I use to be afraid of moths. Especially as a child. Their hairy bodies, the fact that they can fly into you unpredictably and tend to appear at night when as a child I was also afraid of the dark. They also tend to stick to you or sit when they’ve flown into you. I really hated moths.
The moth was strangely one of the first images that came to mind as I tried to visually express my inner landscape. I have used them in a few of my experimental images and even placed one in the hand of the figure I drew. It was only after researching moths that I realised the significance of using them symbolically and how applicable this was to me. I realised that moths represented the fear and anxiety that has been my constant companion for as long as I can remember. Sometimes in the corner of a room in my inner landscape and sometimes right on top of me, sticking to me with its hairy body.
During my research however, I discovered the value of moths and felt as if I had to listen up. Could the most feared aspect of my inner landscape be befriended and could it be there to teach me something? Is it possible to live in harmony with my suffering and the things I want to change yet can’t?
If moths represented anxiety yet has value, what does that mean? And does it have to mean something?
The value of moths:
(Sourced information from: https://butterfly-conservation.org/moths/why-moths-matter)
- Moths are nocturnal pollinators. They work nigh-shift and cause growth.
- Moths are part of Life on Earth and an important component of its rich biodiversity.
- They have been around for at least 50 million years and probably first evolved some 150 million years ago.
- Moths (and butterflies) are a highly diverse group comprising over 250,000 species and make up around one quarter of all named species.
- Moths have fascinating life-cycles that are used in many countries to teach children about the natural world. The transformation from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis is one of the wonders of nature.
- Scientific value: Moths (and butterflies) are an extremely important group of ‘model’ organisms used, for centuries, to investigate many areas of biological research, including such diverse fields as navigation, pest control, embryology, mimicry, evolution, genetics, population dynamics and biodiversity conservation.
- The long history and popularity of these studies have provided a unique data resource on an insect group unmatched in geographical scale and timescale anywhere in the world. This has proved extremely important for scientific research on climate change.
- Moths are indicators of a healthy environment and healthy ecosystems.
- They indicate a wide range of other invertebrates, which comprise over two-thirds of all species.
- Areas rich in butterflies and moths are rich in other invertebrates. These collectively provide a wide range of environmental benefits, including pollination and natural pest control.
- Moths and butterflies are an important element of the food chain and are prey for birds, bats and other insectivorous animals (for example, in Britain and Ireland, Blue Tits eat an estimated 50 billion moth caterpillars each year).
- Butterflies and moths support a range of other predators and parasites, many of which are specific to individual species, or groups of species.
- They have been widely used by ecologists as model organisms to study the impact of habitat loss and fragmentation, and climate change.
I think it’s clear that moths are not all bad. The more I’ve researched them, they’ve even become very beautiful to me and coincidentally their colours match those that I’ve been collecting from soil. Some of them even live in soil and lay their eggs there. They contribute to the ecosystems in soil.
This is an ongoing revelation…