Butterfly
- May 11
- 3 min read
The story begins long before 2017 or 2016... It dates back to the very beginnings of Ancient Greece. “I know that I know nothing,” said the Father of Philosophy! He also developed the Theory of the Immortality of the Soul. It was then that the Lilac Flower Butterfly was born, or perhaps reborn. But it was in 2016 that she began to break out of her cocoon and unfurled her wings in 2017, with the colour Lilac and the sound of Olympus. The true Philosophy of knowledge was born within her, the feeling of the existence of True Love. And, what is True Love – she began to ask. She felt it was something magical and pure – she felt it with her Soul. She knew that it was from there that she came, that it lived, had existed and still exists. But now she had arrived there, for the second time, on Rua Augusto Rosa in Lisbon... She had already encountered Saudade in 2009, yet the wisdom of life gave her the opportunity to experience Love through Attachment, believing it to be true love. And for eight years she believed wholeheartedly that she knew what true love was. That love she had carried over from past lives, which she had been privileged to find so early on, at the tender age of twenty. For almost a decade she was convinced that he was the one… And then one day she decided to leave behind her longing and live, as she would say, her great True Love. However, the trials of life, as Fernando Pessoa would say, showed her that Attachment is quite different from the Unconditional feeling we harbour for someone. It was a long journey full of lessons that helped her grow, with youth being the wind that blew against the wings of a butterfly that had not yet emerged. Life’s stories make us stronger and wiser. We all hold the Platonic belief that it is through suffering and pain that we grow and gain greater knowledge. Today, in 2026, the Lilac Flower Butterfly is absolutely certain that we can renounce this cultural, social, political and even religious framework that we have inherited in this era into which we were born. Where they have imposed upon us the ambiguous wisdom that guilt and judgement are the pillars upon which society is built. It was in mid-June 2017 that Benjamim Pessoa told her, quoting Vinícius de Moraes: “… put a little love into your life, just as you do into your samba. Put a little love into a rhythm, and you’ll see that nothing in the world can beat the beauty of a samba, no...” . Even though she understood nothing of what he had bestowed upon her with the greatest affection, care and friendship of his entire existence. But he was patient; he knew she was tired, that she barely breathed her existence. He witnessed her courage to let go of all structures, all certainties, all the misguided forms of security that had been given to her long before she discovered herself as a butterfly. After all, she had only just emerged from her cocoon and seen her wings for the first time, but he knew she could not yet fly. He was merely a presence; it was in the silence that he showed her what Unconditional Love was, that true love – the very thing she was so certain she knew what it was. Well, but Benjamin Pessoa will have his part of the story played out on this digital stage. However, it wouldn’t be the same if I didn’t introduce him right here on this first ‘page’. After all, these days readers want to know and understand the origins of this whole influence. In short, and in practical terms, the Lilac Flower Butterfly had already been to Saudade, and it was upon her return that she realised she had not found her Benjamin Pessoa, but rather a Lone Wolf. Not with perfect clarity and awareness of the path that had led her to what she so desperately sought. But in such a divine form that the magic of immortality welcomed her back to Saudade. To her starting point. However, this time she did not return alone. She took her little Benjamin with her, almost as an act of survival...
Analogue photography through the lens of Felipe Bush, a painter from Ribeirão Preto, Brazil.
From left to right: Lila, Alex, Felipe and Mirza – Saudade Guest House in the summer of 2017.
Comments