An Invitation Part 3--Tying it all Together

One morning while walking to my office from the parking lot I noticed a butterfly wing on the steps.  One single butterfly wing.  I couldn't help but pick it up.  It was soft and yellow and left an almost gold colored dust on my fingertips.  I tucked it inside my copy of Fools Gold thinking I might use it in a collage or some other creation in the future.  It remained tucked safely out of sight for several days.  To be honest with you I'd actually forgotten I'd pressed it in my book for safe keeping.  Then last Friday after scratching out An Invitation (see Saturday's post) in my journal and while reading the portion of Fools Gold I shared in yesterday's post a gust of wind fingered through the pages of my book taking the butterfly wing with it.  I just happened to catch a delicate wisp of yellow from the corner of my eye but I knew what it was.

My immediate reaction was one of loss.  "Oh my butterfly wing.  It's gone."  But right on the tail of that thought, not even a breath behind it, was a sensation that things were just the way they needed to be.  That little gust of wind, and it really wasn't a very big one, seemed to tie everything together for me--the poem I'd just written about inviting others into our humanness, words about being willing to be vulnerable in order to live a fuller existence, and the paragraph from Fools Gold that affirmed my journey and my ache to find the freedom in the shattered pieces.  Something about seeing that fragile, beautiful broken wing being carried away by the wind seemed to make sense.  It seemed to say something about honoring the broken pieces by just letting them be--not holding on to them, not pressing them between the pages of fear in an attempt to keep them safe, not trying to turn it into something other than what it is--a broken wing.  It seemed right that the broken wing should be traveling the earth in the hands of the wind instead of pressed between the pages of a book or glued down in a collage.  And it seemed to say something to me about where I'm at right now, something about relief and freedom, something about letting it go and letting it be. 

If I wanted to I could have searched the patio for the wayward wing and probably found it.  I could have placed it back inside the book and forgotten about it once again.  I could have stumbled across it one day and then added it to my collection of ephemera.  Maybe one day I would eventually use it in a collage or some other creation.  But that didn't feel like the right thing to do.  The right thing seemed to be to let that broken wing have its moments of flight and by giving it that gift remind myself that even broken things can fly.   

Comments

[daisies]

breathless over here ... beautiful you ...

[Claire]

Wow...this was gorgeous!

Cxx

[bella]

Such beautiful thoughts. One broken butterfly wing offers the prospect of so much possibility. I love it.

[kristen]

you are so very lovely my friend. thank you for this. xoxo

[Mélanie]

Beautiful words and beautiful post ...
Welcome to this new blog

[Mercer's Daughter]

Your words give me peace and strength. I fight for this need of mine to make sure everybody around me is happy. It's making me miserable. I want to let that butterfly wing go. I want to be able to say no to my need to chase after everyone else's broken dreams so I can help fix them.
Maybe they are not supposed to be fixed, besides it's not my wing.
Victoria

[tongue in cheek]

gold dust on your finger and your imprint on its wing.
Bonded and soaring.

[ceanandjen]

It is indeed that last sentence of this post that so beautifully ties these three posts together. We are all broken/have broken wings in one sense or another, and sometimes it is so difficult to allow ourselves to even attempt to fly, never mind do it when we feel so broken.

Beautiful.

[bee]

the last sentence in this piece is so beautiful, it breaks my heart.

we think along the same lines often, michelle, through different experiences...if that makes sense.

i was thinking yesterday in the shower how i had a definite idea when i was little about how my life would be, and how i was able to have that definite idea because i hadn't been exposed to life. we're given one body, and i think that puts our souls in this mindframe that everything should be solid, and constant...when it's not. life is chaotic, our bodies are...

accepting that we are spirits who come to engage in the chaos of life in one fixed body...allowing ourselves to engage in the fundamental, beautiful uncertainty...this is true power.

something i learn more about with every post of yours i read.

(hugs)

p.s. i can find you here more now than at la vie, right?

[gkgirl]

this post blew me away.

beautiful insights.

wow.

[deirdre]

Acceptance is so difficult for me too often. Reading this made me sigh and glimpse just a little of what that might feel like.

[Georgia]

Thank you.