Flies

Flies

Listening to the flies buzz about my bed, I am reminded of an incident that changed my perception and my relationship to a most vilified manifestation of the Creator’s consciousness.

There was a time, long ago, when I was living on an island in the Mediterranean Ocean, Ibiza. One evening I was attempting to write a letter and the flies were so thick on my paper that I was having trouble moving my pen across the page. I picked up a newspaper and rolled it into a weapon of mass destruction. Running around the room like a crazed woman, I swatted every little black winged creature I could encounter. Then, suddenly, I saw myself as in a snapshot. I was shocked! There was this uncontrolled wild death machine rampaging through house and it was I.

In that moment I knew that complete extermination of all the flies in the world was impossible. I needed to change my relationship with flies. As if, by magic, I stopped hating flies. I began to appreciate how they dance in a shaft of sunlight. The buzz portends warm summer days when lazy and snoozey, I drift into an afternoon reverie. They have their place in the breakdown of organic matter, a natural recycling system.

Now, in truth, I am not so patient that I do not flick them away when they land on my nose. I do not like the really big noisy ones dive-bombing me when I am trying to read. I am disgusted to see a slab of meat covered with flies in an open-air market in India. However, something has shifted. They do not bother me as they did.

So tonight, I lie with my window open to the sounds of the creek and visitors of various sizes and colors join me and my bedside light. The ubiquitous flies make their presence known and I marvel that they have become my friends.

Prema Rose
7/10/09