A borboleta

As I was walking to the lake near our house with my mom that fateful day in late November, suddenly from nowhere a butterfly came flying around me and landed on my right shoulder almost magically! I was pleasantly surprised… who wouldn’t want a butterfly to come and sit on her shoulder all by itself?

I think butterflies are magical. Whenever one crosses my path I feel like an angel from heaven has come down to visit me, to reassure me on my life path. On my magicNine journey I’ve often written about the butterfly symbolising an angel. You see I was so fond of them that on my book cover I even got a butterfly photoshopped onto one of my shoulders! Lol at other times, trying to chase my dreams, I felt like I was chasing butterflies, wondering if I’d ever catch them. Well then, when a butterfly comes on its own accord and lands onto your shoulder, that is something, isn’t it??

I immediately pointed it out to my mom, “loook ma a butterfly on my shoulder”. I thought it would fly away the next instant. We walked a long distance, at one point even running to cross the road full of traffic, but the butterfly stayed perched on my shoulder oblivion to the movement. Wow, I thought… that’s rare! It wasn’t until we reached the lake, that it finally flew away toward the water. I reminisced over the incident for a few minutes, what it might mean, if it had a message for me and then as I found the canvas of my mind blank, I dropped the thought. My mom said it meant I would get married soon! Apparently butterflies also symbolise marriage in the hindu traditions!

I know that the butterfly is metaphoric in the transition between life and death, just like the caterpillar metamorphoses into the butterfly, one too sheds the body and transforms into spirit at death… many have written about it, for instance, the famous Swiss physician during WWII, Elizabeth Kübler Ross in her book ‘The Wheel of Life‘ mentioned this phenomenon. Well then, coupla days later when I found out about Pat’s sudden demise, intuitively I knew it was him who had come to visit me that evening in the form of a butterfly; it was probably the day he had passed onto another dimension…

I had been thinking of him the entire week prior to that day, wondering where he was, worried even… at one point an uneasy feeling took over me but I brushed it off as fear. I had noticed that he’d been missing from social media the whole week, which was unlikely of him… But what could I do? He was just a distant friend now and we didn’t communicate often. While he was in Miami taking his last breath, I was here in India visiting home after eons! Once we had been close, I felt like we had some inexplicable soul to soul connection, like I could see through him, sense his fears and anxieties without voicing them. But then time had separated us and we went our individual ways. Nevertheless, he had left upon me an uneraseable mark. He taught me how to live, how to snatch life in the present; his biggest gift to me or a lesson I might say, was to show me how to be in the moment, how to live larger than life. 

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough… ~Rabindranath Tagore

Patrick was an indigo soul with the same eye color! He had an amazing sense of self. He was extremely intelligent and sensitive, yet I had the impression he wasn’t happy. He was a troubled young man with huge business success. He worked like crazy. He had the craziest thoughts and most brilliant ideas. He helped everyone. He gave a piece of himself to anyone he met and left them transformed, mesmerized by his being. He had ADHD and was on lifelong medication. His style of living was exemplary. How his brain worked fascinated me. He inspired my work greatly and I started talking about ADHD, changing people’s misconceptions about it, shedding light from an entirely new spiritual perspective, a truth I had observed in this angelic guy. Read ADHD is a gift! Not just me, everyone he touched, he gave the same message… live life king size, live in the now!  He lived like a child; never dwelling in the past nor worrying about the future. He was just 30 when he shed his body… on his arms he had the tattos inscribed: forever young

The news of his death disturbed me a lot. The day after I found out about his death, as I was leaving home for my dance class, I asked the butterfly to come visit me again. Pat if it was you the other day that sat on my shoulder, then today too come to me as a confirmation, I prayed silently. As I was putting on my dance uniform, black T-shirt and black tights, I noticed this white shirt lying on my bed; it had a huge butterfly on it with the word ‘freedom’ written below. I had bought that shirt some years ago in Costa Rica when my parents had come to visit me; I was attracted to that shirt and my mom perceiving that had bought it for me.

Interestingly I also met Pat in Costa Rica, the land of butterflies, exactly a year ago. We even wanted to do a tourism project together in Costa Rica, which never saw the light of the day. As I thought of Pat, I quickly changed my black shirt for this white butterfly tee and left home. I walked the streets of kolkata with my mom and took the bus to my dance teacher’s place. I had forgotton about my little prayer, until when I walked into the dance class and got the surprise of my life as I saw the same colored butterfly sitting on the floor… Wow! Didn’t I just ask Pat to come visit me again today… and there he was!! There had never ever been a butterfly inside of my dance classroom before or after that day!

I recognised the synchronicity. After a while, the butterfly started flying around the room and then came and landed on my right shoulder, again! I wanted proof this time… immediately I asked mom to take a pic… her phone was in video mode as she was preparing to take a video of the dance rehearsal, and she clicked thinking she took a pic but actually it’s a very brief video; here you can also glimpse a strange ray of light slanting across my face, on the evening of 3 Dec 2016 in India:

It stayed on my shoulder for a while until I squatted to take my dance position and then it flew off. It was with us throughout that class watching me dance, rehearse for a show I’m planning to do before I leave India again. The theme of the show is based on my book, magicNine -the journey of love!

Post that day I got seriously sick until several weeks after. Pat’s death troubled me much. No one knows yet how he passed. I kept asking him to tell me how he died in my mind, why he left so early, what had happened… hoping he didn’t have to suffer and go. I had been so disturbed by the news, I might have taken on the role of a physical empath. I got such severe cough that I had difficulty breathing; it felt like there was a heavy weight on my chest that just wouldn’t lift. I spent several nights sitting on my bed, unable to lie down, afraid if I did I’d suffocate and die. I’ve never experienced this kind of cough before. Ironically, when I had first made acquaintance with Pat he was down with such severe cough that I had made him a ginger-pepper concoction, which he hated the taste but I forced him to swallow a few gulps! Lol I hate going to the doc, but mom forced me to visit a local clinic after coughing incessantly for over two days without being able to sleep at night. As I walked into the doctor’s chamber, I saw the same colored butterfly perched on the light in that room. It was evening and there were other chambers inside of the polyclinic. But there was only a butterfly inside of the clinical room I had gone into. Later we went to the pharmacy nearby to get my meds, and the butterfly was in there too! Both times I pointed it out to my mom and she was as surprised as I was. Was Pat looking over me? Was he there to reassure me? Did he know I was sick? Did he know I worried about him and missed him so? Was he trying to communicate with me? I asked him to be my spirit guide for the rest of my lifetime here on earth. The next morning as I woke up, the butterfly was inside my room flying around 🙂

I am a member of a facebook group that deals with divination and a lot of spiritual topics. On Tuesday 6th Dec 2016, there was a post with a few upturned cards and we were told to pick one card and ask a question in our minds. The next day the cards were revealed along with the messages in them. I had picked the middle card and my question was: Pat, will you be my spirit guide in this lifetime? The answer I got: success!

Explanation: Middle card. Success. I know that there is no greater goal than to love. Success can mean many things to the ego-self. But this so only knows one Triumph and that is to love. When your soul is no longer manifested in the physical Dimension it is a time of reflection on how successful it was with that endeavor. The soul doesn’t care how big your house was or how nice your car was or how many bank accounts you had. The soul only cares about how you express love and compassion. In the infinite wisdom of the universe the more love you demonstrate the more you will receive and even your ego’s definition of success is altered. Your notion of how you will be perceived as successful will change. The material things that you thought would make you happy will not have the same appeal.

For more than three weeks I coughed incessantly and my chest felt heavy; I was afraid to lie in bed, feeling my pulse to see if there was a drop in my heartbeat… it was an intense and confusing physical experience. I was prescribed inhalers by two separate doctors which also I hated taking as apparently I had chest spasms. Slowly I got better but after over a month of scary nights, with all sorts of nightmares invading my imaginations… perhaps the physical experience of a spiritual heart-center awakening! 

Note: they say newly discarnate souls try to communicate or visit those they were close to in the lifetime they just left behind, through this kind of symbolic messengers like butterflies, dragonflies, frogs, birds, bees… other kinds of signs could be flowers, fragrance, fire flame crackling etc. there is no end to what kind of instruments they might use to get close to you!! 

At 3:12 in this video, he talks about the butterfly…

Right now I’m in Kolkata, visiting home in India after four whole years. In this part of the world butterflies are not a common sight, least of all in the evenings… and yet the butterfly found a way to find me! Pat continues to visit me till date; I know it’s him coz he comes in a way he knows I’ll recognize him surely! For example, the other day as I was getting into a taxi at a crowded place… there were hundreds of prepaid taxis and even more people waiting in line, anxious to head to their individual destinations. Suddenly out of nowhere this beautiful butterfly came and landed on the taxi door just as I was about to get in. I recognized him immediately. He stayed on my side of the window for a long time, until the vehicle was way into the city and then when we came to an empty space on the road, flew away. Got a free ride angel, huh?! 😉

Pat’s death is still a mystery to me. I wonder, what happened to him? Did he have to suffer prior to his death? what was his soul agenda? He always lived life king size demanding respect and love in every moment; I would hate to learn that he had to compromise on his ways of being in any way that led to his demise. Anyways these are daft questions, because now the ordeal is over. He is on the other side, and wherever he is, I know he is fine. But I will always miss his physical presence here on earth. He has a special place in my heart ♥

---

The butterfly speaks in a universal language yet it has many names… some languages I recognize:

– a borboleta in portuguese
– butterfly in english
– projapoti (প্রজাপতি) in bengali
– la mariposa in spanish
– titli (तितली) in hindi
– der schmetterling in german
– le papillon in french

butterfly o’ butterfly, where´d you get those colourful wings?
bright red and indigo blue, yellow green, twisting winding zigzag somethings!
butterfly o’ butterfly, where´d you get those colourful wings?