Monday Morning Musing: Carrying Light

Recently a friend who lives in the midwest posted a video to social media; in it the first fireflies of the season blinked their lights in her back yard. Fireflies (or lightning bugs, depending on where you grew up) shine summer into the dusky nights of the eastern half of the United States. Though becoming fewer in number because as we spray chemicals to kill other things, we also kill them, they are still a harbinger of summer.

Children, my own and others, catch them and put them in jars and bring them in the house, determined to keep a bit of their magic in their darkened bedrooms at night. (This doesn't work, by the way, and most children will reluctantly, but necessarily, release them back into the night.)

Fireflies live in the ground and when dusk appears, to spot them, one must look toward the ground, not toward the sky. That's a part of their magic, too. That they appear at eye level no matter how small we might be.

Here's some fun bug facts: in the eastern U.S., east of Kansas, the male fireflies light up in order to attract a mate. But in the western U.S., the females light up, every so faintly, and very close to the ground. It is almost impossible to see them unless it's very dark and one's eyes are acclimated to the darkness.

Either way, it's helpful to remember that we all can carry some light into a world over shadowed by so much fear and hatred and war and poverty and division. Even if we can only glow a little bit and do it close to the ground, that's good too. Shine your lights, people, for you are a little bit of magic and stardust in the world, too.

Here's a poem about fireflies from Lilian Moore:

If You Catch a Firefly

If you catch a firefly

            and keep it in a jar

You may find that

            you have lost

A tiny star.

If you let it go then,

            back into the night,

You may see it

            once again

Star bright.