https://errantjournal.org/en/articles/invisible-threads
I bless you before the
eyes of my own, my
domestic, my foreign,
yours, yours, yours,
ashes in
my eyes,
I have pierced my heart
with a million needles,
three handfuls of needles, three
handfuls of tweezers,
up and down, side to side,
have been entangled in my heart.
This incantation, recorded in nineteenth-century Kakheti, was recited by women over silkworms to protect them from the influence of the evil eye, from jealous gazes that might harm the delicate creatures upon which entire households depended. In its rhythm, we hear an ancient understanding: that to care for silk is to navigate invisible threats, to recognize that what is precious is also precarious, that survival requires protection against forces that would consume to exploit. To raise silkworms successfully required not just technical skill but spiritual preparation, state of mind, and its maintenance. Silk was important not just for its sheen, but because it linked bodies, climates, economies, and cosmologies. It required care and a deep understanding of life cycles—an interdependence between human and insect, a craft of slowness and patience.
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I bless you before the
eyes of my own, my
domestic, my foreign,
yours, yours, yours,
ashes in
my eyes,
I have pierced my heart
with a million needles,
three handfuls of needles, three
handfuls of tweezers,
up and down, side to side,
have been entangled in my heart.
This incantation, recorded in nineteenth-century Kakheti, was recited by women over silkworms to protect them from the influence of the evil eye, from jealous gazes that might harm the delicate creatures upon which entire households depended. In its rhythm, we hear an ancient understanding: that to care for silk is to navigate invisible threats, to recognize that what is precious is also precarious, that survival requires protection against forces that would consume to exploit. To raise silkworms successfully required not just technical skill but spiritual preparation, state of mind, and its maintenance. Silk was important not just for its sheen, but because it linked bodies, climates, economies, and cosmologies. It required care and a deep understanding of life cycles—an interdependence between human and insect, a craft of slowness and patience.
