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Audio: Readings by the author
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Winged Messenger:
Summer time in an English country garden at my home in the north east. Church bells ringing, flowers blooming, bees buzzing. I was taking it all in, then I heard a voice, an auditory transmission that told me:
‘You will receive true enlightenment when a butterfly settles on your head.’
Immediately I positioned myself close to a buddleia bush and watched from the corners of my eyes, willing and anticipating every passing butterfly to land on my head… I waited in vain. Coincidently, a week later, my parents invited me to visit a butterfly sanctuary. Enthusiastically I accepted.
The glass house was teeming with life. Exotic butterflies everywhere, all the colours of the rainbow. I wandered through the heat and humidity of the simulated tropical forest certain that I was meant to be here, at this time, in this place, for one reason only. Again, my expectations were unfulfilled.
Two years later, just before daybreak, I entered the bathroom that backs on to my garden and found a peacock butterfly against the wall, trembling wings exposed. Reassuring her that she would be safe in my hands, I enveloped her and took her outside to greet the dawn. l opened my cupped hands and released her into the fresh air. She flew, spiraling upwards, then descended and settled securely on the crown of my head … if enlightenment is joy, I was at that moment, a truly enlightened man.
Summer time in an English country garden at my home in the north east. Church bells ringing, flowers blooming, bees buzzing. I was taking it all in, then I heard a voice, an auditory transmission that told me:
‘You will receive true enlightenment when a butterfly settles on your head.’
Immediately I positioned myself close to a buddleia bush and watched from the corners of my eyes, willing and anticipating every passing butterfly to land on my head… I waited in vain. Coincidently, a week later, my parents invited me to visit a butterfly sanctuary. Enthusiastically I accepted.
The glass house was teeming with life. Exotic butterflies everywhere, all the colours of the rainbow. I wandered through the heat and humidity of the simulated tropical forest certain that I was meant to be here, at this time, in this place, for one reason only. Again, my expectations were unfulfilled.
Two years later, just before daybreak, I entered the bathroom that backs on to my garden and found a peacock butterfly against the wall, trembling wings exposed. Reassuring her that she would be safe in my hands, I enveloped her and took her outside to greet the dawn. l opened my cupped hands and released her into the fresh air. She flew, spiraling upwards, then descended and settled securely on the crown of my head … if enlightenment is joy, I was at that moment, a truly enlightened man.