If you do not live in the Eastern half of the United States of America, or know someone who does, you may not have heard about the Cicadas. Cicadas are insects that live underground for years and then, for whatever incredible unknown reason, they all decide to come up out of the ground at the same time and metamorphose into a new version of themselves. This extraordinary thing happens every year but, this year, there are 2 very large broods that have been marinating in the ground for the last 7 years and the last 13 years! They are both coming up at the same time and will be present in places like Nashville, TN-where I live- in the millions and millions. No joke.
Currently there are thousands and thousands of them in my yard. They come out of the ground and attach to a tree, a porch, the side of your house, the wheels of your car— anywhere they can really. They then shed their exoskeletons and leave said bug suits hanging where they attached and they emerge in a larger and bright white body with tiny wings. They change in a matter of hours to a black bodied, red-eyed, gold winged beetle looking thing that, frankly, is much scarier looking than they actually are.
I took the above video after we were out of town for a few days and came home to this
They are a bit derpy, actually. They are clumsy and don’t seem to see very well. They crawl or fly into the tops of the trees and the males begin to scream. They literally scream and scream, looking to attract the females so they can mate and the females will lay their eggs on the roots of the trees and they will sink into the ground where the tiny Cicada babies will slowly feed for the next 13 YEARS and repeat the whole cycle over again.
It is so fascinating to be able to witness this process up close. It is gross at times, for sure. The exoskeletons are yucky looking and they crunch when you step on them. The bugs will climb up onto your foot and just kind of sit there or they will land on you and just hang out for a few without doing much. They scream sometimes when you pick them up. They don’t bite and are not aggressive. They don’t have a stinger or anything you need to worry about. I have even read that you can eat them… but I will not be testing that one out at all. Although my dog, Penny Lane, seems to think they taste good. (EW).
Here you can see mostly the shells with some live bugs in there too.
It is just so cool to see nature at work. They literally appear in the thousands overnight. They come out of their shells so fast! A lot of them die. A lot. My front yard smells like death right now because so many of their tiny corpses are in the grass. They are so loud! One single cicada can reach decibels similar to a lawn mower or a passing jet. So the thousands of them in my treetops sound like I am at a noisy outdoor concert festival every time I open my doors.
Listen to them!
I am not someone who has liked bugs, historically speaking. I can still get pretty spooked when they are climbing on me or land on me unexpectedly. But, since living in the South I have gotten way more used to them. I also just am so fascinated by the fact that they all somehow know when to come up out of the ground. What kind of instinct is inside their little but DNA that tells them when it’s been 13 years? They live underground! It’s not like they count the rotations of the sun!
I think about Barbara Kingsolver in her book “Flight Behavior” where she writes about the phenomenon of the Monarch butterflies stopping occasionally in places where they are not “supposed” to and how studying the migration patterns of the monarchs can show a lot about climate change and the future of the entire monarch species.
The smallest species on this planet are also the ones that outnumber humans exponentially. And their lives can be a great insight into our own. Small changes in their patterns can show us how the earth is changing. We can learn so much from them in lots of ways.
The older that I get the more fascinated I am with nature in general. Not just its beauty but the HOW and the WHY of the way nature cycles. The death and rebirth of every living species. On an individual and also collective level. I think it’s a bit scary to think about the individual cicadas. The ones especially who come up and die right after they molt their brown exoskeletons. I know their bodies are so good for the soil. The nitrogen released from their corpses and skeletons enriches the grass and helps it grow. But my little tender heart feels so sad for the ones that don’t get to go through their full life cycles. And even the lucky ones only live for 4-6 weeks.
I suppose that is their full life but it still seems so short.
It throws me into existential bug crisis to think about it too much.
I find it all so fascinating.
On top of the crazy cicadas we also have had some pretty gnarly storms in Tennessee the last few days. I know of some friends of friends who lost their entire house last night. All of their cars were destroyed too. In a matter of minutes, every worldy possession was destroyed or maimed. Minutes, and their lives have forever changed. They are set down on a brand new path that has a lot of unknowns and a lot of loss and grief.
Things really change so quickly sometimes. That is the thing about life. It is so unexpected. We can be going along and something totally outside of our control can change everything.
I also think it shows a lot about how capable we are of change and transformation in ourselves. I would have been barricading myself inside and refusing to be out in the wild with the cicadas 15 years ago. Now I am going out every day to check and see how many came up overnight and taking pics and videos to document it and share with family across the country. I find it so interesting!
We are all capable of shifting and changing with our seasons of ebb and flow. I am grateful for the expansion of myself that allows for me to be curious about things that used to be afraid of or shy away from. I am grateful for cycles of life and death and little weird bugs that provide a fascination with the natural world and shows me that there is always something interesting happening around us, even if we need reminding to stop and look around us once in awhile.
I hope you can look around you today and notice something interesting.
Sending love to you out there in the ether.
Stef
Sharing a song about nature that I love. Cannot stop listening to this whole album. Highly recommend.