Hello and welcome to the session.
I invite you to take a seat or lay down and get yourself comfortable.
You can close down the eyes if you wish and take a deep,
Slow breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.
And just gently begin to open your mind to today's quote.
To contemplate the words with a free and open and supple mind.
To welcome in possibility and expansion and growth.
To allow yourself for the next few minutes to just sit and be with whatever arises.
In a moment,
I'm going to share with you a quote to contemplate,
And then we'll sit in silence for a minute and just let it percolate.
Then we'll talk about the quote and see where the discussion leads us.
Today's quote comes from the astronomer and scientific communicator Carl Sagan,
And it goes,
We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it's forever.
So this quote,
We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it's forever,
Really pushes or highlights the absolute minute amount of time we are here for.
On a universal perspective,
On a earth-based perspective,
The human lifespan of 60 to 100 years is nothing.
Yet for us,
It's literally the longest thing we will experience.
So we're given this sort of contradictory feeling,
The longest thing we will ever live,
We will ever have,
We will ever experience,
Is tiny on a cosmic scale,
But everything on a personal scale.
But if we can just step back and see with a touch of clarity where we sit relative to the planet,
Relative to the stars,
Relative to human society in general,
We see that we are just a very,
Very,
Very small piece in an ever-continuing story.
Now I'm not saying this to diminish the feelings of ourselves,
To sort of look at things from an existential or nihilistic perspective.
You know,
Our life,
Your life,
Is the point of light that punctuates the darkness that occurred before and after.
What you have is beautiful,
It should be cherished and explored.
But a quote like this,
Fluttering for a day and thinking it's forever,
Might be an impetus to step back,
To detach,
To drop some of the seriousness in which we take ourselves,
And maybe just allow some forgiveness.
You know,
There's always political strife,
Always things happening in the world that is not great,
To say the least.
But all of those problems,
If we look at it from a detached,
Long-term mind-frame,
They're pretty much insignificant.
Yes,
They're significant to the people living it right now,
But over a long enough time frame,
It all sort of becomes noise.
Cast your mind back to your knowledge of history from a hundred years ago,
Two hundred,
Three hundred,
A thousand,
Ten thousand years ago.
How much did each issue that was arising then matter to this day?
Did all of the petty conflicts and strife and pain that we put upon one another and upon ourselves really need to happen?
Was it worth it?
It feels laughably small.
It feels laughably insignificant.
It feels laughably insignificant.
It feels like if we could all just step back and see with a little bit more clarity that we're here for such a small time,
But it feels like forever,
And thus we will overexert ourselves,
Trying to make major changes,
And coming up short again and again,
And pushing back,
And sort of falling into this cycle of push and pull and push and pull,
Grinding away.
When it may be better for all of us,
Individually,
And as a species to step back,
To step back,
Take a breath,
And just realize we are the butterflies who flutter for a day and think it's forever.
That's one place my mind goes contemplating this quote.
The other way is down a,
Sort of being stuck in the past,
Or stuck in the present,
Or believing that what is happening to us right now will continue forever.
It's very easy to think that what's happening now will always happen.
Our responses to friends and family and work and life and just stress in general,
The ruts we've found ourselves in,
The thinking patterns,
But when we consider ourselves,
Where we've come from to where we are,
We see change,
We see learning,
We see growth,
We see wisdom.
But nonetheless,
It's hard to extrapolate that into the future,
To know that who and what we are and how we respond to things will change.
We think that our day,
This day,
The day that we're fluttering in,
Will be the same one that we will live every day and forever,
And if we believe that,
There's a lot of anxiety that we're going to hold on to there,
Because oh my god,
This is hard,
And imagine living this same hardness every day forever.
That's a hard thought to feel.
So that's the other place that my mind goes with this quote.
We are like butterflies,
We flutter for a day and think it's forever.
And the final place that this quote takes me to is looking at the analogy of the transformative nature of a butterfly.
There's a lot of symbolism in the butterfly being or transforming from a caterpillar into a cocoon,
And then changing and flying and becoming something completely and utterly different from what it was.
Something that was trapped to wherever it found itself born,
To being free to fly and to float,
But not free forever,
Because that butterfly only lives a few days,
And it's delicate,
And it's beautiful,
And then it's gone.
It makes me see the transformative nature of our lives,
That if we're lucky,
We will enter that cocoon,
Pass through the dark night of our soul,
And emerge a beautiful butterfly ready to spread its wings and bring joy and love to the world.
But even so,
That process is so quick and so brief,
And it will not last forever.
So let's sit for one more minute and contemplate the quote.
We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it's forever.
We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it's forever.
So well done.
This brings us to the end of the session.
At the bottom of your screen,
You'll see an option to view the classroom or to ask a question.
Before moving on,
I invite you to take a moment to click through and share your insights,
To read the answers from other students,
And to hear my replies.
Remember to start your responses with Carl Sagan,
Or to restate the quote,
So we all know which one you are referring to.
This is an opportunity for deep learning,
Further introspection and insight,
So please don't miss out.
I look forward to seeing you in the next session.
This track was taken from my course,
Daily Contemplations for Living an Examined Life.
It's out now on Insight Timer and available via my profile.
I invite you to join in.
