If one were to consider where the human race is at in terms of the life cycle of a butterfly, we may well find ourselves sorely disappointed. It could be that except for a rare few, countable on one hand only perhaps, not many of us could call ourselves butterflies! Probably the majority of us are at the caterpillar stage! Voraciously eating, dedicated to particular foods, growing bigger and bigger, expanding and expanding, a mouth, an intestine and an exit!
Perhaps some have seen the futility of the never-ending search for satisfaction in the outside world through entertainment of the senses and have curled up, wrapped themselves around themselves, generated a camouflage cover and positioned themselves in some suitably hidden yet adequate of temperature and humidity, to allow whatever changes evolution offers, to occur in the privacy of their own inwardness.
During this time, all the matter that was the result of that voracious eating, all the stored energy, the juiciness of life, is broken down entirely and used to create anew something of unspeakable beauty. Not all succeed in this phase. For some the preparation was not adequate, the chosen place not secure or in some other way inadequate, some fall out of life at this stage but all is not lost. Everything that they are is recycled and again enters the fray, same odds at birth, to again run the gamut between birth and death, the cycle of life.
And those that succeed! Well what is that? The beauty of color, flight upwards once wings dry in the soft breeze of an early summer day as they gently flutter these new appendages and experiment with this new body of light and flight and the ability to reproduce. What special gifts are provided at this stage. Flying flowers visit stationary ones and partake of the nectar lovingly prepared and in the process regenerate the provider of the juice of life by inadvertently gathering the pollen and deposit it as they sample flower after flower.
Humanity’s peak is not entirely butterfly like. No flight for us except with the assistance of some mechanical device; sex tends to get left behind rather than becoming the main aim! But the gift of drinking deeply from the nectar of the gods is on offer, available at all stages if we only open ours eyes, cast off the dream-like trance, and encounter existence directly.
-Amido