The Moth

The moth is drawn to fire where it is annihilated.  This is a great metaphor for the spiritual life.  As the desert monk would say, “Become fire!”  I grew up formed by the culture, society, group-think that was all around me. I tried to fit in however I could figure it out.  I even tried to drop my Bronx accent when I move out of the East Coast into the mid-West and the California. Well, some things never change.  But something just never did fit, or I never felt truly comfortable in all this attempt to fit in.  There was a “more,” or a “deeper” that was somewhat vague, yet felt.  Falling in love, music, art, literature, theatre, ballet would point to or touch this something, yet I would fall right back into my daily routines of fitting in.  There was a discomfort, but not one great enough to overcome the discomfort of deep change.  Becoming my deeper self, a truer belonging, would alienate me from the world I knew.  But as I discovered and gave myself a little to silence and solitude, a more meditative way, on a daily basis, I began to discover, to touch, graze against, this inner flame.  I could not adequately explain myself to others who knew the “outer” me.  “Surrender” began to attract me.  I am the moth called to the flame of Love.