Life is drama personified with episodes of both butterflies and dragons with a few butterfly dragons being tossed into the mix along the way.

Butterflies or Dragons?

What are your triggers for inspiration…things that are seen or that which is unseen? Emotions through experience or feelings from the gut? Touchables or untouchables? Mirrored images or broken glass? Butterflies or dragons?

Dawn’s early light. With eyes barely open, you stretch and yawn, afterward rubbing the sleepy matter crusted in the corner of each eye. Toes wiggle trying to ease foot cramps, legs ache from being in the same position too long, shoulders feel tired from the weights not being lifted from the day before. Your feet hardly hit the floor when thoughts awaken your senses flitting and fluttering through the corridors of your mind. They dance angelically, yet fervently, much like the atala butterflies seeking the sweet, sweet nectar from summer’s enticing florets or greet you with a horrid headache as a result of fighting dragons all through the night.

Triggers of inspiration. With the day just beginning, what triggers those thoughts exactly, so early with daylight scarcely visible? Hey, you are hardly awake! You haven’t even had the tiniest hint of caffeine to jolt your brain cells into action.  What inspires those first thoughts of the day to emerge as fact or fantasy, butterflies or dragons? What brings them on? Are they thoughts of sweetness waiting with open arms to be tasted like the nectar for the butterfly in summer or thoughts of dread where sights of such sweetness died with the butterfly in summer being replaced by dragons of bitter winter?

Life is drama personified with episodes of both butterflies and dragons with a few butterfly dragons being tossed into the mix along the way. For the latter to be dominant, life would be all sunshine and roses, ice cream and lollipops, puppy hugs and kitten kisses, no challenge, no risk involved. You would move about in a state of bliss, tippy-toeing through the tulips, singing in the rain, dancing with the wind. In other words, on a perfect day in a perfect world, butterfly dragons would teasingly frolic without worry, totally carefree! Of course, such a perfect world does not exist.

Life as we know it equals risk. Taking chances is as common as roller skating and surfboarding. Both require balance and the ability to maneuver within tight situations. That’s the way it is with life. You may not be on roller skates or riding the crest of a breaking wave toward shore but chances are you will experience your share of ups and downs, positives versus negatives, good with the bad. You WILL fall, your ‘skates’ will throw you off balance, you will not always ‘catch the wave’. Within any good experience resides the possibility of an event turning sour or resulting in a bad ending. At the same time, out of a bad situation can actually erupt something good! Thus, a butterfly dragon!

So, back to your first awakening, morning thoughts & triggers of inspiration.

Isn’t how you greet the morning a trigger for those initial thoughts? For example, let’s look at dreams. “Wow, what a dream!” may find you replaying in your mind passions of pleasure or acts of violence. Some dreams are so vivid the dreamer finds it difficult to distinguish fantasy from reality. But, that dream may be the inspiration for the rest of the day. It may follow you through the day lively as a butterfly or attack you like a hungry dragon gnawing away at your senses.

Each day begins after the night before. It is important to embrace the past for its impressionable effect empowers the present. Memory triggers can bathe your entire being in the finest perfume or reenact the feeling of sinking your teeth into the bitterest lemon. You can smell the freshness of the outdoors or the odor of innate fear, feel the warmth of the sun or the biting coldness of a hard heart, listen to the song of the nightingale or the beat of a distant drum. In other words, you can tune yourself on or tune yourself out! You can flutter with the butterflies or fly with the dragons.

Enjoy the catnip of life. Igniting the senses, thereby becoming attuned to the world around you, gets those creative juices flowing.

Observe life at its best, Listen to life’s songs, Embrace life’s bounties, Breathe the breath of life, Savor life to its fullest!

What thoughts begin your day?

Wake up! Wake up! Sleepy head!
So much to be discovered, explored
Let inspiring thoughts engulf the day
No butterflies or dragons ignored

Face the day full force ahead
Looking for sights unseen
Relish splendor met with candor
Everything in between

Enjoy the catnip—

Observe life at its best
Listen to life’s songs
Notice the little things
That which truly belongs

Embrace life’s bounties
Outside daily strife
Enjoy the surroundings
Breathe the breath of life

Morning sun, evening moon
Don’t find yourself clueless
Reach for the stars
Savor life to its fullest!

©catnipoflife
Sharla Lee Shults

Imagination is the doorway to creativity! ~catnipoflife