Music and Cats

“There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.” –Albert Schweitzer

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Spiral of life

December 26th, 2007 by Kimberly

I have long been drawn to spirals. The scroll of a violin. The swirling clouds in a hurricane. The volute on an Ionic column. The curl of a new fern frond. The trance-inducing dances of Brittany. The whorls of a sunflower’s seeds. A complex mathematical construction. An ancient symbol of consciousness, birth and rebirth. Magic and mystery.

insect egg spiral on downspoutinsect egg spiral filaments

I wish I’d been able to watch the insect — whatever she was — that laid these 53 tiny eggs in a spiral, about one inch in diameter, on a downspout near my parents’ back door. What in this tiny creature’s brain led her to deposit her eggs, each standing off the metal on a slender filament, in this particular shape?

I imagine that the same Hand that spun the stars into the spiral disk of our galaxy nudged this insect on her spiral path. I can’t begin to understand how that Hand moves, but I am awed and delighted by the patterns of its creation.

Tags: 6 Comments

6 responses so far ↓

  • 1 bug_girl Dec 27, 2007 at 6:11 am

    It looks like eggs of a lacewing to me–usually Chrysoperla, but I’m not sure where you are located.

    http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/ent/biocontrol/predators/chrysoperla.html

  • 2 bill Dec 27, 2007 at 7:08 am

    fantastic.

  • 3 Janeen Dec 27, 2007 at 9:16 am

    That is indeed wonderful. I want to know what kind of insect it is.

  • 4 Thel Dec 27, 2007 at 6:36 pm

    Oh, wow, that is amazing! How excellent that you got a glimpse of that.

  • 5 sophie Dec 28, 2007 at 5:51 pm

    Beautiful. I haven’t seen anything like that before. Thanks so much for sharing.

  • 6 Jaspenelle Dec 29, 2007 at 11:33 am

    I love spirals as well! Especially those found within seashells. (I have only seen that spiral pattern with stalked eggs with lacewings btw.)