Sunday 29 June 2008

up into the silky way she'll float















(click picture to enlarge)

Silkworms take three days to spin their cocoons, which are made of a single thread as long as up to two or three kilometers. That’s an amazing work, can you imagine the patience, the love it takes…with the hope, one day, of becoming a butterfly. Coming out of the cocoon and flying, free, into the sky. Only three days, that’s how long a butterfly can live. But they rather live three days like that, free, beautiful and anonymous than an eternity as a silky cloth, draping a king’s shoulder.

Giving up the construction of its own cocoon, though it costs living like a larva for two weeks, is an unforgivable mistake. Because only by flying as a butterfly life can be lived for real, high into the deep core of it.

I bachi da seta impiegano tre giorni ad avvolgere il loro bozzolo, fatto di un singolo filo, lungo fino a due o tre kilometri. Un lavoro incredibile, immaginate quanta pazienza, quanto amore richieda...con la speranza di diventare, un giorno, una farfalla. Venir fuori dal bozzolo, volare libera nel cielo. Solo tre giorni, e’ quanto una farfalla puo’ vivere. Ma le farfalle preferiscono vivere tre giorni in quella maniera, libere, belle ed anonime, piuttosto che un’eternita’ come un tessuto di seta, ad ammantare le spalle di un re.

Rinunciare alla costruzione del proprio bozzolo, benche’ costi dover vivere due settimane allo stato di una larva, sarebbe un errore imperdonabile. Perche’ soltanto volando come una farfalla la vita puo’ essere vissuta appieno, in alto, fino al suo profondo cuore.

1 comment:

luca:sehnsucht said...

technical note:
I had a version of the picture where, as a last post-processing step, I applied an unsharp mask. That made the photo sharper and more realistic. And yet I strongly prefer the version you see here, beacause it retains that drawing-like, "silky"-like effect. Realism is not what I aim to here, as this weblog was conceived as a place where the filter of rationality is removed, to set our imagination free from their cocoons.

Luca

 
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