brown butterfly

I'm in an Indian town, with all that that implies: the incessant noise of traffic, horns tooting, people chatting everywhere, the noise is inescapable. But this morning, as I was sitting, drinking chai, the first really good chai of this trip to India, a butterfly came to visit me. She sat on my knee, her wings unfolded, relaxing in the sun. This butterfly was brown, plain, not the glorious colours that many butterflies show, and so her appearance seemed rather dull to me. I could see that my interest, my attraction was lessened because she did not have bright colours, a beautiful pattern to enjoy. No, she was a simple brown butterfly.

How strange that our appreciation so often depends on that superficial appearance. But I gazed at her anyway, as I sipped at my chai. And the more I gazed, the more I began to realise she was not just a dull brown. Within that brown there were different shades, subtle, so subtle you wouldn't notice at first glance. Only if one took the time would one see that she, too, had a pattern: a pattern painted in hues of brown. And I continued to gaze and she moved her wings a little, not closing them completely, just a hint of flutter. And when her wings moved, something amazing happened: as the light caught her wings slightly differently, they glittered, the colours changed. You would still call it brown, but now there was a metallic green to the brown in some places, elsewhere the hint of an electric blue. All just nuanced, and changing with every slight movement of the wings, so subtle, and yet enchanting.

She sat there for a while, and I was lost in her beauty, her mystery. When she finally fluttered away, I was reminded not to judge too quickly, the superficial appearance of a being – a plant, an animal, a person – but to take the time to look more deeply, more carefully, with more sensitivity. For each of us has a beautiful pattern, one that dances in the light, ever changing, unique, and mysterious.