Hence the name Peace Silk or Ahimsa Silk (ahimsa [sanskrit]: not hurting). This silk can thus develop its full vitality. Silk is spun sunlight.1)
The loving processing of fabrics is largely done by hand. Our partner Prakash Chandra Jha ensures good working condit-ions and fair pay for the craftsmen, especially the women. The project description can be found here (PDF) !
Properties of silk
The task to protect and thus saving the growing and becoming is the real mission of the silk thread. To accomplish this task, the silk is provided with important and unique properties. It is soft, protects against too much heat and too much cold, absorbs moisture and releases it again, is very tear-resistant and can only be attacked by a few substances and is therefore very durable.
Source: Katrin Rabe 2010
With a density of 1.25 g / cm³, silk is one of the lightest natural fibers. Despite the low fiber thickness of only 12-25 µm, it has a greater tear length than steel. This is the length at which a thread breaks through its own weight. Silk has the highest elasticity of all natural fibers and stretches up to 24%. As with wool, moisture absorption is around 30% of its own weight.
Silk has a high emissivity for infrared light, which means that it easily emits heat or infrared radiation and is also a good reflector for sunlight. Silk emits more heat than it absorbs. Source: Purdue University News
The essay by Holly Capelo is also recommended: Was macht Seide so besonders? (What makes silk so special?)
Thousands of years old healing power from the moor
The peat fiber is mummified in the bog remnant of the cottongrass (Eriophorum vaginatum). Raised bogs arise when plants live and die in a constant process of excessive new growth. They grow in the form of hills and are places of stored growth forces from many centuries of an originally healthy, vital natural world that was free of environmental toxins.
Source: Ewald 1986
The technical achievements of mankind bring alongside many relief also negative impacts on environment and people, for example electrosmog, UV rays, rising ozone values and others. The effects of the peat fiber contrast these ill effects with something healthy and strengthening.
The peat fibers come from northern German raised bogs and are generated as waste in the extraction of peat products for horticulture. With a few exceptions, peat extraction in Lower Saxony is only possible on agricultural moorland.
Properties of the peat fiber
Its warming, vitalizing effect has long been used in the treatment of rheumatic and sclerotizing diseases. This is where the high specific heat that is contained in the humic system comes into play.
The peat fibers have a low specific weight. They are moisture-binding due to the colloidal nature of the humic substances contained in the peat fiber. It is also thanks to the humic substances that such fabrics bind odors, sweat and salts particularly well.
The fabric warms in a very specific way. The heat activation process plays a role here when high-energy light is converted from the brown humic substances into long-wave heat radiation. Germ and anti-inflammatory, astringent, cell-stimulating and hormonal effects are known from medical practice, but have not yet been proven.
Peat-containing tissue gives humans a covering that corresponds to a certain extent to the physiological conditions of the covering of the person, his skin. In the peat fiber, which is indeed a grass species, there is still a lot of silica present. It stems from the high proportion of silica that can be found in cotton grass.
The "medicine" for our silk fabrics comes from Peter Böhlefeld. He performs a refinement of the peat fibers, as suggested by Rudolf Steiner. By rhythmic processes and with the help of herbal and mineral substances, the positive properties of the peat fibers are stimulated and strengthened. These properties are - as in a homeopathic remedy - transferred to the silk.
The silk, which is related to the light, and the living peat forces from the depths of the earth act (in the sense of an increase in polarity) on the organism of man. These energies are stored by the silk fabrics and also easily released.
The combination of refined peat and Peace Silk creates an environment when using these textiles as clothing or in the design of living space, which is described by users as strengthening and protecting.
1) Rudolf Steiner (1923), GA 351, S. 21ff: Wenn Sie also aus irgendeiner Seidenraupe Seide nehmen, so können Sie sich getrost sagen: Was ist das? Das ist gesponnenes Licht! ... Sehen Sie, der Schmetterling ist aus dem Licht geschaffen, aber das Licht musste erst, indem es die Erdenmaterie in sich aufnahm und einen Kokon machte, in der Puppe zum Faden gemacht werden.