way of the yellow butterfly

Earlier I was watching two yellow butterflies. They were having a little dance together, in the air. And they reminded me of another yellow butterfly, that I saw many years ago.

I was with a friend in the Nubra Valley. It's a very remote place, in the north of Ladakh. Getting to Ladakh at all, by land, is an epic journey. And from the main city, Leh, one has to pass over a very high pass to reach the Nubra Valley. And that is where my friend and I found ourselves.

And we were taking a walk through the fields near a village, but there was no clear path. We didn't know which way to go, and we saw a beautiful yellow butterfly, so we simply followed it. And to begin with it led us down a beautiful little animal crack. But after a while the track more or less disappeared, and we were walking through grasses, trying not to get spiked on prickly plants, and my friend commented: the way of the yellow butterfly is not easy.

And so it is sometimes on the spiritual path, even when we know our direction, even when we are clear about the next steps, it doesn't necessarily make it easy. We may have to struggle through undergrowth. We might get scratched along the way. And in those times we need some perseverance to continue, when the going gets tough. It's not easy this spiritual journey. It's an undertaking that will demand great resources from us: of courage, determination, perseverance, patience.

But our yellow butterfly finally led us through that labyrinth of undergrowth and out on to the great plains of the valley, a magical landscape. It was a homecoming. But that day it didn't come easily. We needed a great deal of trust in that yellow butterfly.

And this little episode came back to me today, as I watched these two yellow butterflies in their flirtatious fluttering. It reminded me to have patience and trust and perseverance when needed.