While walking through the Alchemy Festival this week, Trishna noticed an incredible public art installation that was created using 50,000 beautifully designed white paper butterflies pasted all the space. As we stood there in the crowded room with awe at the magical spectacle, Trishna asked someone standing next to us if he knew who was the artist. The person smiled warmly and said "Hello, my name is Milan, and I am the artist. How may I help you?"
And juat like that we serendipitously bumped into Milan Rai, the (he)artist behind the White Butterfly Project and ended up having an amazing candid conversation about his journey in which he shared some deeply personal insights. Sharing a few snippets from that conversation that touched a chord.
"In my catterpillar phase I was labelled a hopeless kid by my teachers in school. I eventually dropped out of school and went through a period of frustraion and depression, where I felt outcasted by society. It was nature and art that helped me cope up of and express my self again. Earlier I was not happy and constantly trying to change the world around me and nothing happened. Then I decided to change myself and everything started to look and feel different. As I changed, people's attitude and receptivity towards me also changed. We waste so much energy tring to change others. Instead turn within, look within, change yourself and slowly your world will also change. It is so simple"
"Once I went into the mountains alone for a few days and spent a lot of time just sleeping and sitting under a tree doing nothing. To an onlooker it may appear I was resting that nothing is happening, but there was so much happening within me. I remember a moment when I heard the sound of a leaf falling to the ground. That was an aha moment, and then with awareness and attentiveness I started to listen to each leaf falling. Then slowly I started noticing other things like birds hopping from one branch to another above me. Soon, I was simultaneosuly aware of the falling leaves and birds and it became a kind of sound meditation for me. Slowly, I noticed that all my anxieties and fears started dissolving, and I felt free. Most of my insight into life now comes from sitting under a tree."
Grateful for the work of blessed artists like Milan who through their offerings remind us what Margaret Mead poeticaly once said: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
This week's Maitri Tunes "Butterfly fly away" is a sweet song of gratitude from a young girl to her father.
You tucked me in, turned out the light
Kept me safe and sound at night
Little girls depend on things like that
Brushed my teeth and combed my hair
Had to drive me everywhere
You were always there when I looked back
You had to do it all alone
Make a living, make a home
Must have been as hard as it could be
And when I couldn't sleep at night
Scared things wouldn't turn out right
You would hold my hand and sing to me
Caterpillar in the tree,
How you wonder who you'll be
Can't go far but you can always dream
Wish you may and wish you might
Don't you worry, hold on tight.
I promise you there will come a day
Butterfly, fly away
Turned around and you were there
The two of us made quite a pair
Daddy's little girl was here at last
Looked away and back again
Suddenly a year was ten
Don't know how it got so far so fast
Butterfly, fly away (butterfly, fly away)
Got your wings, now you can't stay
Take those dreams and make them all come true
Butterfly, fly away (butterfly, fly away)
You've been waiting for this day
All along you've known just what to do
