“The names of some butterflies suggest an almost military pecking order: the Monarch, the Red Admiral, the Silver Skipper. But these beautiful creatures recognize no such hierarchy. They all began as eggs, one no better than the next. Then they hatched into caterpillars, among the lowliest of creatures, inching along patiently in search of food. Each caterpillar then embeds itself in a chrysalis and bides its time until it can emerge winged.

We think that caterpillars transform only once, but from egg to grub to cocoon to butterfly, they’ve changed three times! Only in the last stage are they considered exemplars of light, beauty, and grace, but they are always engaged in metamorphosis.

If caterpillars are engaged in constant change, how much more so are you, with your varied and complex life? And if caterpillars can become butterflies, think of what you have the potential to become?”

From Earth Bound: Daily Meditations For All Seasons by Brian Nelson

International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace

“Oh Great Spirit,
this is a Call for Peace across the land,
so it is directed to the only Earth Dwellers
who are capable of making war
and have done so since their beginning.
I thank you, oh Creator
for allowing the powerful discoveries
that allow two-leggeds to reach
into all nooks and crannies,
glades, caverns, depths and valleys.

We thank you for the Age of Communication
which many of us understand to be the power
that will lead to a lasting peace.

No longer can the forked tongued ones,
those greedy and power questing two-legged;
no longer can they hide
all things that reflect the path of Truth.
You have allowed talking wires,
the voices that sing through the wind,
and even pictures of truth that go out into the depth of space
and bounce back beyond the rim of the Earth Mother,
in order that we will not be deceived.
In many lands now,
we two-legged are allowed to inscribe our winter counts (books)
truthfully as it was when we red two-legged inscribed them upon
the hides of our four-legged cousins.

When we see the Red Dawn in the East;
you are telling us that each new day will bring knowledge.
I thank you for allowing your powers to help us tell what is
truthfully happening.
We understand that knowledge unaltered and not distorted,
can become wisdom
and that wisdom can lead to understanding.
Through such truthful observation and consideration,
we will win out some day and find an everlasting peace.”

Eagle Man

“And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”

From As You Like It by William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616), born on this day

Image: Morning Amongst the Coniston Fells by J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), born on this day

International Mother Earth Day

“howl up the moon.
bask in starlight and
bathe in stories.
make friends with dandelions.
listen to the trees.
walk out of your house barefoot
and let the grass
whisper poems to your toes.
sigh.
feast on cloud shapes.
gulp the sunset.
let the wind play with your hair
like a lover.
sing the wild geese into
night’s grand unfurling.
ask a caterpillar for a dance.
cloak yourself in twilight
soft as a moth kiss.
sway to the music
in your veins that remembers
who you were before
the world told you who you should be.
fill your ruby-wing heart
with that truth
and revel up the dawn.”

Angi Sullins

World Creativity and Innovation Day

“You advise me, too, not to stray far from the ground of experience, as I become weak when I enter the region of fiction; and you say, “real experience is perennially interesting, and to all men.” I feel that this also is true; but, dear Sir, is not the real experience of each individual very limited? And, if a writer dwells upon that solely or principally, is he not in danger of repeating himself, and also of becoming an egotist? Then, too, imagination is a strong, restless faculty, which claims to be heard and exercised: are we to be quite deaf to her cry, and insensate to her struggles? When she shows us bright pictures, are we never to look at them, and try to reproduce them? And when she is eloquent, and speaks rapidly and urgently in our ear, are we not to write to her dictation?”

Charlotte Brontë (1816 – 1855), novelist, born on this day, in a letter to G. H. Lewes, 6 November 1847

Easter Sunday

“And just when the darkness
became too much to bear
and the struggle too hard,
the light broke through
and the caterpillar emerged
a butterfly
delicate but unbroken,
wild and gentle,
finally free to spread its lovely wings
and fly away on the wind.”

L.R. Knost

Holy Saturday

“My heart is so small
it’s almost invisible.
How can You place
such big sorrows in it?
“Look,” He answered,
“your eyes are even smaller,
yet they behold the world.”

Rumi

Good Friday

“Every time we make the decision to love someone, we open ourselves to great suffering, because those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. The greatest pain comes from leaving… the pain of the leaving can tear us apart. Still, if we want to avoid the suffering of leaving, we will never experience the joy of loving. And love is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking.”

Henri Nouwen

Maundy Thursday

“The grass never sleeps.
Or the roses.
Nor does the lily have a secret eye that shuts until morning.
Jesus said, wait with me. But the disciples slept.

The cricket has such splendid fringe on his feet,
and it sings, have you noticed, with its whole body,
and heaven knows if it ever sleeps.

Jesus said, wait with me. And maybe the stars did, maybe
the wind wound itself into a silver tree, and didn’t move.
Maybe the lake far away, where once he walked
as on a blue pavement,
lay still and waited, wild awake.

Oh the dear bodies, slumped and eye-shut, that could not
keep that vigil, how they must have wept,
so utterly human, knowing this too
must be part of the story.”

Gethsemane by Mary Oliver

“I feel I am privileged to express a hope. The hope is this: that we shall have peace throughout the world, that we shall abolish wars and settle all international differences at the conference table, that we shall abolish all atom and hydrogen bombs before they abolish us. The future of the modern world demands modern thinking. Therefore, let us use the full force of our intelligence instead of obsolete homicidal methods in settling our international differences.”

Charlie Chaplin’s message to the world on his 70th birthday, 16th April 1959