While sitting and reading on the sun porch, I heard a lacy black and orange butterfly beating its wings against a closed windowpane right next to an open window. I tried to guide it to the opening, but it resisted me and continued to throw itself against the glass, only higher, out of my reach. I stood and repeatedly tried to help it, yet only succeeded in moving it to a section that was screened.
There our butterfly is now, resting, finally able to grab hold of something firm, and finding itself secure, it seems to have given up any effort to seek freedom.
Between the two of us, only I know that the true world of butterflies is just a few feet away. My winged friend clings to the security of the screen. And while holding on might be seem an improvement over beating itself to death against the glass, it is a pale version of the possible life it might have had if it had continued to seek freedom.
The butterflies’ choice is the one most humans make as well. We cling to the things that entrap us, stopping the quest for a greater possibility when we arrive at circumstances that provide an illusion of security, trading away, perhaps forever, the possibility of freedom and flight.
Fly butterfly, fly, I tell him. Let go of what you think you must have to survive and you could discover that you really do have wings if you choose to use them.
Monica Rix Paxson is an award winning writer. Along with ‘The English Speaker’s Guide to Medical Care in Mexico’, Monica has written Amazon.com best-selling planetary science book Dead Mars, Dying Earth and The Fabulous Money Making Garage Sale Kit – a “how to” guide.
Monica’s articles are featured in numerous magazines and newspapers and she has been a guest on Good Morning America, CNN, CBS This Morning and Coast to Coast. Monica lives high up in the central Mexico mountain range in a small eco-village outside of Tepoztlán, Morelos.
Visit Monica’s inspirational website at THIS LINK
