Why I Admire Flies...

ENCHANTED

I became a fly the day I stopped chasing flies with a swatter and started observing them as an equal, as some being I can learn from, and what I learned was that all I need is to be myself, and love is already present, and my wings will grow on their own in their own time, and I can be, as Alexa says, “down with that.”

The day I became a fly, was the day I realized what a wonderful service flies provide in the world. They are pesky insects that don’t mind living in shit and can birth their babies in human feces. What is waste to one organism is nutrients to another as it turns out. Just as the fly emerges from an egg and goes through different stages in life, eventually being able to fly, so do we transform from one stage of our lives into another. They can be seen as reflections of the transformations we ourselves are going through. Flies are often associated also with putrefaction and decay, necessary in completing transmutation processes. While they may be small,they hold much power in their association in the decaying or breaking down of complex compounds and organisms. They share our DNA.

I realized that as a human I don’t have even a thimbleful of the power flies have. Flies are real, they are themselves always, they don’t try to pretend they are something else, they don’t fly rockets onto the moon to prove their worth. They look after each other and understand their time on earth is limited, not needing to accumulate shit for the future, like humans who accumulate wealth and material things to aggrandize their own ego.

A fly on the wall sees all, and if they are quiet enough they will not be disturbed by rolled up newspapers trying to kill them. This gives them a detached view of life and goings on, almost enlightened. Paired with an acceptance of themselves, who they are in this life this time around, one could speculate that they might even be observing life in a state of happiness or grace. How many humans in our frantic urbanized industrialized world can say that?

A fly does not wonder if is loved or whether it should do things to become more desirable and worthier of love. Humans hide their real selves behind polished veneers, orchestrate grand gestures, and perform various acrobatics driven by the illusion that love is something we must earn by what we do, rather than something that comes to us unbidden simply for who we are, by grace.