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“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding…could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy; And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.”
(Kahlil Gibran)

A romantic creation myth about a butterfly who wakes up from her cocoon too late and a star who falls to earth to save her.

{ first written & released by Vixen Phillips in 2004 }

And the star thought only that she must be overcome by his weight, cursing himself silently for not thinking of it sooner. “Would you like me to untie the leaf from your back, little rainbow? It is true here I can now rise as well as fall on my own, though more useful it would be if only I could carry my beloved also.”

As she gave no answer, the star set hastily to work on freeing the butterfly of her burden. All at once, the leaf fell away, and it took for a moment all his powers of concentration not to go on sailing into the ether without her.

Now she turned to face him, but a pain struck his heart to see there such clear traces of her exhaustion, yet she kissed him very gently, and held him tight, for in this moment her wings could flutter no longer.

“Oh, star,” she whispered, “how beautiful you are in this land that reveals such truth in your form. And I know, one day, you’ll become a most heavenly angel. I know it, and feel it. It must be so.”

The star could hardly bear to look upon her, so deep was the hurt rising from his soul, welling and overflowing into delicate tears, yet the butterfly pressed a finger to his lips, and managed a smile to almost soothe away his fears. “I must ask one thing of my beloved now, though it may seem, in the end, a very selfish wish. But hopefully it will give my darling only a little pain if, once every year, in the midst of winter, my angel star might care to remember me again.”

“Butterfly, no.” The star shook his head, though his answer was not direct to her plea. “I will have no need of remembering, for my lady rainbow will always and ever be near.”

“Yes,” smiled the butterfly, “my love, of course, is right. Fly on to heaven, star of my heart, and in your own heart will I always be there. Alas, that I might have been as strong as my heart. But now, I can not even feel my wings, and it is my turn to fall, I fear.”

She then released her hold upon him, letting her eyelids flicker closed, but as the star refused to let go, once more she gazed up at him. “Let me fall, as you fell for me… let me love you so truly. For I am such an ephemeral thing, lasting only a little while longer than the lily.”

But the star’s hold tightened, rather than loosening, and he said obdurately, “I will not ever let you fall.”

“Please,” she whispered. “Fly on to heaven. It is where you belong.”

“I belong with you, little rainbow,” the star insisted, even as her heart and mind lost consciousness, and her still form began sinking into him. Then, breaking the long silence that heavy lingered, he let loose a cry of such anguish, so that all the light began to spill out of him in sparkles and in splinters. He blazed in that instant brighter than any star had ever shone before, so that even the sun trembled in awe, and all his kin began to wish they too might fall down just to help him. But a single yet greater wish staid them all, and the stars each and every hid their faces in shyness — even as their newest brother once more began to lose his own radiance — leaving the night as dark as it once was, in the hour before first creation.

Yet gold on azure traced pure an outline of a perfect pair of wings, and some of the stars shivered in delight as the angel crafted her pathway through them. Faster than any star or butterfly ever fell did this seraphic figure fly down to meet them, and in one hand she gathered close the star and the butterfly, and breathed with all the divinity of her love new consciousness into both of them.

The Butterfly Vow by lilimist   Page 15 of 16   writing

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