What is a butterfly in the wind of a hurricane? What is a conscious mind in the sea of history and circumstance? What is as delicate as a dragonfly wing? What is as evaporative as a thought - as a moment of awareness? Some pressures play in my head. I should be this or that.... Should have done some thing with this time... something more than what I have done. As if a butterfly could blow back against the gale and alter the course of the storm. What god says to the dragonfly it should not have torn it's wings against the thorns... What god that made the thorns, and the hurricanes, and the histories, and the circumstances says to the beleaguered soul: you should have been more than this. And the teachers of Zen poke fun at our folly. And the followers of Jesus look for salvation. And the masters of fate and fortune laugh at the fools who toil. And each morning I awake and look at the day before me, and do what I can to live it. With out magic, or superpowers, or great resources, or discipline of mind, or righteousness, or purity, or even a definitive belief. And the clouds come and go. And the day is hot, or cold, or mild. And my mood is light, or heavy, and the work will go well, or not. And if a moment of bliss settles on me, it is noticed and appreciated, and it nourishes my soul, and strengthens me. And when the darkness of resentment weighs on my shoulders, it weakens me. And when the stories I hear are hopeful and uplifting, I am encouraged. And when the stories are hard and wicked, I am made sour with cynicism. When the air is fresh and the food is wholesome, I am nourished and sleep well. And when the air is fouled, and the food polluted, I am fogged to slumbers of restless twitching. I judge myself the harshest. I should be more ecological, more healthy, more productive, more successful, more than what I am. What I am is a butterfly in the wind of a hurricane.