The Statue and the Butterfly

I cannot explain what I do not understand.

Imagine a stony statue in the forest. To her, time does not seem to flow, though it does flow. Those who float on the breath of life, know that it flows. They see it on their skin, they feel it in their bones, and sometimes, unfortunately few, they even reach a very deep and mystical awareness of that flowing. Our statue does not know about it. The leaves of the neighboring trees, fall with subtle and beautiful whisper around her, in the solitude of the night. Then, because time flows, comes the trill of birds cheering dawns, one, ten, hundreds of dawns… Our statue does not hear them.

I am afraid that this is a sad story, and that burns me.

And because it burns, I’m trying to straighten it out. I tried yesterday, I tried a week ago, months ago, again and again without success. And I’m trying now.

So, let’s imagine an elusive butterfly, one that, with our human eagerness to name, we will call Inspiring Aphrodite (Morpho musa). Let us imagine Morpho musa, a neighbor of that same forest, possessing the magical quality of freeing the Being trapped inside our statue just by the touch of her delicate legs. It possesses, then, the quality of conferring life.

And let’s see it flutter, closer, farther, come and go in a magical silent dance, barely touching, but without alighting. If it did, the statue would revive, it would become conscious, it would generate ideas, thoughts, poetry, like the heat that embraces a kernel of corn and explodes it, transforming it into a little dove… but that has not happened.

Consciousness I said? Yes, consciousness of myself. Self-consciousness. Because my skin is made of stone, and there are no ideas, and there is no movement, and there is no time, no stories of the past or dreams of the future, and realizing this is a spark of consciousness that is showing me that this statue is really me. Painful awareness that worse than being trapped, is not knowing it.

At this moment, I want to believe that Morpho musa is near, I tell myself that I feel her. I want to believe that she will land on me, that she will transform me, at least for instants, my cold, greenish and wet statue skin, with her mysterious warm magic, propitiating the fascinating explosion of popcorn ideas from the emptiness of non-existence. Now they are not, and just a moment later, they are. Anyway, releasing ideas that I need to share, as much as I need to breathe.

Please forgive me for such a long time of silence. I have betrayed your closeness with my silence. Maybe if I reach you with my word, I will awaken your curiosity, your affection, and maybe, just maybe is enough for me, you will come to visit me. Come to fill in the gaps. To bring your own conscience, your knowledge, your strength, or simply your solidarity.

Two years of statuary silence have passed. Many leaves have fallen and many birds have trilled since then. And in all that time, I have not managed to escape from this stony prison. But now, maybe now, morpho muse decides to touch me… And the silence explodes, and stops burning me.