NEW! I've just published a blog on The Every Animal Project about the profound lesson I learned from the alien-like bugs that spend 17 years underground, invisible, before making a grand appearance in our lives: cicadas. Give it a read today and, if you're moved, share it with your friends!
Here's a quick excerpt:
"That night I got a glimpse into their hour of transfiguration. For 17 years, as we drive to and from work, journey from city to city, walk our dogs and ride our bikes on the sidewalk, they are just underneath us, excavating, sucking on tree sap, burrowing. Then, on that seventeenth year, they lie in wait for the day that the temperature of the earth reaches 64 degrees. As the sun sets, the grub-like nymphs begin their ascent. With their hooked front legs, they dig through the top layer of soil, thrust themselves onto the land, and begin to scale the nearest tree (or, today, fence, house, or other structure). Once lodged in a comfortable position, in the dead of night, the process begins: a slit forms along their backs and slowly, the adult cicadas’ pale, delicate, soft bodies extract themselves from their former skin. In the hours that follow, the cicadas sit motionless as their crumpled-up wings miraculously unfold and harden into tools that will lift them high into the trees come morning. In one night, as we sleep, millions of formerly beetle-like nymphs have taken to the skies like tiny, glittery birds."