No, I do not believe I came out of Parkinson’s as beautiful as a butterfly. I will get to my point, but first I must digress for a moment.
My best friend Jerry got tickets to the Ray’s playoff baseball game for yesterday afternoon, so we took off the afternoon and went to the game. I mentioned to him that had this been a year ago, I did not believe I would have been able to go with him to the game. This morning, I looked at my journal.
Here is an excerpt from my Parkinson’s daily journal from one year ago yesterday:
“10/07/09. Got up at 4, very slow moving. Got to the kitchen at 4:09, my record for slowness. My legs are tight and they ache. My knees hurt and when I sit to rest, the tremors in my lower legs and feet are pronounced. The St. Pete Times came late today, so I made 2 trips down the driveway [we get 2 papers] this morning. I was surprised to find myself out of breath with a pretty fast heart beat after the second trip down the driveway.”
I would imagine it would have been impossible for me to attend a ballgame that day.
Okay, back to the butterfly. Before a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, it is in a cocoon. A cocoon may hang from a leaf, a wall on your house, a windowsill, etc…each cocoon is a little bit different than the others, and each cocoon hangs from a little different place than the others, and each cocoon provides a little different protection for the caterpillar than the others.
What do the cocoons have in common? They stay on their path until the butterfly emerges. Every day when you see the cocoon, it is exactly where it was the day before, day after day after day after day. It is not on the house one day and the leaf the next and the deck the next. No. The cocoon is formed and the metamorphosis takes place. Success depends on finding the right path, be it the wall or leaf or windowsill, etc., and not getting off of the path. The caterpillar knows that some day it will be a butterfly, and it finds its path and has the confidence to stay on the path until it emerges as a butterfly. It finds its Inner Divine, and it is radiant.
You have the power to heal yourself. Be confident. Keep telling yourself, “I have the power to heal myself.” Know you will be better some day, find your path, and stay confidently on your path. Become a butterfly!
All my best,
Howard
