animals at ease

I am sitting on a remote mountain path, one that is not much used. A little later in the spring, some goat herders will bring their huge flocks up this way to find some high pasture. But for now I have the path to myself, at least as far as human beings are concerned.

There are butterflies around, though, and one of them keeps coming to visit me, touching my hand, stroking even my face. And I have noticed this before with various wild animals: when I am sitting quietly, when I am at ease in myself, when there is no tension in my being, the wild animals also relax. They come close. They don't mind me. They can sense that I am no threat to them. They are at ease in themselves because I am at ease in myself. We have a resonance. And this sort of resonance is something that we tend to overlook in our daily human life.

It is there, though. Even amongst us humans there is a resonance. If I am uptight, you will feel it, and you too will probably be rather guarded, a little bit stand-offish, not open to me. And conversely if I am relaxed in my being, you will sense it, without words, you will just naturally feel it, and that will allow you also to be relaxed, at ease in yourself, and open.

So these little butterflies are reminding me in a way: it's my duty almost you could say, to go in, to go inside myself, and check that I am relaxed, not just now in this moment, but in my daily life, when meeting people as well as wild animals.