Blue Butterlies

I sat at Starbucks gazing out the window, waiting for my friend. She had gone to the wrong Starbucks on accident and was on her way. I watched a man walk across the parking lot. Tall. Slim. Old. Black leather Harley Davidson jacket over a T-shirt. I looked away. Ten minutes later he sat in the empty seat across from me and began to talk.

You know the world is ending, right?
I didn't answer, but just looked at him.
It's going to end in 2012.
I tried to follow all he said, but he was speaking softly and I couldn't find the thread to follow to untangle the meaning of all his words.
You don't need to worry about the end of the world. It all just begins again.
I asked him what his belief background was.
I'm Buddhist. I reached Zen once. You know that state of nothing and yet of being. Once you reach that state you no longer have to come back. When I reached Zen, I was under a large pile of leaves and when I pushed through them, there were two blue butterflies flying above my face. They were large and their wings looked like eyes.
Another time I saw my previous 23 lives. I was a Buddhist monk...

My friend arrived just as his coffee was ready. He got up to get it, my friend sat down. He said goodbye and walked out the door.

Over the next days I thought of blue butterflies and while I am not a Buddhist, I would have liked to see them.

Sidenote: When I told this story to my friend Kate, she laughed because she had met this man at a different Starbucks and knew exactly who I was talking about.