In a Moment - Issue 27

The word "return" has been on my mind lately. I find it popping up in conversations, news feeds, podcasts, emails. A return to work. A return to normalcy. A return to school, to restaurants, to gyms, to salons.

And I found myself tripping over all of these returns. It didn't feel right.

I get the impulse for returning. Inherent within a "return" is something familiar, whether it be a place, a person, an environment, an experience. And within that is that pesky clinging, the desire to hold on to that which is known.

I often noted that 2020 was a crash course in the Buddhist concept of impermanence. At times, a shocking reminder that nothing is certain. Nothing is fixed. Nothing is secure.

And so I suppose that's why I struggle with the concept of returning because there is no going back, there is only going forward.

This year, along the east coast, millions of cicada will emerge from the soil. Filling the air with their reverberating songs. Brood X is the name of this particular batch of cicadas. I found myself curious about these cicadae and did a bit of research. They started as eggs laid 17 years ago. They grew into larvae that have lived underground, feeding on the sap of trees for nearly two decades. They will eventually dig themselves out of the soil as the ground temperature warms. They will climb into trees, clinging to branches as their bodies fully mature. They will shed their amber shells as they grow, leaving a perfect replica of their bodies on tree trunks and the earth. They will then mate and eventually die so they can continue this 17-year cycle.

The thing that is so fascinating to me about cicadas, is their emergence. They spend the vast majority of their life, underground, in the darkness, in the unknown. And then, when the time and temperature are right, they are called to emerge. And when they emerge, they are not fully formed adult cicadas. They are white in color and their wings are not ready for flight. They take time to acclimate to their new environment, for their exteriors to harden and darken, for their wings to unfurl and grow strong.

And so perhaps there is something to learn from the cicada. Rather than getting swept up in the frenzy of return, what if we could allow ourselves to emerge?

What would it feel like to give yourself time to get acclimated?

What are the things that you need to strengthen or grow into in the midst of this shift?