(Though not exactly what this group talks about but this is for all the butterfly lovers)
Hi, As I started poring water early morning on the plants in our home, I saw our monsoon guests slowly waking up to the drops of water. One of them was faster (well, comparatively faster than a snail) and started its routine of devouring that very leaf which it had used for catching up the 40 winks during the night. Of course, it was my presumption that it slept through the night. The leaf was decidedly looking shorter than the previous evening while our guest was looking fatter. While the caterpillar moved on, towards its ardous journey to reach the stage of a Chrysalis, before emerging as a butterfly, I remembered a conversation between a caterpillar and a chrysalis from “Hope for the Flowers”, (by Trina Paulos), an interesting fable like modern story which I had read a few years ago. “How can I believe there is a butterfly inside you or me when all I see is a fuzzy worm? How does one become a butterfly?” asked the caterpillar pensively. "You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar." “You mean – to die?” “Yes and no. What looks like you will die….but life is changed, not taken away. Is it not different from those who die without ever becoming butterflies?” A butterfly’s life cycle in fact teaches us so much, especially when we are facing the challenges that our own life cycle present to us The situations which could be dreary or look sometimes hopeless , if understood and faced patiently, can actually result in an opportunity, and soon a tragedy may turn into a moment of personal triumph. Viktor Frankl had written, “when we are no longer able to change a situation, we must challenge to change ourselves”. This effort of changing ourselves, despite fraught with its own risks and dangers, places us in a situation that is much better than all those who, in similar situations, did not strive to become a butterfly. And why not? Richard Bach had put it so aptly when he wrote: The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly. So here is a glimpse into the after-effect of a metamorphosis that the fuzzy worm like caterpillar went through, a Common Jezzbel,proudly displaying its colours during the brief sunny interlude of the monsoon. http://acumenimages.blogspot.com/2010/08/metamorphosis.html Cheers Ashish -- Enjoy
