In Hindu, an Upaguru is a teacher that is next to you at any given moment. This is not limited to a person.
~ Mark Nepo, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen
The Brood X periodical cicadas have come and gone in the mid-Atlantic region. Am I the only one who is grieving a little?
Though I have moved around a lot in my lifetime, I have somehow — with no planning of my own — been in the right spot at the right time to experience the wonder of 17-year periodical cicadas four different times: three times in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs surrounding Washington, DC, with Brood X (1970, 2004, 2021) and once in Chicago with Brood XIII (1973).
I am like a kid in a candy shop when this miracle of nature happens. Not because I like eating cicadas (no, I’ve never tasted one), but because of the utter awe these creatures inspire in me. Only now, at 57, do I have the perspective to see what cicadas have taught me.
The brain takes into account your past experiences and uses memories from the past to create the present. My earliest memories of cicadas were as a young child, first when I was six years old with all the time in the world to watch the nymphs emerge from the ground like little brown shrimp and creep their way slowly and laboriously over grass and up tree trunks.
I watched in transfixed fascination as the exoskeleton split down the back and a white, fleshy, alien creature with blood red eyes squished its way out of the shell. The slow unfolding and expansion of the wings came next, with the clunky lift-off to find a mate the final thrilling act.
Those were the days before cell phones and iPads, before every moment of a child’s free time was scheduled. My attention could rest fully on this miracle of nature without distraction.
Cicadas taught me to sit still and simply observe. They were the first anchor of my sustained attention, my first meditation.
When I was nine, we spent a year living in a suburb of Chicago. It was a rough year for our family. The highlight from my nine-year-old perspective was the Brood XIII cicada event, which coincided with our pre-move garage sale. My mother was mortified when I covered the entire surface of my clothes with my cicada friends and paraded in front of the house, surely scaring away potential customers. But, weird as I surely seemed, I felt soothed by and aligned with these gentle, misunderstood beings.
In 2004, back in Brood X territory, I introduced my own children to the magic of periodical cicadas (the family of periodical cicadas was actually named Magicicada by William T. Davis, a New England naturalist, in 1925). The discovery that I have very few photos from that period made me sad, realizing just how frenetic I had been as a young mother, not taking enough time to slow to the pace of the cicadas with my then 6- and 8-year-old sons.
Fast forward to 2021. This year the cicada chorus is what impacted me most. Brood X emerged during an intense period of caregiving. I wasn’t able to sit in front of tree trunks to witness the mesmerizing physical transformation process, but I was able to open my windows in the early morning hours to become one with the cicada song during meditation.
I was able to soak in the chorus in snippets while walking from parking lots to my mother’s surgical rehab room. I was able to take her outside and encourage her to listen to the hum of the cicadas’ love songs and laugh at their clunky, awkward bodies moving their way through their very brief time above ground, making the most of every minute. This brief distraction of shared wonder and attunement with nature was calming for both of us.
Sometime during the cicadas’ visit I learned from Mark Nepo that an Upaguru is a “teacher that is next to you in any given moment.” I realize now that cicadas have shown up as powerful Upagurus for me over the course of my lifetime.
In the mindfulness language that frames my life and my work today, the cicadas have taught me these lessons:
- Resilience accumulates if you just keep showing up for the work (periodical cicadas have survived the past 12,000 years).
- Something as basic as an insect can be a focal point for meditation, with the same calming influence on the mind and body as focusing on the breath or a candle flame.
- Nature provides countless role models for transformation to which we can all aspire.
- Noticing things that spark awe and wonder takes us out of our heads and gives us perspective that we are all part of nature, all part of the cycle of life.
- Some things may seem scary at first glance, but when you filter out stories and center on your actual experience (no, cicadas don’t bite), your perspective and relationships shift in positive ways.
- Our time on the planet is fleeting; make the most of it.
