An pink butterfly, with black stripes and two ‘eyes’ near the top tips of its wings, came across a chrysalis hanging off a green elm leaf. The pink butterfly asked the chrysalis, “are you Happy?”
“Happy? Who is that… please tell me. Who is Happy?”
“Ah,” the pink butterfly replied. “Happy is becoming like the pink flower, the one with the many hundreds of petals.”
The chrysalis was interested and curious but did not respond or ask for more.
Barely the next day, the pink butterfly returned to see the chrysalis, and asked, “Are you HappyToday?”
A little confused, the chrysalis asked, “who is HappyToday?”
“HappyToday is becoming like the air around the wings. See?” And the pink butterfly fluttered its wings and became one with the air around it, circling above and around the chrysalis like a whiff of air brushing the green leaves.
The chrysalis watched and thought about the past twelve or so hours. “I thought hard about this, I wanted to tell you. I know who I am.”
“So tell me, who are you?”
“I am InTansition.” The chrysalis, excited, continued, “see?” and then morphed and stretched and expanded its new wings, making a small sea of purple and black and with eyes of its own.
A few days later, the purple butterfly came across the pink butterfly. The latter was lying on the grass but facing up, gently raising its wings as if simply resting. It asked the purple butterfly, “Are you HappyNow?”
The purple butterfly asked, “Who is HappyNow?”
“Oh, it is so special. It is becoming the blue sky high above. Still and wide.”
The purple butterfly tried to look up but couldn’t. Maybe someday I will understand. For now I am InTransition.
Another week passed, and the purple butterfly returned to the leaf from where it once hung as a chrysalis. On the other side of the same elm tree, clearly visible was another chrysalis. “Who are you?” the purple butterfly asked the new chrysalis.
The new chrysalis thought long. Minutes, maybe even an hour, passed before an answer came. “I don’t know. Can you tell me who you are?”
“I am InTransition.”
“You are?” the new chrysalis asked. “But how did you know who you are?”
The purple butterfly responded after little consideration, “oh, first I had a home like yours, then I learned to listen to a new friend and heard about changing and becoming, that was when it came to me; and then I left my home, the one that was just like yours. I became a pink flower, just like the new friend told me, then I became the wind, then the sky. See?”
“I’m not sure I see,” the new chrysalis replied. “Maybe you can show me when I have wings like yours.”
The purple butterfly flew around a bit then rested on the leaf’s stem just above the new chrysalis. “But you don’t need wings to know.”
“What do you need then?”
“Nothing more than what you have.” And with that the purple butterfly went off and left the new chrysalis to its whims.
Some hours passed, barely a day, when the purple butterfly returned to visit the new chrysalis and asked, “so, have you decided?”
“I don’t need anything, right?” asked the new chrysalis, hoping for confirmation.
“Right.”
“Then, yes, I have decided,” the new chrysalis, now almost a butterfly, responded.
“And?
“IAm.”