Revisiting "Hope for the Flowers"

I bought a copy of Trina Paulus' "Hope for the Flowers" yesterday.

I first got acquainted with the book way back in college, as a reading assignment for Prof. Ching Dadufalza's Humanities class. Back then what struck me most about the story was the "caterpillar pillar" and how everyone seems to want to get to the top of the pillar.

In recent months, however, I have been getting this nagging feeling that I should read the book once more. A voice inside me kept saying:

"the answer lies within 'Hope for the Flowers'"

Last night, despite my fatigue, I browsed through the book and, true enough, a few lines jumped out of the pages and went right through my consciousness.

Here are some of them:

1. "She [yellow caterpillar] felt like doing something, anything, rather than this uncertain waiting.
   
   'What in the world do I really want?' she sighed.
   
   'It seems different every few minutes.
   
   'But I know there must be more.'
   
   Finally, she became numb and wandered away from everything familiar."



2. "'Tell me, sir, what is a butterfly?'
   
   'It's what you are meant to become. It flies with beautiful wings and joins the earth to heaven. It drinks only nectar from the flowers and carries the seeds of love from one flower to another.'
   
   'Without butterflies the world would soon have few flowers.'"



3. "'How does one become a butterfly?' she asked pensively.
   
   'You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.'
   
   'You mean to die?' asked Yellow, remembering the three who fell out of the sky.
   
   'Yes and No," he answered.
   
   'What looks like you will die but what's really you will still live. Life is changed, not taken away. Isn't that different from those who die without ever becoming butterflies?'"



4. 'During the change, it will seem to you or to anyone who might peek that nothing is happening - but the butterfly is already becoming.
   
   'It just takes time!'

I am still reeling from the experience of last night. I am in the process of absorbing the knowledge in those words. They are not yet rhema to me, but, as the book puts it, it's "already becoming".

I guess it is no coincidence that whenever the universe has something to tell me, the butterfly is always there to deliver the message.

"Monarch Butterfly" image courtesy of jan