of wings," she said. Can you imagine?

I don't think I could even write in such a moment. Just dream. Lately I've been feeling a little like a migratory insect myself, drifting my way across thousands of kilometres in the company of my family, pets and way too many accumulated possessions.

Like these butterflies, I have more than once alighted in a home I had never before seen. I am about to do it again, in Melbourne. Perhaps now is the time to trust my instincts and simply embrace the journey.