A New Sound
A New Sound... Not unfamiliar. Just now...a few moments ago, while moving towards the patio and another lovely evening, I heard a sound long unheard since childhood... a sound not heard in the desert. And for a brief moment I returned to that childhood and felt myself at play, running once again through the woods... for a brief moment. The hour of dusk was approaching quietly and a soft breeze had moved into the valley. The first of the Night Orchestration of Light and Sound had begun. Night life was waking as the sun slipped softly behind the San Jacinto mountains.
At the first click of it's sound I swayed in my tracks. I WAS a child again as a vision of summer in the country swam within the mind. There on a slim branch of a small tree I spied a Cicada in the last throws of slipping from it's transparent shell. The very top of the shell splits along the back exactly down the middle and the Cicada lifts itself up and out, much the same we humans do when changing clothes.
The body was now somehow greener than before the exodus of the old shell, with its wings more transparent than ever and stronger in the recognition of its ability to take flight... its latest approach to the waiting world. A form of life in the insect world I found fascinating. So unassuming, non intrusive, and such a powerful sound from this small delicate being.
As a child I would climb trees to sit near Cicada now and then for long periods of time observing... nothingness. For that's what they did I thought...no-thing-ness. Now and then, however, one would break into song just before flying off. An instant before, I would suddenly find my attention riveted to its large eyes. Its eyes would move slightly, looking up at me, then it would let fly with song. I was spell bound. I would not move for fear of its early taking of flight. Afterwards I would sit quietly for some time, unmoving, as if to remain in the moment. Knowing it would be a while before such a moment would present itself again and I would quietly, softly, scurry up a tree and relive nature unfolding once more before the eyes of a child who often wondered if she would, herself, now and then witness her own growth over the years.
The present moment has returned and I bring to it the child who remains to witness her own growth in her own time and space. The child who now and then moves on into the Inner Worlds. Whose transparent wings are battered and torn here and there, but never the less... stronger, waiting for the time-worn imbalance within the next step in her wee small universe to present itself in its full blown illusion. Knowing it will. Like a moth to the flame... the light is blinding, bringing new birth. And with it, new illusions.
