Cicada Song

(borrowed from Obviously Chloe

They're back, and they are mighty --- out in full force, showing off. Cousin to the leafhopper and froghopper, I hear. And while I listen, I am also tuning in to Jubilee Circle, the community church I attend (virtually, at the moment). The service began with a gentle piece on violin.

Via Positiva Theme: remaining open. Hearts wide open. One blink away from being fully awake (thank you, Pema Chodron). We need something to wake us up. Drumbeat, sage, find the four directions, and listen to the voices of the cicada. Most of the time it lives underground, growing for years into an adult.

Cicadas drink the sap from trees, and in large swarms cause destruction. This year is the once in 17-year mating cycle, according to Jason Slotkin of NPR. Cicadas mean summer. They are invested in mating. What is it, friends, that we are investing ourselves in? Does the soul stand a chance in this withering political climate? Have you heard of the cicada killer wasp? I can think of some people who are similar --- a bent to sting, to wound, to kill. Still, the cicada with its membranous wings and red compound eyes sings, mates, and lays its eggs. It is called by grand names: Pharoah Cicada, Empress Cicada, Magicicada Cassinii. But for a while it is a baby, a nymph in soil waiting to emerge.

Insects that produce sounds are called Homoptera. Up in the trees, they make their choir in broods. Maybe they are singing:

Do they sound harsh or in some way soothing? It may depend on what we are listening for. I'm currently listening to the Jubilee band, CeeCee and the Recalcitrants, singing "Wake Me Up When It's All Over."

Wake me up when it's all over,
when I'm wiser and I'm older.
All this time I was finding myself,
I didn't know that I was lost.

"Everyone has experienced what they could call being transported beyond themselves," says the Course in Miracles. What was yours? We are encased in flesh, but sometimes we are startled into a moment of being out of body and into delight. "The aperture of our awareness can no longer completely close again."

I tried carrying the weight of the world,
but I only have two hands.

I wish I could stay forever young,
not afraid to close my eyes.

Our eyes, says Candance Chellew, are woefully inadequate for completely capturing our experiences. We need the capacity of spirit, and we need stories. Jesus spoke in parables --- one is the story of seed-thrower whose seeds landed in various environments and either took root or died away. The chance to awaken is always there, Candace reminds us, as God is always throwing seeds.

A male cardinal just flitted into my view and blessed the garden gate, but it did not stay. I can keep it only in memory. If I am rocky soil, the memory may not find root, but if my soul is broken ground, his presence lingers.

We live in the great wide open, where the cicada brings forth the" loudest natural sound of any insect" with their jointed rostrum. We live in an extraordinary ordinary. Candace is playing the singing bowl, and my dog Reacher has tuned in deeply to its resonant music, its bell a seed cast toward him, and to me, and you.

All this time I was finding myself, a nymph underground, growing my wings, but now I am a noisy cicada with my own extraordinary song.

(drawing borrowed from Gurney Journey

"Trying hard to reach you with heart and soul --- please take hold of my hand, that I might understand."

Tamara