Remembering the hundreds
Hundreds of colorful paper butterflies fluttered in a light breeze against the state Capitol early Tuesday morning (June 30).
With New Mexico set to surpass 500 COVID-19-related deaths this week, volunteers and members of the Interfaith Leadership Alliance of Santa Fe gathered at the Roundhouse to honor victims’ lives with a whimsical display of 500 handcut butterflies.
“We chose butterflies because they’re a symbol of the soul in many faith traditions,” said the Rev. Gail Marriner of Unitarian Universalist Santa Fe, the person responsible for brainstorming Tuesday’s memorial.
The insects are also a sign of “renewal, rebirth, transformation,” said the Rev. Blaine Wimberly, copresident of the alliance and the minister of Zia United Methodist Church.
Because the Interfaith Leadership
Alliance comprises leaders from various religious backgrounds who seek to address injustice in the community, those involved in the project agreed it was important to choose a universally relatable image.
Just after 7 a.m., church and synagogue leaders, as well as other community members, began attaching the paper butterflies – most cut by Marriner and her family – to the exterior walls of the Roundhouse.
There were assorted pastel butterflies, as well as a handful of dragonflies in electric hues and large moths.
At one point, a volunteer called the scene of crowded winged creatures hanging over the building’s entrance “overwhelming.”
Marriner said that’s the point: to make people understand “an overwhelming number of people have died.”
State health officials announced four new deaths from COVID-19 on Tuesday, bringing the total number of reported deaths from the illness to 497.
Marriner said anyone who passed by the memorial Tuesday who was mourning the loss of a loved one because of the novel coronavirus pandemic, or knew someone serving on the front lines to help the community during these precarious times, was encouraged to bring a butterfly home with them.
“There’s a sense of release in suffering,” she said.
Knowing the virus will continue to take lives, Marriner said, she planned to use the butterflies remaining at the end of the day for a second memorial that will be held if the state reaches 1,000 deaths.
In the meantime, alliance leaders encouraged New Mexico residents to stay strong.
A letter they wrote, which hung by the memorial, summed up their message: “May we be guided and blessed in the struggle that still lies ahead.”