Loving With an Open Palm Rather than a Tight Fist

The lesson of the butterfly in your palm is an extremely important one, I think, in terms of how you choose to love others. 

While you may want it to stay, you have to understand that it is always a free creature. It may fly away, but if you've appreciated it for what it is, you'll have the experience of having known it. Trying to wrap your fist around it will only crush it, and then you'll have nothing to keep.

Loving people is this way too. We're all free creatures, and it's important to realize that all the things you love about someone initially are probably things that could be harmed if you tried to own that person and keep them all to yourself. Pinning your butterfly to the wall is not a good way to love, either.

It's also an issue of feeling safe with someone. When you land on someone's palm, you have to trust that they won't crush you in order to truly be able to love them yourself.

Lastly, as hard as it may be, you have to know when to let someone go. Perhaps they will come back to you, and maybe they won't, but nothing can take away what you've shared with them and all the ways that they've changed you, hopefully for the better. 

In the words of a friend of mine, "People who are truly independent can build one another up without sacrificing themselves."

Whether we cocoon together or are simply passing each other in the night on the way to our next great adventure, we should always remember to cherish and care for each other. Leave others better than you found them, and don't let anyone take from you that light that is essentially yours.