You Can Still Fly With Half a Wing

I saw a butterfly today. Half her wing was missing, but still she was flying.

She didn’t seem to mind — or even notice. I thought of the quote by D.H.Lawrence:

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without having felt sorry for itself.

There’s a thought: self pity doesn’t exist in the entirety of nature, except in us humans. Neither does self analysis, for that matter, and still the creatures seem to get by fine without it. If my butterfly had a navel, she wouldn’t waste any time gazing at it. She would be far too busy flower hopping, from fireweed to knapweed, surely relishing the colour purple. And skittering about on the airwaves, doing her best to impersonate a flower petal come free, glorying in the sensation of the breeze on the wings that she does have.

Our cousins with roots don’t do too badly either. Think about those lilies of the field. Sit around in the field all day, but they don’t lack for anything.

When a tree dies, he slowly gets absorbed back into the earth, the earth from which he came. In the meantime, he provides a habitat for a multitude of flora and fauna, before becoming perhaps a source of heat for us or a beautiful table to eat upon. I wouldn’t mind being so useful myself. So uncomplaining and accepting.

There seems to be a teaching here. Something about the subtle art of allowing.

I might listen.