Hmmm, how often do we miss the feast because we are blinded by our preconceptions?
I was planning on making up for lost time when I headed down to the lakefront this afternoon for my first outing of the fall bird migration season. The weather was exquisite and I was visiting one of my usually reliable locations. However, within a half hour of arriving, it was clear this was a “famine” day in the feast or famine swings of bird migration patterns.
I methodically checked the normal hotspots with disappointing results. It wasn’t until I was tracking a warbler in the bowl that I became conscious of the cicada’s electric buzz from high in the treetops. One cicada’s buzz would rise from above, linger lazily and slowly fade out as another cicada chimed in.
My impatience began to melt as it occurred to me that it wasn’t random singing but rather a full chorus. What at first seemed like just background noise, became a symphony of exquisite simplicity.
The rest of the afternoon took on a different perspective. I paused again and again to marvel at the aerial ballet of dragonflies – Darners, Saddlebags and Gliders – as they staged for their own migration. I gazed at regal Monarch butterflies fluttering through the fields and watched band-winged grasshoppers launching themselves into the air.
It was not a famine day at all. Far from it. I just wasn’t tuned in to the frequency nature was operating at for the day.
A chorus of cicadas buzzing from the treetops on a serene September Sunday – a random act of metaphor to remind me to slow down, tune in and release my preconceptions of what the day should bring. Only then could I receive the feast that awaited.
~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.
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Tags: band-winged grasshopper · Cicada · Darner · Glider · metaphor · Michael Robert Dyet · Monarch butterfly · Nature · SaddlebagNo Comments