Black Butterfly

January 6, 2024

Here I am again, in India, dripping in oil and melting with relaxation from my second Ayurvedic body treatment of the day. I’m leisurely drinking hot ginger water, my legs draped over a chair, looking out from my balcony at the branches and leaves of the friendly teak tree that is just a few feet away.

I see a black butterfly perched daintily on one of the enormous leaves, its wings gently moving just enough to stay there. Such a delight to see! This one doesn’t have white spots on it like the beautiful one I saw the other day and I imagine how exquisite it would be to see close up.

I begin to muse on how delicate butterflies are and the miraculous metamorphosis they go through. From egg, to larva, to caterpillar, into their chrysalis for total dissolution into goo, then out of imaginal cells emerging as a butterfly. That leads me to how sad it is to go through all of that only to live for as briefly as three or four days and no longer than a year at the most. I wonder how long this gorgeous beauty will live. Is today its last day? Will I be the last one to appreciate this black butterfly in all its glory?

As I continue to riff on my own reverie I then wonder when it will lift off into flight. It has been there for a long time, how divine for me to be treated to this lengthy sighting.

Then, I notice … this is not a butterfly! It is an illusion being created by light reflecting on a brown, dead leaf hanging from a branch above where my beautiful butterfly has seemingly been perching.

I look away, done with it now that it is not a butterfly.

My instant dismissal becomes quickly apparent to me. Because it was not the thing of beauty I thought it was I immediately judged it as not worthy of my attention and lost my curiosity about what would or could happen next.

So, I look back again and begin to observe more closely. There’s not enough breeze for the large, thick, green living leaves to sway, there is just enough for the brown, dead, dry, curled one to be moving slightly and catching the light in a particular way that creates a black spot.

I see the black butterfly again, gently moving its wings. Sometimes it grows larger, sometimes smaller. Now I shift my attention and I see the brown, dead leaf. I examine more closely the curl at the bottom and how the light hits it to create the black butterfly spot underneath.

I go back and forth, shifting my focus between the butterfly and the dead leaf. I am no longer dismissing the dead leaf because it didn’t live up to my original romantic story of being a black butterfly. It is different, that’s all.

Where will I choose to direct my attention? The choice of the story I create, the feelings I then have about my story and where I direct my attention are all totally up to me.

Am I being forced to choose one over the other? No.

Do I have to dismiss one of them to engage with the other? No.

Do I have the capacity to hold both of them as “worthy” of my attention? Yes.

Do they both have something about them to be curious about and to show me? Yes.

Had becoming aware of a black spot on a dead leaf and choosing to learn more about it been for nothing? Not at all.

As I continued to observe the leaf, it let go and fell.

The dead brown, curled leaf was taking flight, just as I expected the exquisite black butterfly to, only differently. Downward.

In those brief moments my gratitude radiated for its existence and for the selfless gift of enrichment it had offered me.

Thank you!