I was visited by a moth.

Hello there, friends. I have a story to tell you about a moth.

At around noon on Sunday, a small moth came into the house with me through the sliding-glass door. I was surprised. When I say it came in with me, I mean with me, not ahead of me or behind me. Or maybe my surprise was more due to the fact that the moth fluttered in so closely to my face, and I hadn’t noticed it at all when I was outside. It just suddenly appeared as I was coming in from the back patio.

It was a mystifying thing to happen at noon on a bright, sunny day, as moths are nocturnal, for the most part. I couldn’t remember ever seeing such an active moth in the middle of a summer day. Moths are attracted to bright light at night. This moth came with me into the darker house from the bright outdoors.

I’d been doing laundry out there in the (outdoor) laundry room and had just come in briefly to grab something, so a few minutes later I opened the door again to go back out. Again, the moth appeared in front of my face, materializing there and staying with me as I stepped out onto the patio. It wasn’t in a hurry. It simply accompanied me out.

Back in the laundry room, I arranged the laundry in the washer and reached for the detergent and as I was filling the detergent tray, I looked up and saw that the moth was poised on the inside of the washing machine lid, again right there, eye-level. I hadn’t noticed it coming in. It was just suddenly there. I could see every detail of its wing pattern and coloring. A feeling came over me. After this third appearance in front of my face, the moth’s behavior didn’t seem random. It seemed deliberate, because the moth was clearly making sure that I saw it. Like Salem used to do.

It was hours later at around 10:30pm when I stepped into the hallway from my office to go to the kitchen. The hallway leads straight to the living room, so I’m walking toward the far back living-room wall when I walk down the hall. Instead of going into the kitchen to the left of the hallway/living-room juncture, though, I changed course and went all the way into the living-room to inspect that far wall, because I’d noticed a small dark moth-shaped spot centered on it at eye-level, directly ahead of my path. I found that it was the same moth, positioned before me for the fourth time since the middle of the day. Tears came to my eyes as I said, Salem? I mean, I at least had to wonder. In many Native American cultures, it is believed that moths are messengers from the spirit world, especially from those who are no longer with us on the physical plane.

It’s just that Salem was the first thought in my mind when I saw again how precisely and deliberately the moth set itself in front of me, where I’d be sure to see it. All Salem ever wanted was to be able to see me, to be seen by me, and to be with me. She wouldn’t allow me to touch her, but we shared our love and affection through our eyes.

The next night was Monday night. Again, I was on my way to the kitchen when I stopped abruptly at the end of the hall. Directly overhead was the A/C vent, and I was suddenly, inexplicably overcome by the urge to change the A/C filter.

Now, believe me when I tell you, my friends, that I’ve never felt such an inclination. Never as in ever. But in that moment, it was the only thing I wanted to do, even though I was on a mission to do something else and I had several other things that I wanted to be doing at the same time. Suddenly, all I could think about was changing the A/C filter! I often experience sudden bursts of motivation to do random things late at night, but this was a new one.

So I went to retrieve my step-stool and I got up there and unlatched the A/C vent, slid out the old filter, replaced it with the new one, re-latched the vent, stepped down. It was precisely 10:35pm, which I know because of my cell phone call log. My phone rang as I was putting the step-stool away, you see. It rang and it was my friend and I picked it up to answer, and as we spoke, I absentmindedly reached for the old A/C filter from where I’d leaned it against the hallway wall.

Maybe you’ve correctly guessed where this is heading: I turned the dirty filter over to look at the cleaner side that had been facing up into the A/C duct, and there, in front of my face and perfectly centered on the filter, was the moth. It was dead and beautifully displayed. And I started crying, silently, because I didn’t want to have to explain anything to my friend.

The A/C filter is not an insect trap. I’ve never seen insects on the old filters. For whatever reason, insects do not get up there. This was a complete anomaly. If an insect were to get into the vent and die on the filter, it would die on the outside/downward-facing side of the panel, the side on which the dust collects… not on the side that’s facing up into the duct. That filter had been in the vent for over a month and there’d been plenty of time for other insects to get into it, but there was only the moth that’d been poised on my living-room wall almost exactly 24 hours earlier. I don’t even know how it managed to get up onto the top side of the filter. And I can’t imagine why it would. Moths are attracted to light, not to dark A/C ducts.

I couldn’t believe it, quite frankly. I’d been stopped in my tracks and called to remove the filter that held the moth.

I know that this moth holds importance for me. In a span of 36 hours, it made sure to appear in front of my face five times (a significant number to me): coming into the house, going back outside, on the inside of the washing machine cover (front and center), on the living-room wall facing the hallway (front and center), and finally on the clean inside of the A/C filter (front and center).

Of course I carefully transported the moth to my kitchen counter. I’m going to return it to the Earth on Sunday.

Anyhow, I don’t know where I’m going with this, and I don’t have much else to say about it. It was just a strange and totally not random or coincidental thing that I wanted to share. Oh, and today, I opened my mailbox after work and a moth flew out at me, the first moth to fly out of the mailbox in the thousands of times I’ve opened it in the seven years I’ve been in this house. Literally a message in my mailbox fluttering out into my face.

As I’d mentioned in my last post, the Lion’s Gate Portal is open… and when it’s open, there may be messages. I’ve received mine. I’m not sure what it is yet, but perhaps there will be a reveal after meditating one of these days. I would like to think that it’s Salem, so maybe I’ll just go ahead and believe that. It very well could be, at any rate.