Dr. Wayne Dyer: Inspiration: Your Ultimate Calling

I believe all life, everything, is an expression of the consciousness of Love, no matter the size or form. As a lover of nature, I was so drawn to the selection about the butterfly from Wayne Dyer's new book. I love it because it shows that the butterfly is conscious and aware and responding to Source Energy.

Copyright by Dr. Wayne Dyer (Hay House, 2006), from Chapter 18, Inspiration: Your Ultimate Calling.

What follows is a personal account of both how I feel inside and what seems to take place in the world around me when I feel connected to Spirit in the ways that I've written about.

**Jack**

The same day that I completed Chapter 17 and read it over the telephone to my editor, Joanna, on Bainbridge Island, Washington, I had the most profoundly mystical experience of being in-Spirit in all of my 65 years. The photograph on the cover of the book is a re-creation of what happened.

When I finished up with Joanna, I went for my daily hour-long walk along the beach... but for some reason I elected to take a slightly different route along a grassy area adjacent to the beach. I was recalling my friend Jack Boland, a Unity minister in Detroit, who crossed over about a decade ago. Jack loved monarch butterflies, often telling stories of how he marveled at these paper-thin creatures who migrated thousands of miles in high winds and returned to the same branch on the same tree where they first emerged from their cocoons. Before Jack passed away, I presented him with a beautiful paperweight containing a dead monarch that I'd found in perfect condition. When he died, his wife returned it to me, telling me how much Jack loved that gift and how much he admired these amazing creatures who had such mysterious intelligence built into their brains, which are the size of a pinhead.

Jack always told me to "be in a state of gratitude," and he ended every sermon with this message to God: "Thank You, thank You, thank You." On three occasions since his death, a monarch butterfly has landed on my body. Since these creatures studiously avoid human contact, each time this has happened I've thought of Jack and thought, Thank You, God- thank You, thank You.

Anyway, as I walked, feeling grateful for having completed the second-to-last chapter of book, a monarch landed on the ground, three feet in front of me. I said Jack's magic words to myself (Thank You, God-thank You, thank You), and felt deep appreciation for my life and the beauty of the day. The butterfly stayed right there until I approached, then he flapped his wings several times and flew away. Thinking of Jack and feeling a little bewildered and immensely thankful, I watched this creature in flight, now 40 or 50 yards away.

As God is my witness, the butterfly made a U-turn and not only headed in my direction, but landed right smack on my finger! Needless to say, I was shocked -- but not totally surprised. I must confess that it seems to me that the more I stay in-Spirit, the more I experience synchronicities similar to this one. But what followed did border on the incredulous, even for me.

This little creature became my constant companion for the next two and a half hours -- he sat first on one hand and then moved to my other hand, never even coming close to flying away. He seemed to be trying to communicate with me by moving his wings back and forth, and even opening and closing his tiny mouth as if attempting to speak... and as crazy as it may sound, I felt a deep affinity to this precious living being. I sat on the ground and simply stayed with my new fragile friend for 30 or so minutes. Then I called Joanna from my cell phone, and she was also stunned by the synchronicity, insisting that I somehow get a picture of this event.

At this point I decided to return to my home, approximately a mile from where I was sitting, with my new companion. I returned along the beach walk, where the winds were brisk -- the butterfly's wings were pushed by these high gusts, but he clung to my finger, and even moved to another hand without making any effort to leave. As I walked, I encountered a four-year-old girl with her mother. The girl was sobbing over some perceived tragedy in her young life, and when I showed her my "pet" butterfly, her expression went from sad to blissful in one split second. She smiled from ear to ear and asked me all about the winged creature on my forefinger.
. . . . . . .
It appeared that my butterfly companion had decided that he was now going to live with me forever. After another hour or so of meditating and communing with this little creature of God -- and pondering this event as the most unprecedented and out-of-the-ordinary spiritual episode I'd ever encountered -- I gently placed Jack back on my manuscript while I proceeded to take a long, hot shower. When I returned to the patio, I placed my finger near my winged friend as I'd done many times in the previous 150 minutes, but he now seemed like a totally different little critter. He fluttered away, landed on a table, flapped his wings twice, and flew off, straight up toward the heavens. Moments with him were now history, but I still had the photographs, which I treasure.