by David D. Horowitz.
This sunny April morning I stroll a secluded path in my favorite forested city park. A stream rushes by on one side, and all around me rise evergreens, crowned in sunlight over their shadowy dominion of ferns, bushes, and smaller deciduous trees. I note bird chirpings, louder and more diverse than during the past several weeks. And while small birds flit, small yellow butterflies flutter, in quite unpredictable patterns. These are the first butterflies I’ve seen this spring, and I reflect how recently each was still in a chrysalis. Yes, a chrysalis—oddly enough, this park path feels rather like a chrysalis for me: a place of respite from tight smiles, budgets, and schedules where I can renew and relax.
Of course, I am not a butterfly, and I don’t need an actual chrysalis. I do, though, need a daily retreat where I can find the quietude necessary to reach and honor my inmost core. And my “chrysalis” needn’t be this path; it could be a rolled-out green yoga mat in my studio apartment or a wooden cubicle in a library where I can ponder, explore, and probe. But I need some sort of retreat to feel fully healthy, allowing myself the time to enjoy perceptions and consider ideas from all necessary angles—rather like rotating a kaleidoscope and appreciating each new pattern.
Now, during a retreat I do not fear absorbing new perceptions. I go slowly and thus don’t feel saturated by excessive input but inspired by surprising insight. And, later, I can exchange insights with others, for reflective retreat need not be narcissistic; I can more meaningfully join a community when I continually deepen and evolve as an individual. I recall the wisdom inherent in the title of Ovid’s masterwork: The Metamorphoses. Surely, I maintain distinctive core values, experiences, habits, and passions—but nature always acts on me, and I always react to it. And I need a daily retreat to do so most effectively.
But look: behind me I see several people quietly strolling this path. Good. They’re likely here for the same reasons I’m here, and I honor that in respectful silence. Just now, near a fir tree, I’m standing in a luminous mingling of reddish brown and touched-by-sun green. Something in me reconnects to forgotten parts of myself through such mingling of colors. It’s rather like looking at the stars at night after a month of cloudy weather or seeing a butterfly fresh from its chrysalis vivify an unusual color. And, watching that butterfly, I don’t know where my thoughts will go—and I don’t need to know. I’m enjoying this. I’ll get back to you soon.