Origami Butterflies in Cocoon Tent Creativity Project 2014
Photo by Janice McGuigan
Photo by Janice McGuigan
I am a butterfly, I believe. My wings I know are an iridescent
blue. I know this because I've caught them sparkling in your blue eyes. Or
wait...maybe it was the water I saw them reflected upon or the sky...yes that
was it. I was flying on a cloudless sky and looked back...my wings glowed bluer
than the truest blue...you couldn't tell where my wings and the sky (your eyes,
the water) began, or ended. Yes, that was it.
I was, I've been told, once another, and while in that earlier self I identified as caterpillar. Like your body, and the notion of self you've developed which is intensely identifiable with your body, all the joys and sorrows of that bodily self, I had developed a sense of self informed by all my experiences as caterpillar. In my present case my experiences are ones that only butterflies are privy to. Or are they?
If I am the sum of all my experiences and yet have moments when I seem to be so much more than the sum total of my identifiable, limited self who, or what am I in those moments?
I am flight; the wind that carries me on currents of delight.
I am resting; the soft petals, rough and beaten bark I light upon.
I am the sweet nectar I taste; life's energies unfolding.
I am the snag that caught my wing, and tore the ragged edge.
I am the ragged edge, the ghost I'm making of myself.
As soon as thought enters, I am lost to the fullness of the experience of what is... the blissful, wonder of cutting away thought, of letting it fall like hair that's been trimmed or nails that have been bitten and spat, or a cocoon that's been left behind. Yet the only way I can transcend the limited self is by acknowledging that that self exists, as an illusion with which I make my way.
I was, I've been told, once another, and while in that earlier self I identified as caterpillar. Like your body, and the notion of self you've developed which is intensely identifiable with your body, all the joys and sorrows of that bodily self, I had developed a sense of self informed by all my experiences as caterpillar. In my present case my experiences are ones that only butterflies are privy to. Or are they?
If I am the sum of all my experiences and yet have moments when I seem to be so much more than the sum total of my identifiable, limited self who, or what am I in those moments?
I am flight; the wind that carries me on currents of delight.
I am resting; the soft petals, rough and beaten bark I light upon.
I am the sweet nectar I taste; life's energies unfolding.
I am the snag that caught my wing, and tore the ragged edge.
I am the ragged edge, the ghost I'm making of myself.
As soon as thought enters, I am lost to the fullness of the experience of what is... the blissful, wonder of cutting away thought, of letting it fall like hair that's been trimmed or nails that have been bitten and spat, or a cocoon that's been left behind. Yet the only way I can transcend the limited self is by acknowledging that that self exists, as an illusion with which I make my way.
Jill MacCormack
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