And just when the darkness became too much to bear and the struggle too hard, the light broke through and the caterpillar emerged

a butterfly

delicate but unbroken ,

wild and gentle ,

finally free to spread its lovely wings

and fly away on the wind.

~L.R.Knost

when I lose my way, I daydream…

inquiry for today~ may the call to live well find you, too…

gentle knowing…..

I thought the earth remembered me, she

took me back so tenderly, arranging

her dark skirts, her pockets

full of lichens and seeds. I slept

as never before, a stone

on the riverbed, nothing

between me and the white fire of the stars

but my thoughts, and they floated

light as moths among the branches

of the perfect trees. All night

I heard the small kingdoms breathing

around me, the insects, and the birds

who do their work in the darkness. All night

I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling

with a luminous doom. By morning

I had vanished at least a dozen times

into something better.

~Mary Oliver