40 days and 40 nights
40 days and 40 nights is a household known numerical timeline with numerous references in antiquty and before, hold that thought. I needed a calendar for planning social activities around my worms, coming up with this resourceful timeline for the expected most labor intensive tending days of feeding worms, all the while I was brewing on an idea about 40 days and 40 nights in the relation to the life cycle of the silk worm.
For 40 days and 40 nights, the worms are my little masters.
Stories and terminology for the occurrences of the 40 nights and days story
The term quarantine is from the Italian form quaranta, translated back to mean 40. In the era of the Black Death, it was proper to have a 40 day quarantine. Probably not about the worms.
In the Quran, Muhammad spent 40 days secluded on a Mount to receive revelation
The Catholic tradition of a 40 day fasting season known as Lent.
Jesus spent 40 days and 40 nights fasting in the wilderness meanwhile speaking with Satan.
Moses on the mountain in the hearing of the ten commandments, that was 40 days in the making
Noah’s Ark.
Connecting the long arching, plentiful quantity of story lines of 40 days and nights, it is easy and plausible to connect that worms take 40 days to cocoon. Feeding the worms in those 40 days can cause one to feel like they are speaking with snakes and lost in a flood of green sea. Perhaps even speaking with a deity on a mountain, once cleared of mulberry trees, then one can see the top of the mountain, closer to god. I find myself thinking up stories to write down later in the full day, labor intensive hours of harvesting the long limbs of mulberry. When the heat hits in the late spring, along with the humidity of spring rains, meanwhile the worms are in their final frenzy of feedings before cocooning, my brain turns inward reflectively as I push through the challenge of feeding worms. I have never felt closer to all elements then that when pushed to my limits feeding the worms on days 30 to 35, I have literally emotionally found myself in those days. Might I suggest 40 days of extreme conditions to change ones perspective on life.
Clarification of modern worms, they are quicker to cocoon ranging from early cocooners at 37 days, the average worm life span and feeding cycle is 40 days.
On another day, I would like to talk about the story of how worms were smuggled out of China by two monks. A two year journey, not 40 days, with hypothesis on how the Monks kept the silk worms alive and cycling for that length of journey.