Cicada Season

Photo from Matthew Willis

Apparently while we were on holiday in Kaua’i last week (in idyllic island temperatures), Summer landed in my hometown. We came home to triple digit temps, and a nearly drought-ridden looking garden. Which is crazy because we are those people who have self-watering containers and filled all the reservoirs before heading out of town. Now, we are those neighbors with the brown grass and the wilted plants (Although to be honest, I think watering your grass is a waste of water. Why can’t we have edible front yards? Or even better wildflowers and wild grasses? Oh yeah, because we live in a neoliberal capitalist society that doesn’t want to support Nature and is afraid of change, but that’s a topic for a different venue). We gave everything a good watering and I’m seriously hoping the vegetables pull a Lazarus. If not, it’s jalapeños for everyone! Seriously, peppers amaze me. They are the only plants that are still actively thriving in my yard (aside from the trees, which are awesome in their own rights).

Photo from Song of Insects

Anyway, back to the heat. I’ve been hearing the cicadas buzzing off and on since April when they began coming out, but now that it’s hot? They are out in full force. Their buzzing is so loud, I haven’t heard much birdsong in the afternoons this week. For those of you unfamiliar with cicadas, I know they have a bad rap in some places where they are like a plague of locusts and eat vegetation. The cicadas we have in Central Texas, the Dog-Day Cicadas, really don’t do that. They’re just loud. Oh, and snakes like to eat them so you sometimes see more snakes out when the cicadas are rocking their cycle (squirrels and birds eat cicadas too, but we see those all the time). In fact, you really don’t see many cicadas themselves, just their old brown husks (from the final nymphal stage) hanging on buildings or trees like something out of a Heinlein novel.

See, cicadas live underground most of their lives. They grow and shed and burrow until it’s time for them to go to the surface for their final (adult) phase. When it’s time, they emerge from underground, climb to a high spot so they can shed their husks (which sometimes they do on the way to the higher place). Then, they dry and let their wings do their thing. The buzzing sound is made by the males. They are literally singing to attract a mate. Okay, not literally singing, but they are totally using their bodies like an instrument. They have a vibrating membrane-like structure called a tymbal and the males have enlarged, air-filled abdomens that act as a resonating chamber. Sounds like singing to me. The cicadas move their abdomens in and out rapidly, turning individual clicks into the sound we hear, which sounds like a continuous buzz. They sing the most during the hottest weather, and have been associated with the dog days of summer, which is how this breed got their name. Even though we aren’t technically in the dog days of summer (Sirius isn’t rising with the sun yet, that’s in July), it’s already HOT here so the cicadas are out in full force, singing their little hearts out (or abdomens? Whatever).

Photo from Houston Museum of Natural Science

As I was walking to the mailbox the other day, I saw one crawling along the ground, still wearing its brown husk. It must have just come out of the earth or something and I felt honored to see it in such condition. This guy was just crawling along in his dead-looking husk and I literally cheered aloud because he was on his way to another expansion. He’d grown. Part of growing is outgrowing, in this case, the cicada had outgrown his own skin. It clung to him like a dead shell (which it was after all) as he clambered over the sidewalk toward an oak tree, seeking a place to set up shop for his next expansion. His coming into his own. He absolutely had to shed his skin so he could sing, and singing for a cicada is life and death. The buzz we hear is the male singing to attract a mate. After coming out of the ground, these guys only live for at most a few weeks, so time is of the essence. Taking up space is of the essence. Singing loud is of the essence. Singing the right song, at the right frequency, for the right partner is of the essence. Shortly after mating (like days after), the male dies. The female lays eggs and the cycles begin anew.

The cicada has me thinking about cycles and processes. Each project has its own kind of life cycle after all and life itself is full of opportunities for contraction and expansion. I think about how if the cicada never shed that final husk, it wouldn’t be able to do the thing it was created to do. It wouldn’t know the other creatures it was meant to know, or play the role in the greater universe it was meant to play. I never thought I’d be inspired by an insect, but straight up, the cicada showed me the need to release what I’ve outgrown (or am no longer available for) and double down on the thing(s) I’m here to do right now. He showed me that it’s okay to let go of things that no longer fit. More than okay, it is vital that we release whatever no longer serves. That fat cicada crawling along the sidewalk was literally swaddled in old, dead, useless skin from another phase of his life. He could barely ambulate! I’ll bet the minute he shed that husk, he felt better.

Photo from Spring Green

When you grow, you also outgrow. I see this all the time with my son. Middle school (and puberty) is no joke! My little guy is now taller than I am, wears adult sizes in clothing, and his voice is so deep I sometimes ask him to repeat himself because I wasn’t listening on that frequency. With the changes and growth, we’ve done lots of winnowing and replacing in his wardrobe over the years. Sometimes the things he’s outgrown may actually technically still fit. Maybe those pants aren’t too short, but they’re not a style he prefers anymore. Maybe that shirt isn’t too tiny, but he no longer supports or identifies with that idea or product. WE get to say what has a place in our lives. Whether consciously or unconsciously, we curate not only our wardrobes, but our entire experience here on Earth. Seeing that cicada, helping my son with his wardrobe, and now just having had the full moon, I am in a space of inquiry and release and would love to invite you along for the ride. These are the questions I sat with last night under the Strawberry Full Moon. The questions I am ruminating on as we prepare to say goodbye to one season and fully enter another. If they serve you, awesome. If not, no worries. I’m a journaling junkie, I love this kind of stuff. Here are the Qs… How have you grown? What have you outgrown? What thoughts, ideas, and narratives have served their purpose. What feels too snug or too short? What can be shifted or released, to make space for something new?

Life seeks expansion, growth. Just like the cicada, we have to shed to shine. Here’s to releasing what no longer fits, spreading our wings, taking up space, and singing (or writing, or dancing, or painting, or whatever YOUR thing is). Here’s to growth, whatever that looks like.