Bidean

Once it has reached this point of its journey, the caterpillar gets ready to undergo the profound metamorphosis that will take it from its state of larva to the one of imago, or adult form. Hidden amidst the underbrush, spinning on itself, it has produced a cocoon out of silk thread, that it will use to isolate itself from the outside world. It is then that it all starts to explode. Two are the parts which the major forces of mutation will concentrate themselves on: the sprouting of wings that will allow it to fly (let us here consider how reduced a world the caterpillar has known up to this moment) and a considerable development of its genitals; the two are intimately connected, as its new locomotor capabilities will be slave to an all-consuming sexual instinct. After some time it will excrete an acid that will break the cocoon, the butterfly will then spread its wings open and this period will have come to an end. We are yet to exactly decipher the meaning of the images generated by the cerebral activity of the chrysalis in its state of latency. Their origin and purpose are unknown to us. We now have evidence of two kinds of visions: in some cases the insect contemplates itself standing motionless in front of nature, while in others only the landscape is present, be it somewhere deep in the woods or in open fields. Owing to the fact the images are sublimated by the state of drunkenness the caterpillar experiences during the trance, we can speculate they may be responses to fears or longings, nostalgic memories or fictitious creations anticipating what is yet to come; we should not discard the possibility of them being simply an idealisation of the reality surrounding the cocoon. Be that as it may, all of the images seem to transmit that the time has come, that a limit has been reached, some kind of scream of Nature cracking open to give birth to a new being.

(Iván del Rey de la Torre)