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Meditative Musings: Brood X Cicadas May 31, 2021 16:02
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It's a Sunday afternoon. I'm sitting outside in the backyard listening to the Brood X cicadas sing in the trees. One of our neighbors is tooling around his yard on a lawn mower, but the cicadas are drowning him out.
There's a distinctive undercurrent of sound--like a constant "Ha" or a steady, but subtle baseline, and then a spiraling, melodic layer of sound pressing over it. I love this sound--this steady crescendo and decrescendo--and I love the creatures who create this sound; they inspire me, and they motivate me to continue to practice.
Any creature that burrows underground and stays "in retreat" for seventeen years, emerges, molts, mates, and sings all while constantly at risk of being eaten by just about every other creature (ants, birds, squirrels, raccoons, dogs, etc.) has my total respect.
Cicadas are mascots of endurance and patience, and it's particularly fitting that their emergence coincides with our own cautious emergence from the COVID-19 pandemic, at least here in the U.S.
For the last couple of weeks, I've wandered around our yard every morning and afternoon examining the trunks of trees for their empty husks--or, exuviae--evidence of successful molts.
And they are everywhere! Scattered in the grass, stuck to the undersides of leaves, they cling to the bricks of our home and line the outer edges of our garage door.
Not all of them make it. I've seen several "failed molts" of would-be cicadas trapped in their former "nymph" selves, unable to escape--or they escape, but with crumpled wings damaged in the molting process. When I see them, I whisper "Om.Ah.Hum" on their behalf.
A few days ago, I was lucky enough to witness a successful molt from start to finish. It was a cool, foggy morning, and I noticed a dark brown shell at eye level on a cherry tree in our front yard. This exoskeleton didn't have a vertical split down the center of the thorax, so I knew the shell was still occupied.
I wandered around for a few minutes looking at other trees in the yard. When I came back, the shell was pulsating, so I decided to stick around.
I stood by the tree and watched this cicada emerge from its exoskeleton--the entire process took a little over an hour.
It wriggled and pressed its way out of the confines of the exoskeleton that protected him in the earth. His body was pale, and his wings were small and delicate.
When he emerged, he looked like he was doing a back bend until his wings and all six legs were free from the shell. He moved, wriggled, and stretched all of his legs, then returned toward the tree, climbed over his shed exoskeleton, and rested until his crumpled wings slowly unfurled and dried. Then, he took his first steps as an adult cicada and began to climb up the tree.
You may be wondering, at this point, what on earth does this have to do with meditation practice? This is a valid question.
Today is Monday--Memorial Day--and I took some time to sit outside to meditate this afternoon.
The temperature was cool, and the sky was cloudy and overcast.
I closed my eyes and listened underneath the intermittent bird song, the occasional slam of a car door, the sputtering motor of a nearby riding lawn mower, and the sound of a motorcycle accelerating in the distance. Beneath these distinct "sounds of samsara" was a constant hum that seemed to be coming from nowhere and everywhere at once.
What started as the roar of applause, or the sound effect from a B-rated sci-fi flick, transformed into the hush of cause and effect, the infinite sigh of the earth, the soft, primordial thunder that held all other sounds together. It held space for sound, and it, too, was the sound of space. This ubiquitous murmur was the sound of transformation, the backdrop of interconnection, and a beautiful reminder that life is precious, that time is limited.
This is the sound of generosity; this is the sound of ethics; this is the sound of patience; this is the sound of joyful effort, this is the sound of focus, and this is the sound of wisdom.
For me, these Brood X cicadas are simple but powerful symbols that embody and sing the benefits of daily practice. All we have to do to benefit others, as well as ourselves, is to observe, to listen, and to be still.
May you all enjoy the remnants of this holiday weekend, and may you all find time for your own practice today....and every day.
Thanks for reading or listening. If you haven't checked out the Middle Moon Malas online shop in a while, be sure to visit middlemoonmalas.com. I've added a few new designs recently that you might like.
Take care, everyone!