WITH PATIENCE COMES THE BLACK SWALLOWTAIL

Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears. ~ Barbara Johnson, American Writer

Hmmm, I wonder how many precious and wondrous jewels of experience we miss out on as we rush on to the next encounter.

I reflect often these days on our fast-paced existence and our increasingly short attention span. "If you're not moving ahead, you're falling behind." I don't know who coined that expression. But it seems to be our credo in this era of instant gratification.

Impatience is one my faults. I have a compulsion to "finish" things and move on to the next task. I get edgy and out of sorts when things bog down.

I try to step out of that mindset when I get out of the city and indulge in my passion for the intricacies of nature. Mother Nature does her best to slow my heart and open my senses to the beauty around me.

But all too often I sabotage her efforts. Take yesterday, for example.

I was out for my first butterfly and dragonfly excursion of the summer. Observing these delicate, winged creatures demands patience. They flutter and soar for minutes at a time. I have to summon my patience to wait for that rare moment when they perch.

The wait is always worth it. When I capture them in the view of my binoculars, their startling beauty and minute complexity captivates me.

I stumbled upon both a male and female Crimson-ringed Whiteface dragonfly yesterday. Brilliant crimson on the thorax of the male. Vivid yellow markings on the female. I felt a wave of peace slide over me as I gazed upon them. But a few moments later I was off again in search of the next specimen.

Patience is not passive; on the contrary, it is active; it is a concentrated strength. ~ Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton, British poet, politician, critic and novelist,  1803 – 1873

How very true this is. Patience takes an act of will. I have to reprimand the imp of my restlessness. No, let's linger her a bit and see what else happens by. There! See – a Black Swallowtail butterfly. Always a joy to behold. But we would have missed it had we hurried on down the trail.

Quality – not quantity. I have to remind myself to consciously make that choice. And it always pays off. I would have missed that Racket-tailed Emerald, perched half-hidden in the leaves of the bush only a few feet away, had I not tarried a moment more.

I'm quite certain I bypassed other jewels of the air and the marshes as I gave in yet again to impatience. Surely something special lies beyond the next curve in the path. We must hurry along or it will be gone before we get there. And so, I'm off again betraying patience and its fruits.

Butterflies and dragonflies are my metaphors for patience. They teach me to pause, to linger and to live in the moment. It is, unfortunately, a lesson I seem to have to learn over and over again. Perhaps someday I'll master the art. Then, and only then, I will know true peace.

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions. ~ Rainer Marie Rilke, Austro-German lyric poet, 1875 – 1926

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of "Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel" – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael's website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog. Visit www.smashwords.com to download a free preview of the e-book version.

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