Happiness, the other freedom

I saw the first butterfly of the year today. The spring is coming again. Its intense orange colour contrasting with the black spots on its wings pervaded me with happiness. While I was walking along the gloomy yard covered in cheap concrete it was flying beside me, letting itself be carried by the soft wind in a joined rhythm. It slowly rose in order to transcend the huge wall that blocked my way and probably never be met again, disappearing in the great immeasurable space and although my body couldn’t keep up with its flight my soul kept going on for just a little longer and I felt free again, unexplainably happy.

The happiness has been accompanying me for a big part of this journey. Many times I wonder: how can I be happy after 15 months of being caged here without having committed any crime, simply due to a false accusation of a policeman, the lack of investigation by the responsible authority, the inexperience of a lawyer trying to learn by my case or the other fateful, sneaky and dishonest lawyer who cheated me for five months? I have gone through the attrition of anger, hate and impotence which have all been being recorded through paper and melodies. I’ve freed myself and I keep freeing myself from the ignorance of my darkness and my demons.

It’s also possible that this happiness has been coming to me because I’m traveling through a new language, or because the months of working out are starting to bear fruit, or due to the beauty of my family and the hope of being with them soon, or due to another book that has touched my heart. Or simply because that little butterfly shows me again what freedom is, being deprived of it. Yes, this may be a great reason for this happiness. To recognise all those prisons that have conditioned me since my childhood, transmitted through my parents, my teachers, schools, friends, people, and life. I would never have realised this sort of freedom without having been here in these conditions and circumstances. With the bitter taste of injustice in every drop of water, but the certainty that we are the music always travelling without space or time, the music that has been taking place to console afflicted hearts and to light up the battered souls crushed every day by the miserable Spanish remand institution.

I profoundly thank the universe for the great gift of daily happiness each morning, through the blue sky, the singing of the birds, the smell of humid soil, or just the simple routine awaiting me every day which keeps me alive and infects this happiness with more and more happiness; love grows when I finish another story, when a new song comes to me, when I learn a new word, when a book speaks to me, when I hear through the phone “papa”, when I transmit what I’ve learned, or even when I’m stared at, judged or pointed at, and although this behaviour upsets me I try to cope with it and feed upon it, knowing that what’s unknown will always be criticised and what can’t be conditioned will be attacked. Finally, we all want to lose our fear of the crowd and of what they say, to clear away all those fears that have been cultivated in the depths of our minds, to find the fire that shows us the path of the heart, the wind that dissipates the fear indwelling us, that inner voice that teaches us that none but ourselves can free our minds.

Here we all dream of freedom, the freedom beyond these bars. But the freedom of the consciousness is forgotten. Only being aware of ourselves and love purely, independent of the concept of a socially and mechanically conditioned crowd, will allow us to profoundly explore the great meaning of freedom.