Are You Me? (My last post until ...)

These days I am tired. Not physically tired, but deeply and internally tired. It feels like a tiredness that has built up over some time and has caught up with me. I need a special recharge and refueling. My deep well of energy wants replenishing. I don't know from what, where or whom this will come ... but I want and need it to come.

I was awakened this morning by the feeling of intense warmth swirling around my left hand. I thought it was heat emanating from Jasper's body, but then I realised he was lying at my feet. I lay there in the dark for a while, dead still, in case movement would cause the warm feeling to go away. It swirled around my hand for a while, increasing in heat. I felt that someone or something was there, gently and intently making contact. I'm not conscious of it having gone away, even when the intense swirling feeling eventually stopped.

Eventually I got out of bed, lit a candle, rolled out my yoga mat, tuned in, did some spinal flexes, some breathing, a short meditation. I payed attention to how I felt on a deeper level as I did each thing. I felt myself reviving slightly.

I drank some water and went into the garden to collect more flowers for a little box I had started filling a few days ago. Jasper (who follows me everywhere) came out with me. The dogs ran to greet me. I started to collect the blooms (dried Petria flowers). Being in the garden, I felt more energy returning.
Lower in the garden I noticed many bird feathers strewn all over the grass. From the kind of feathers I could tell that something had killed (and consumed) a mocking bird and a dove, mere feet away from each other. It wasn't Jasper because (a) he wouldn't go into the back garden with the dogs unless I was there and (b) had he caught birds he would have brought them for me. And I don't think it was the dogs either. I collected some of the feathers and added them to the box.

A while later I came to the front of the house and lay on the driveway, looking up at the clouds. They were similar to the way they were all of yesterday. When I used to fish, we would call those clouds 'fishing clouds' (also known as 'mackerel clouds' or altocumulus). They are said to indicate a good time for fishing. I lay on the ground with Jasper flopped next to me, feeling the earth sending something into my body. Above, the mackerel clouds (on the upper layer) were unmoving. Little wisps drifted by quickly, closer to earth.

It's been a while since I closely examined the other forms of life around me. I got up, went to a patch of plants and was looking at the shapes of the stones between them, expecting to find a heart or a quartz crystal, as I normally do. Instead, I saw a caterpillar, moving slowly and purposefully through the dry leaves. It occurred to me that the garden was its Universe and it was bravely exploring and going somewhere. I suddenly felt as though I was not taking advantage of the fact that I too live in a huge world - inner and outer.

Where are you going? was the first question that came into my head upon seeing it.

Are you me? was the next question in our silent conversation.
It seemed to be drawn to me. I deliberately kept shifting my position to see if it would turn and head my way ... and it did. Eventually it was on the driveway with me. I ran inside to get my camera and, when I returned, it was there, stationary and waiting.

I put my hand out and it started to move towards it. Wow. Now as I write this, I realise it was my left hand! The one that was getting the warm swirling energy early this morning ...

It climbed up. I enjoyed the feeling of its moist, cool little feet against my skin.

"Are you me?" I asked it again.


"How does one become a butterfly?" she asked pensively.
"You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar."

- Trina Paulus -