Spirals in Time: The Secret Life and Curious Afterlife of Seashells by Helen Scales

Author:Helen Scales [Scales, Helen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Nature, Seashells, Science, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, History, Social History, Non-Fiction
ISBN: 9781472911377
Google: 9btSBgAAQBAJ
Amazon: B00SJ90AN6
Barnesnoble: B00SJ90AN6
Goodreads: 22929672
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Published: 2015-05-06T23:00:00+00:00

I step into the cool, dim interior of the Museo del Bisso – the Byssus Museum – and instantly feel as if I have walked into the fairy tale that my journey to the island had promised. This vaulted stone room was once the town’s grain store and is now a shrine of sorts to sea-silk as well as to the woman who calls herself the last surviving maestro of sea-silk, Chiara Vigo.

The walls are lined with glass cabinets containing a myriad of puzzling objects; a bronze sculpture of a pen shell (far bigger than the real thing) stands on the floor; there are giant portraits of Chiara, and a huge undersea diorama of fish and shells and mermaids. A small congregation sits in hushed silence on chairs lined up in front of Chiara’s table, where she is busy at work.

A great deal of mysticism surrounds spinning and weaving, especially female weavers. Sleeping Beauty fell into a deep sleep after pricking her finger on a spinning wheel. Alfred Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott, based on Arthurian legends and depicted in many Pre-Raphaelite paintings, was under a curse that meant she couldn’t gaze directly at the real world but could only weave the ‘half shadows’ she saw reflected in a mirror. In Roman and Greek mythology, a trio of goddesses would spin, measure and cut the threads of life. Legends around the world bestow great power, wisdom and magic on women who weave. I find a seat in the Museo del Bisso, next to Rebecca who has come to help translate for me, and I can’t help thinking this place endeavours to channel those same time-worn enchantments.

Illuminated by a bright table lamp, Chiara is carrying out the same meticulous steps of combing and spinning the byssus threads that I saw at the Pes sisters’ house, though Chiara adds her own particular twists to the proceedings. While Chiara works on her strand of sea-silk she tells a stream of stories. She tells her onlookers about the ancient origins of sea-silk in the Middle East, 10,000 years ago; she tells of sea-silk in the Bible, and the source of King Solomon’s shining robes; she tells of her personal oath sworn to the sea.

Chiara plays a game I imagine she repeats many times a day, asking me to hold out my hand and close my eyes. I feel nothing and open my eyes to see a weightless cloud of sea-silk threads sitting on my palm.

Now picking up a wooden spindle, she begins to twist the fibres together, and while she does she sings a song. I don’t ask Rebecca to interpret the words of the Italian sea shanty but I listen to the tune, and Chiara smiles a twinkling smile at her transfixed crowd as the byssus spins round and round. Someone in the audience joins in with a few lines of the song.

When the pile of byssus fibres have all been twisted into one long thread, Chiara unwinds the spindle and brings out a white plastic cup half full of a pale yellow liquid.

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