This is both a true story of what occurred on an amazing day hiking with my friend Santa Cruz Bill. At the same time I realized that I had to leave a 9-5 office job that was making me unhappy.

…and the butterfly soars again

The web was wrapped so tightly around her small body

That she forgot what it was like to move, to fly

In mummification, emotion and body numb.

Resignation had become the only life to be lived

Her life spirit co-opted, making her a living dead.

Such a small circumstance it took to change her fate

As you approached me with her in your hand.

She signaled the life presence in her oppressed body.

We removed the web carefully.

Little by little,

freeing her

More and more intricately

Her wings,

Her Feet,

Antennae.

We witness her sight, once blind

We witness her movement, once constricted

We witness her rebirth.

Exhausted, wounded.

Present again.

Fine feathers stripped from her wings

Just enough to bare a scar of a time once spent trapped,

Just enough to remind her to treasure life

To treasure freedom.

…and the butterfly soars again.