RITUAL OF RETURN

The caterpillar, when it goes into its chrysalis, becomes a mass of goo.
Over five weeks it dissolves, but not completely. Martha Weiss, Associate
Professor of Biology at Georgetown University was interested in
studying the function of memory and the brain in the transformation
of caterpillars to butterflies. In her study she had two groups of caterpillars.
One was a control and the other was conditioned to have
an aversion to a specific scent by exposing them to the scent, followed
immediately by an electric shock. She watched and waited as they went
through their process of transformation. When they finally emerged,
she found that the control group had no aversion to the scent, while the
test subjects hated the smell. This means memory sustained through the
cataclysmic change they had just endured. A memory made it through
the mess.
Meaning right now, in this moment of massive change, there exists the
skeleton of the new world. Hidden somewhere in the goo of our collapsing
society, resides a memory. The memory of systems, the memory of
our belonging, the structures of reciprocity and the inherent dignity in
the animacy of the nonhuman world.
All we have to do is remember.