Writers: Channeling Butterflies and Dragons

"What a wonderful world this is to explore!" the new writer says, excitedly.

A butterfly writer has just emerged from her cocoon, taking her first breath of fresh morning air. For her, a brand new horizon has just opened, one that contains fresh thoughts, new ideas and amazing concepts. This tiny butterfly is ready to spread her delicate wings and fly about freely in her new-found literary world.

"Wow!" she marvels, gazing in wonder at what she sees.

What a fantastic world this is for an emerging butterfly writer as she flutters on by. Eternally young at heart, full of energy and life, the butterfly deals with stark reality separating fact from fallacy, revealing her own beautiful, young soul on her journey of discovery.

What emerges from the butterfly's thought process is the call of the wild, heralding new excitement and adventure. Futuristic, progressive and opportunistic pathways in the sky, so to speak, are there simply to be explored in terms of her potential butterfly migration.

Meanwhile, the tired old dragon still breathing fire, has just re-awakened from a long slumber. The dragon writer finds that he is stuck in the mud as usual, after wearing out his old rubber boots stomping around in his forest of utter confusion.

His world is actually a combination of fiction and fantasy. He has lived most of his life in this kind of a non-reality dream. He is the typical old soul perched on the shelf of time and he is almost ready to fall off.

"God's going to get you," the old geezer hollers at the young, ambitious butterfly. He is unaware of the geese flying overhead. In fact, he cannot even recall what geese sound like. His googling consists of oogling as he watches the young butterfly working away at her research on the internet, while she listens to and enjoys the sound of the geese flying by.

"What do you think God is going to do with me, when He gets me?" the butterfly answers back, sweetly. "God loves butterflies. After all, didn't He create us too?"

The butterfly is too busy analyzing the difference between a diamond and zirconium to argue with the dragon who insists in no uncertain terms, "Diamonds only, thank you."

"That is a wonderful idea!" she says, although she is not really paying any attention to him. She is merely acknowledging the reality that he is still there.

While the butterfly is actually out there researching and preparing for migration, the old soul is simply re-contemplating becoming a snowbird, but he knows that the actuality probably won't enter into reality's picture. It is just a dream, a someday maybe kind of expectation.

"Someday," he promises himself. "Maybe." He realizes that he has had that same dream for many years and regrets that he has never acted on it.

Thinking for the dragon writer has more like become work. It is no longer fun. It is a drag-on and on, kind of thought process, a combination of contemplation and reminiscing. But then that is allowed, as after all, the ancient dragon is into premature aging, or actual old age.

In contrast, the new kid on the block writer in the emerging butterfly stage, is still growing and her perception is more like that of googling.

"Flutter byes versus bygones," the old dragon groans sadly. "The arm and hammer concept is what works, what sells, what people want," he insists. "Hammer the world into the ground before they hammer you!"

At heart, the old soul writer knows that his time is running out. His work is not innovative, but he does not realize that. What he writes is no longer exciting either to him or to others.

"In fact, it is boring!" he tells himself, knowing that it no longer offers a challenge to anyone.

"Wow!" he exclaims when he finally gives in to his curiosity and consents to read the writing of the butterfly.

"These ideas are new, innovative, exciting and challenging," he decides, but secretly he knows that he will never tell the butterfly that. "What has she got that I do not have?" he asks himself. "Youth? You can't hold that against me!"

"How do we possibly channel butterflies and dragons?" asks the editor. "After all, is that not the bottom line? The butterfly and the dragon are totally different in perspective. The perception of the butterfly writer is opposite to that of the dragon writer. It is like life being compared to death."

"Channel butterflies down butterfly channels," cries the reader. "Then, we can read what butterflies write."

"And channel dragons down dragon channels," concludes the editor. "That is exactly what I will do, but maybe I will put the two side by side, now and then, just to show how different they really are!"

And so he does just that.