[Below, a colorful Writing Prompt from SARK’s Happy + Successful Writers Community which begat this Post…]

…emerged from the palm of my hand.

I wasn’t even aware that that clamminess and itchiness I had felt for days or centuries had been some kind of chrysalis. I thought it was just my skin getting older and craggy. Turns out it was about neither deterioration nor loss, but rather an emergence.

I did nothing to earn such a Beautiful Release which did come seemingly from me.

It was simply Grace.

Orange Sulphurs

Menelaus Blue Morphos

Prepona Laertes…

Grace,

As in Something unearned,

Splendor Bestowed,

Without Cause or Reason.

I forget sometimes that we are Beloved Children of God and Good things just keep happening.

Viceroys 

Zebra Longwings

and the Common Buckeye…

Miracles Manifest and no matter how downtrodden we feel, we can do little to stop them, or to prevent the Love that ignites them.

From nowhere, and All of a Sudden,

A Fluttering of Red Admirals,

Queens,

And Pipevine Swallowtails…

Butterflies emerging…

Rising Up,

Bringing Loveliness to the World!

Kind Words escape our mouths in proclamation as we encounter an animal or a baby — their unbridled affection and unconditional Love opens in us portals to which we thought we had locked and bolted the doors years ago.

Adoration ensues

and Drawing and Painting and Cooking and Baking and Writing Letters and Singing and Graceful Movement twizzle forth from ourselves,

Hesperiidae

Lycaenidae

And Nymphphalidae…

Curtailing the distance between us and the blank canvases

and the empty pots and pans 

and bare cookie sheets, 

blank pages,

and vacant hallowed halls…

And where we had before walked with efficiency, unthinking of the Miracle that walking is in itself,

Now we Dance with wild abandon.

Perhaps we discover that we did not need that one partner after all – that one who left us, and  without whom we had convinced ourselves we would never dance again.

We Dance Now simply as an expression of our own miraculous body

And the Gift of Movement.

We can Love the body we have,

Love the choices that brought us here on the wings of a Butterfly,

And Trust the choices that will bring us forth from here.

Emperors

Leafwings

And Green Hairstreaks…

And YES!

We proclaim over and over,

YES!

YES!

YES!

YES!

YES!

For it is time Now Voyager, to spread our wings and fly.

And YES, even amidst a tempest of such confusion:

this pandemic continues to rage worldwide. Over 2,500 died in India in the last 24 hours – over 345,000 new cases reported in that same period – and that’s’ just what’s reported!

Over 3 million dead globally,

Over 145 million cases, all told…

Those who will and those who won’t get vaccinated or even wear a mask, 

while my email is bombarded with reminders that I have two coupons waiting and if I don’t move on this or that immediately, they will NEVER STOP Emailing me until I do.

I do not respond

For if I respond more urgent notices are sent to me, as responders are noted by warehouses filled with Computer Bots that chart every time we pause and even look at an ad or scroll back for even a moment.

MARK ZUCKERBERG’s algorithms have me by the throat and are cutting off my circulation.

These are Bewildering Times.

I support BLACK LIVES MATTER, as I understand it but I also understand that that means different things to different people.

And I do not support Looting 

And I am told that I am a racist although I am not aware of that being the case and I am told that that lack of awareness makes me more racist, and all the efforts I have made – all the Buddhist “right actions” I have taken in this area over the course of my Life for that to not be true I am told do not matter. 

Really?

I believe every kindness and right action matters.

Cloudless Sulpher

Tortoiseshells

And High Brown Fritillary…

MITCH MCCONNELL – Blocking over 395 Bills that passed the House over the past six years that represent the Will of the People. FUCK YOU!

And JOSH HAWLEY, you Piece of Shit!
Really? You are proud to be the only Senator to vote against an Anti-Asian Hate Crimes Bill?

You stand Alone, JOSH!
And I am Proud to live in a Country in which You stand Alone!

MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE – and stop wearing that stupid “CENSORED” Mask in public.

Have You No Dignity?
At Long Last, Have You No Dignity, Senator?

It makes you look like you’re a shit-stirrer who isn’t there to help solve any of the issues but only to lay waste with the process…

Oh, Wait…

GREENE (R-GA) and LAUREN BOEBERT (R-CO) this week voted against a Bone Marrow Transplant Bill that could help to treat diseases such as leukemia…

The House passed the Bill 415-2.

“To TWO!!!”

You Q-Anon Gun-Fanatic Freaks!

You two are a DisGrace in the truest sense of the word!

You are Without Grace.

Currently 306 Bills to restrict Voting Access have been introduced in 43 State Legislatures.

How is this Happening here in the United States in the 21^st Century?

I am Confused and Angry and Searching for some kind of Peace among a World in Danger and a Country Divided and All of a Sudden, a Fluttering of Butterflies…

Amidst this maelstrom of contempt for a base level of stupidity I cannot believe exists in the positions of power that it does, combined with evil of cinematic proportion…

I search for Grace!

And Lo, it is Given.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtails…

Red Admirals…

Glasswings…

Joe Biden…

Kamala Harris…

Deb Haaland…

Pete Buttigieg…

Jen Psaki…

And the Most Historically Diverse Cabinet in American History…

I keep attempting to work around what appears to be the way of things.

I keep wondering if it needs to be the way of things and if and how I can help to change it.

Me with my tiny, tiny wings.

I want something Better for the World and for my Country and for me and I am just enlightened enough to know that those would all be the same thing.

Yet I feel powerless to create or even to initiate it.

Still, I can release this one Painted Lady from the palm of my hand.

We know how it works.

The tides, and all — 

One wonders how it is… even a tiny butterfly may wonder how it is.

That from the slight breeze created from the flap of her tiny wing in the Amazon Jungle, a storm ravages half of Europe, and the ocean moves.

Here it is said so much better than I have ever heard it put

by my friends, NEIL BARTRAM & BRIAN HILL:

I hear something like that song, and it makes me wonder, why write at all?

It’s all been written and written better.

Except that there is this one more Gulf Fritillary yet to be released from my hand.

Papilionidae

Pieridae

And Riodinidae…

Longing to be released and to flap their wings,

Even just one more…

That one small Butterfly, if I can find the Willingness to release it… maybe… that will be the one whose wing shall stir up a turbulence of Healing

Of which the World is so very much in need.

And why deny the world or myself

That which I have the power to release?

That specific action which, perhaps, can only be released by my hand and from no one and nowhere else.

Perhaps that is why I am here, after all – what I have come for —

And while that one release may not seem such a Grand purpose,

Try and Remember that though our hand may feel like a brittle sticky mess filled with dried abandoned chrysalis,

It could very well be the motion of that tiny wing of that one Butterfly

That makes all the difference.

17,500 species of Butterflies

And no two exactly alike,

At least not that anyone has seen or been able to identify.

And so, perhaps, we too are Unique in all the World.

Perhaps without You, the World would not have that one particular arrangement of patterns and that Burst of Color in just that particular way.

And perhaps the World would be then be shy of just that one thing we offer that no one else can 

…in just that one particular way.

And so Today, I sit down to Write.

I shall open my hand to offer to the world the flap of that tiny wing

Of that one Pseudopontia Paradoxa.

And perhaps, that simple act of Willingness shall ignite a movement that will stir the Oceans 

And perchance from that, the World will survive and thrive and heal.

Though I am unseen

I shall make the Herculean effort to take good care of my unnoticed self,

To nurture the chrysalides that I hold in my hand,

So that when I open my palm, face up and fingers unfurled, to make my offering,

A kaleidoscope of Magnificent Monarchs shall be released 

And the fluttering of Butterflies shall rise up and continue the Journey from my hand out into the World

Appreciating every delicate flower, vibrant and multihued,

Flapping into the air as I could not at 37 miles per hour – about 5 to 12 times per second,

With no thought that the Honeybees flap their wings 200 times per second, or that noseeums, being so much tinier and more toward weightless, can flap their wings 1,046 times per second making them the fastest…

No.

The Butterfly, like all things in nature save humankind, does not compare itself to those skinny bitches thinking they have a better life.

The Butterfly simply flutters about, from Brightly Colored Flower to Brightly Colored Flower, Joyfully delighting in the world and the place that she holds in it

And all that she can do,

And in doing so, the World is Blessed,

As am I. As are You.

As are We All.

Just when I think I am purposeless and without a Gift worth sharing,

All of a sudden, a Fluttering of Butterflies…

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