My Second Skin

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I took this photo the other day as I was watching the Silver Orb Spider in my garden shed her old skin...

If you think about it, it's pretty amazing that such a tiny creature can discard so much of itself all at once... There is something poetic about it...

This process is called molting, and it's something spiders do throughout their life - they have to brake through their old exoskeleton in order to grow...

I find it somewhat analogous to our metaphorical 'shells', that we must break through in order to grow... Don't we often feel the need to simply discard a whole layer of our so called 'selves' - old, abused, stressed and hardened remnant of our mental and emotional being, and come out new, whole, lively, exposed and slightly larger than before? Sometimes I think we have to do that in order to move on and progress...

We can come out stronger and more knowledgeable and feel invincible for a while, but at some point the shell will wear itself out once again, with pressures from the inside and bombardment from the outside, the whole cycle is bound to repeat over and over again...

Is your shell due to come off yet? Is mine?

Funny what existential thoughts a gardener might have...

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