AMBER
This year the heat doesn't seem to want to let go. Ideas and thoughts remain suspended in a torrid "limbo".. But suddenly the air conditioner restored the beloved normality.
It's nice to think about travel,comfortably seated; usually when I'm out of my "comfort zone" the desire to find the particular object is so great that I don't feel fatigue or tiredness. The amber, per me,it's always a pleasant surprise. There are no equals, the shape or color may look alike but that's all. There are few objects that I have recovered in these years,because they must really like me. If you don't want to have them in your hands, I give up. Necklaces, bracelets or pendants must enchant me and intrigue me for shapes and transparencies. Sometimes, inside,amber can contain fragments of prehistoric life;
plants or small insects suspended in time. At the time of Jurassic Park,with high school friends,I went to Milan to see the film. I remember the fright and the great curiosity that kept me nailed to the chair. We all know the plot of the film, very imaginative but supported by great scientific hypotheses. Back to reality, I remember an article I read years ago about an important discovery. In Burma there are many markets for selling Amber. Among the many stalls with goods, a scientist who was walking around, came across a fantastic surprise;to his expert eyes what might have looked like a pendant with a plant inside triggered the spark. After purchasing the jewel, back home he observes it under an electron microscope; he had sensed that he had something exceptional on his hands. In the following days,together with colleagues from the University of Geosciences, he controls Amber with sophisticated machinery, a microscopic dinosaur tail membrane was visible inside,a very important revelation. As far as I'm concerned, in the near future I hope to get lost among the stalls of that market in Burma.
A LEAFY TREE
During the summer season,I have often parked the car in the sun;after a few hours getting into the passenger compartment is traumatic. One day I found a “fantastic” place, under the branches of a large pine tree, than from the school garden, it shades the road with its immeasurable branches. Struck by the incredible opportunity,I parked right away. The next day,the street was all busy,but the "place" was free and just waiting for my arrival. In short,the other peculiarity of the centuries-old conifer is the release of a perfumed and sticky resin; removing it from the bodywork of the car was a feat.
Some plants produce this substance out of necessity;a cut branch stimulates the tree to produce resin,which disinfects the wound and helps healing.
Certainly millions of years ago, the animals that inhabited our planet before the glaciation,coexisted with resins. Some of them attracted by the smell,they were trapped in the sticky secretion of the trees; others walked away,because they didn't like the smell.
In our past there were already types of conifers;those ancient plants like ours,they were slow growing compared to deciduous. For this they were organized and to survive,they made the resin.
AMBER,A FOSSIL RESIN
It is millions of years old and was formed between layers of sediments;compressed and edited, it has warm colors,from golden yellow to shaded orange.
It's hard to remain insensitive to its charm,the reference is to a past so distant but full of incredible surprises. Through its transparency,as in a photo that captures the moment, vegetables or small animals show themselves suspended in time. The process that gave shape to amber was very long and full of climatic changes; its composition is heterogeneous, same substance but in a different state.
Like water before solidifying and becoming ice, even the resin changes its appearance and becomes Amber after a very long time.
