Behind the Scenes

One day as I sat at my favorite place in the woods, I observed a caterpillar slowly working its way up a tree. Not wanting to neglect the rest of nature’s beauty, I would periodically glance back at it, eventually to find that it had reached the first level of branches. As I looked on in amazement at the movement of the ugly looking creature, my attention was drawn to a voice that was unavoidable anywhere. Answering the voice, “Yes mom!” I quickly left my place of rest and returned to the world of two left feet, perfection, and transparent security.

After completing all personal requests, I returned to my place of rest in the woods and resumed taking in all that Mother Nature was freely offering me. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed an odd little crusty tube-shaped thing hanging from the same branch where I saw the ugly caterpillar slowly crawling. Well, as a 10 year old I was clueless as to what had happened, so on I went, doing what I do best, doing what I'm told. Regardless of what I had to say or wanted, I did what I was told to do. Otherwise how was I going to eat and sleep and have clothes to wear?

After a few days, some taking a long time to meet everyone’s personal needs at home, I escaped back to my place of rest in the woods. It was the calming of the leaves blowing and the sounds of the innocent creatures of nature that brought me peace, and a sense of safety. While these thoughts occupied my mind, out of the corner of my eye I noticed that the crusty tube thing hanging from the tree branch was opened on one end. So I sat there watching and I began to see the pieces of the crusty tube thing fall off and drop to the ground.

I don't know if I was dreaming, or if the sun was reflecting a colorful glow, but as I sat there I saw a beautiful flying thing that had wide colorful wings that seemed like a feather of matching colors floating in the air. It came from that crusty tube thing that was hanging on the tree branch. I never saw such a beautiful flying thing in all the time I was hanging out in the woods.

As I stared at it, the colorful flying thing flew towards me, flew around and around my head, and surprisingly landed on my forehead. I wasn't scared, but shocked that it would do that. Slowly, I tried to reach up and touch it. But just as my finger was an inch from it, it flew away and disappeared out of sight behind the tall trees.

I was touched with a feeling that I could not express or describe. I had neither seen anything like this nor understood what I had just experienced.

As I turned to take another look at the tree branch, just off to the left of it, crawling along another branch was another caterpillar. Hey, hold on a minute, is it possible that...? Well, it sure looks like it, but it was all ugl... no, different looking. Wow! Oh, how beautiful it looks!