Parable of a Butterfly

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Several years ago a little girl caught a small green caterpillar and placed it in a jar. She fed the caterpillar Queen Anne’s Lace leaves daily and watched as the caterpillar grew fatter and fatter, then one day she was surprised to find a chrysalis in the jar. She placed the jar in a safe place and put a damp cotton ball in there. One morning she woke up to find a beautiful yellow swallowtail flitting around in the jar, trying desperately to fly. Her mother told her that she needed to set the creature free so it could use its wings and do what it was created to do, but the little girl exclaimed, “It’s mine. I raised it from a caterpillar. I took care of it and fed it and watered it and kept it safe from my cat, so I want to keep it. It’s mine.”

“If you keep the butterfly in this jar it will die without ever doing the things it was created to do,” her mother said.

“But I love the butterfly,” the little girl protested. “If I take the lid off the jar it will fly away and never come back. Then I will not have a butterfly.”

The young mother knelt beside her daughter and spoke gently. “If you love something you must set it free when it wishes to go. Love doesn’t try to own another living thing. When we keep a thing because we can’t imagine being without it, then we don’t love, we’re just afraid. Love makes us brave and gives us faith. Fear makes us selfish. Do you understand?”

The little girl nodded. “Okay. I will set it free.”

So, they took the jar into the front yard and the child removed the lid. The butterfly first perched on the rim of the jar, then it flew into the maple tree and fluttered about from branch to branch, leaf to leaf. All at once it flew free of the tree, across the yard, and over the field beyond, going higher and higher, a flash of yellow in the sun. The little girl laughed. “Look at it go, Mommy! I am glad I set it free.”

Years later, a young woman loaded her belongings into her gray car and pulled out of her mom’s driveway. The now middle-aged mother watched her disappear over the horizon, a lonely tug in her heart, tears in her eyes. Her daughter was off to life in the world, to an apartment and a job and a man and a…a whole suitcase full of dreams. As her mother stared at the country road leading away from home she saw a yellow swallowtail light on the mailbox and folding and unfolding its wings and she remembered.

Love liberates. Fear imprisons.

My Perfect Day

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On a perfect day

there would be no clocks

calendars

schedules.

I would awaken

when I was rested

sleep when I was tired

eat when I was hungry

drink when I was dry.

On a perfect day

I would go wherever

my creative muses led me.

I might wade a creek

touching nature

teaching children

or I might go to

France’s Mirmande

cobblestone streets

sun on my face

ancestral winds at my back.

On a perfect day

I might drive over

to Penn’s Store

where I would meander

amongst fellow misfits

poets, painters, songsters.

No one would care

what I looked like

what clothes I had on

or how I wore my hair.

On a perfect day

no one would be nice

because of what I could give them

or do for them

or how I made them feel

about themselves.

No one would misread me

assigning desire where

only kindness was intended

or assuming anger when

quiet contemplation overtook me.

On a perfect day

I might paint, write

sing or dance

or stare quietly into space

not really knowing where

my mind had been

then suddenly

having an inspiration

an insight

an ah-ha, that’s it!

On a perfect day

I might make a memory

with another or a few

without baggage

ownership

hurt

just joy.

On a perfect day

I would be like a butterfly

landing where flowers bloom

hurting nothing

taking nothing

expecting nothing

–just being.

All I would want

would be warmth and freedom

from jars, nets and insect zoos.