What would you do if a butterfly came to die on your doorstep?

I walked out of my house today. At the bottom of the stairs on the grey cement sidewalk lay a butterfly. The butter yellow of its Monarch wings was hard to miss. It wasn’t moving, just sitting there, its wings splayed. I approached the butterfly slowly. At this distance I could see all the details of its wings: yellow panes of stained glass, outlined in black, with a row of vibrant blue dots at the back edge, and two burnt orange O’s at the end of his tail. I lay down with him on the sidewalk. We are shielded from view of the street by my MG. We are huddled behind the old chrome spoke wheel.

“Have you brought me a message?” I ask the butterfly. No answer. I reach out my hand, putting my finger in front of him. He crawls right onto my hand. He sits awhile, then flits of my fingers, hovers in front of me, then flops on the ground, upside down. I help him right himself, and he crawls back onto my hand. I sit on the lowest step, a butterfly on my finger.

He is so magnificent! The colors are so striking, his black body with yellow racing stripes of hair, his wings with swaths of deep color and smatterings like a comet’s tail. And he is dying.
My first impulse is to save him. “What do you need?” I ask him. He is weak. Water? Sugar water? Perhaps I can take him inside and make him some honey water.

Can I take him inside? Will he fly away? Will he get lost in my house? How can I mix his drink and hold him too? Can I save him? It is all so hard.

Then a message comes to me. Let go. Just be. Just love. If this butterfly has come to die, then be with him while he dies. Stop trying to save everything. A warmth spreads through my chest. My stomach relaxes.

Yet am I willing to just sit and let a butterfly die? Oh, how my heart aches just sitting here, my legs ache to move to do something. “You do not have to save me,” the butterfly says. “You have to save you.”

So I sit and love the butterfly and let him die. For a moment, he flops off my finger, tumbling on the sidewalk, heading under the car. “No! Not that way!” I say, and reach out my hand for him. He rests again. “I’ll take you to the garden now.”

I stand and carry him up the stairs. As I open the front door, he starts to crawl up my arm. By the time I go out the back door, he is on my shoulder. I can just see him out of the corner of my eye. I walk down the stairs to the garden and I sit in a chair. He flaps his wings, and he is so close I can hear it.

I take him in my hand again, and we sit and sit. He is very still. Sometimes I see the lower end of his body pulsate, and I know he is still alive. Or his proboscis, curled under his head, will move, as if he is breathing. He lowers his head, resting it on my finger. His legs are splayed. “Now he is dying,” I think, and I wonder how long it will take. Perhaps when I am truly able to let go, he will pass. His wings flap once and he is still. I think “That was it. He is gone.”

And then my butterfly moves again. He is not dead. And I feel a tinge of disappointment. I wanted that moment. I wanted to be here when he dies. I wanted to be the one to hold him in his passage. I wanted to tell the story of the butterfly that came to die in my hands, and how I did it. I want to tell the story of how he knew this was a good place to die, how he could see how loving I am, and how magical I am that butterflies come to me to die. And if he had lived and I had fed him how I could tell the story how powerful I am that I healed a butterfly. Either way I am not here, but writing the story of my being here, and how amazing I am.

So just be. Just love this butterfly. Let him live or die. And let me be able to walk away at any time without a great ending. I do not matter that much.

My heart is so filled with love for this creature. How wonderful to be sitting here with this beautiful creature in my hand! It is drizzling now, and I see drops of mist bounce off his wings. It is so much easier. Being and loving. To love so fully is to stop doing anything, and trying to matter so much.

I lift him to a small flower potted on the table. It is rich purple, and open like a small orchid. He walks right onto the flower. I think he is going to eat. But he keeps walking, and leaps off the top of the flower. He flies gracefully up and up. He alights on top of the redwood fence at the garden’s end. I imagine he is exhausted again. I miss him. I want to hold him. I reach up to the top of the fence and before I can come near, he flies off, and lands on a tall bush, out of reach. He folds his wings in the rain.

I think of my mother and father. They are coming close to the end of their lives. I watch them struggle, my mother silently, my father louder and louder. Big things have not worked out as planned. I want to struggle with them, to save them. I want them to be the way I want them to be, so I can be loved the way I want to be loved. Now, I just hold them gently on the tips of my fingers. I walk back up the stairs, and close the door.

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Holding On, Letting Go

Have you ever had a relationship end, and the pain of it persists and is pervasive? It can be both excruciating and exhausting. Or have you managed to move on, and then you get an email from them, and it sends you into a tail spin?

What is in the way of moving on? What keeps that wound from closing?

The answer can be quite simple: The pain is how you continue a relationship with them. In every moment when you feel the pain of the relationship, you are in a relationship with them. You are thinking of them, feeling them, experiencing them. You may even have conversations or arguments with them in your head. There is a part of you that hasn’t let go. There is a part of you that is holding them desperately. There may be a part of you that needs something, and is still trying to get it. And that part would rather feel the pain than lose them.

The way to let go is to not let go. Let yourself hold them tightly, for this is what you want to do. Hold onto that pain. Hold it just long enough until you can see that part of yourself that needs them. It will most likely be you as a child. They are hungry for love, and without that relationship, are cut off from their lifeline. They are probably feeling unlovable, and depended on that relationship to avoid feeling this. In unlovable, they have attached themselves to someone else to feel lovable. And the pain of living in a dead relationship is less than the pain of feeling unlovable, for it is an intense, rich feeling. It may be preferable to feeling one’s own emptiness and worthlessness.

When you can see your inner child, find your heart, because you are a loving person, and have given many people in your life love, and love them. Let them have your heart. Bathe them in your love. Talk to them. Try telling them, “I have what you need right here,” and let them feel your heart, swim in the warmth of your love. Tell them what they have been waiting a long time to hear.

Then you will remember the love that you are. Then you can let go.