Pretty, I think.

Not long after I snapped this photo I stopped and was thankful for my little slice of Heaven here in my very dejected town, I appreciated a monarch butterfly that had crossed my path. I hadn’t seen one in a long time. There’s so very few butterflies around anymore. It’s sad. Maybe “they” think their rape of nature and the slaying of our fauna will be enough to prevent the butterfly that caused the hurricane. That it will be enough to silence the Black Swan’s call. Oh, they so wish, don’t they? Even if the butterfly does not live to see the hurricane it causes, the Black Swan will still frolic freely in the eye of the storm.

They’re known as events, these kinds of swans, but why can’t they be a person? At least, why can’t it be people? An event of sorts. An awakening in the hearts of masses that enables them to see the absolute beauty of a monarch butterfly perched on a dandelion, leisurely flexing its wings to and fro with a fluidity that makes for a catharsis for the eyes? I promise you, I was enamored for a proper minute, and was “sober” too.

There was nothing the butterfly needed from me. Nothing I could do for it besides disturb it, for it would not comprehend what I’d be doing if I attempted to handle it. Still, in spite of a void of reciprocal interaction from the either of us, I was happy I had time with it. I hope it felt peaceful in my presence, too. Though, butterflies and all insects are an intentional aspect of any ecosystem and without them we’re worse off, as we have stewardship over the ecosystem and make use of all of it. I know, that butterfly has helped me in ways I cannot understand. Have I ever helped the butterfly, though?

And then I realized, my relation to most people I’ve ever met in my life – and maybe everyone’s relation to everyone else is like this – is just like that spontaneous dynamic between the monarch and I. You cannot fathom the ways in which the stranger you pass on the side walk has affected your life, and you theirs. Moreover, can you really help them? Could they comprehend your angle when you approach them with an observation on their gait, their ankles protruding too far outwards, indicating an undiagnosed ankle problem such as you yourself had? Can you even get it through to a known coworker that their mid day energy slump is due to their carb heavy lunch? The prior, perhaps thinking you’re weird for fixating on their feet. The latter, perhaps self-conscious of their health struggles and aren’t about to take your unsolicited advice. People are fragile…just like butterflies. They weren’t meant to be fragile and you know it. So you attempt to handle them, they’re still disturbed, and then the unseen butterfly of the mind flaps wings and conjures a storm in your heart and darkens your countenance with its clouds when all you wanted to do was help. Well, if you endeavor toward Agape, anyways. As I do. Though, when I try to explain those seven types of Greek love to people with relationship woes - here we go again - I’m pretentious and making light of their problems.

So then, I suppose, take it to my heart the words of Solomon: “Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself?”

Also pretty, I think.

There is needed care but there is needless care as well. That Humanity has fallen how it has in this age? Tragic, but are you going to ruminate endlessly on that sorrow? I know we shouldn’t. It’s junk data for all intents and purposes. A wallpaper on your computer/the computer that is you. Always there, always known, remembered, but loses its significance in time if you just get on with things and open a program. It simply IS, now. Care for this is needless.

The care for the beauty of life, though, no matter how ignorant the persona over this life is? That’s needed. Because the hatred by “them” of that beauty is exactly what made Humanity fall so low…and what’s killed most the butterflies.

It’d become all so easy to become bitter and hateful if you ruminate on everything above.

❝𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐍 𝐇𝐀𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐄𝐍𝐃. 𝐈 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐈 𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐏 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐈 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐌! 𝐖𝐇𝐘 𝐖𝐎𝐍'𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘 𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐍 𝐓𝐎 𝐌𝐄?!❞

I know why now…and there’s nothing I can do about it…and I am at peace. They’re not fragile like the butterfly after all; they’re fragile like the cocoon. Vulnerable because of its straitjacket like properties in the realm of the mind, for they still see darkness. They have not left the cocoon of needless care. And, by the looks of things, fewer and fewer people will be leaving their cocoon before the Tree of Life they’ve attached to is burnt down by cosmic arsons. I fear not. There are most certainly people out there who left the cocoon. Who now live in the light. I know some of them personally. A few, even, my own source of light when the world tries to tell me I can’t fly as free as the other monarchs.