I was watching a moth yesterday and I noticed it could not escape from the window it was fluttering against. I tried to ‘shoo’ it along towards an opening, hoping it could escape to the fresh air of its natural habitat outside. But it didn’t. It flapped about from one closed window to another, so that I git frustrated at its supposed stupidity. “This is the way out,” I wanted to shout at it.

Then I remembered – we are just like that moth. We see through the windows, knowing we can be more free, trying to get there and going from one barrier to another half the time. Who knows, there may well be a higher order of consciousness nearby trying to guide us along towards freedom too; an intelligence we are not ready to hear or cannot understand. All we know is that we are up against a window, looking out at where we could be, trying to get there. Sometimes we do – this moth did end up escaping its confines – and sometimes we think we have, only to find ourselves back in the same cycle or habit, addiction or attachment.

Watching this moth and reflecting upon it enabled me to be more gentle on myself, to have a little more faith in the idea that I can have more feeling of freedom in my life, to know that the windows of my mind do reveal a place of increased liberation … and that I’m never entirely stuck. When the moth got out, I was reminded that our mental confines are not permanent, that our psychic and emotional lives mirror the world around us, and that all creatures, human and otherwise, love to be free and are trying to get there.