Delight is like the butterflies flying around and landing on the thing that is joy.
Isn’t the word delight delightful? Just try saying the word delight without smiling. Oh I know, there are all these quotes about delighting in the troubles of enemies, but I suppose even that brings at least an evil, sardonic smile to the lips. It struck me while contemplating the word delight, that it is an underused word in our vocabulary these days. We have happiness, joy, pleasure, even satisfaction, but where is our delight? Ross Gay likens delight to butterflies circling and landing on joy. Can following the fluttering wings of delight lead us to the bloom of joy? I wonder.
One of my delights is visiting butterfly houses. I have been to these sanctuaries in different States and they always fill me with delight. I carefully walk through them, avoiding any injury to their inhabitants and try to find a spot to just sit and gaze into the lush greenery searching for the fragile insects. They are amazingly varied in size and coloring. Some of the tiny ones can easily elude my attention. Spotting them becomes a delightful reward for my patience. They land around me, sometimes on me, their touch almost imperceptible. I do not touch their enticing wings, knowing the damage I can do, I simply allow them to light where they will as I sit quietly. I cannot explain it, but I always feel renewed after communing with the butterflies.
If delight is truly like the butterflies, then can we create a sanctuary, a garden, that encourages the ephemeral visitations of delight? And will those delights lead us to joy, or was it always intended to be the other way round?
~Lisa Kiel
I love the idea of delight being something that can be full circle! Thank you for sharing.
I Suppose it is a stretch to equate butterflies with an emotion like delight, They cannot be one in the same, Yet, If their were any 2 entities that were so closely related , it would be a butterfly and the flutter of delight.
You do so well with creating analogies between the world of butterflies and fireflies, and how they give humanity a gateway to the ephemeral.