An analogy compares, not similar objects, but similar relationships between often wildly different objects. The Masdevillia orchid in the photograph has unfolded and lengthened like a ballerina.
Breezes can set it moving in plies and entrechats.
Even suspended motionless in sunshine, it embodies a dancer's grace. Analogy offers us insight with the magic of metaphor. In a sudden burst of kinetic energy, her elongated legs stretched to their fullest extent, a tremendous gap of space that made her look like a two-legged spider. Her muscles liquefied, then hardened as they formed this gap, each muscle sliding into its rightful position in her toned, lean leg. Her arms too, were in perfect synchronization.