The maze of life.

The skeletonizing of a leaf by a leaf miner.

Born to tunnel; a simple egg laid on a leaf produces a tiny caterpillar.  It immediately becomes an industrial machine, boring into the leaf and consuming the matter between layers.  Barely visible to the human eye, it proceeds in a relatively straight line until it finds an obstacle.  Undeterred, it changes direction and continues its momentum; becoming larger with each centimeter consumed.  The tunnels become larger and its progress faster.  Soon it has consumed almost half an entire leaf.  Thwarted by the main vein running through the middle, it is now large enough to chew through the tougher structure.  Continuing the destruction, the caterpillar finds an outside edge.  It is time to rest.  Spinning silken web, it makes a bed out of the very vegetation it has been consuming.  When it wakes, it will no longer be a caterpillar, but a newly emerged moth bent on laying its own eggs to start the cycle all over again.

This caterpillar is a metaphor for our own life.  The leaf substrate is the fodder of our existence, both the obstacles before us and all that sustains us on the journey.  The resulting maze is the tunnel through time, with each milestone recorded as a bump or turn.  The leaf itself, the protective embrace it provides, is the support of family, friends, and community as we progress.  Always growing, moving forward, we strive to mature into adulthood, where we can start families of our own.

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