world unseen

Consider a butterfly for a long moment. A tiny creature that is known for its wings. A butterfly eye is a bundle of 17,000 mini eyes. Each containing a lens, rod, and up to three cones, collectively working to see the world. The human eye contains photoreceptors for three colors; a butterfly's contains nine. A butterfly can see colors that the human eye cannot detect. 

These color indulging eyes keep a butterfly alive. Unlocked are ultraviolet patterns directing a butterfly to its source of life. This life is held in the palm of a flower. Petals emerge just like fingers, stretching to their fullest extent. Reaching and awaiting the embrace of the butterfly. And just for a moment, they kiss. And the butterfly and flower are one in codependency. It is these butterfly kisses that make the world go round.

At the seat of the earth, consumed in another wavelength, is the snake. The survival of a snake is dependent on catching their prey. It has pit organs that can detect infrared radiation from warm bodies. This supersense creates a snake’s thermal vision. Day and night this projected painting of warmth tells a snake how to survive. And within a moment, an unsuspecting splotch of scarlet is swallowed by a body of scales. Because, it is the blood that's left behind that too, makes the world go round. 

We long to feel like a snake. To be able to see the swells created in a belly as it transforms into a womb or the spreading warmth on a young girl's cheeks when she looks at her first love or the explosion from two chests reuniting after a very long time. We may believe we have a sense for heat, but we do not. So, the world's complexities remain unseen and we continue living in oblivion to the proof of our connection.    

Yet we glorify our human eyes for its four cones, lack of color, and underwhelming vision. Our intellect makes our eyes superior to those that can actually see the world. We put filters on our life until our rainbow is made of the blood that drips out of a strawberry, the poppies on your neighbor's lawn, the sticky remains of a mango on your young fingers as you watch a butterfly pass by, an ivy-covered wall, the sky on an extra-good day and the lavender on your mother's nightstand. These are the colors in which we live. 

Though we are missing senses. Senses that are beyond the capacity of our mind. We cannot see our own world. This will never make sense. So here we are, plucking petals to answer questions and curling up to say a prayer because our soles have forgotten the taste of the earth. It is the absence of our senses that leaves us completely disconnected. We are out of place on our own planet and lack the consciousness to see: we are alone.