Cicada Time
// May 20th, 2011 // 4 Comments » // metaphor, poetry, work in progress
A cicada shell;
it sang itself
utterly away.
Basho (trans.R.H.Blyth)
Late Spring in Australia is when the air swells with the piercing cry of countless cicadas. It feels like the ground, the gum trees, and the sky are all vibrating with them.
The sound is incessant, to the point where it almost distorts your sense of time. It’s a harsh sound, and it resonates perfectly with the searing blue skies.
Cicadas are huge insects and have a jewel-like intensity to them. Part of that intensity comes from the fact that, prior to moving into the trees, they spend up to seven years living underground.
They come up from the ground when it’s time, attach themselves to a tree and then shed their skins, emerging from the husk into the outside world.
Once they’re out they only live for a few weeks, and so they really let loose and make a noise in the time they have.
As a kid I always enjoyed finding the abandoned shells left on the trees in our backyard, and liked even more to find a live cicada and hold it in my hand for a while.
The last few months have felt like a cicada time for me, the underground part. I’ve been developing a format for the one on one and group writing sessions that I’m going to be offering soon on the blog.
Very exciting!
The thing is, that as I’ve been developing the writing exercises, using them myself and then trialing them with a few people, all my creative activity has gone into my notebooks and journals.
I’ve traded keyboard for pen, and social media for writing in solitude. It’s been a sudden turn into a different way of writing, and a good reminder that creativity is an ever-shifting thing. Though I haven’t been putting much of myself out into the world, a lot of work has been going on underground.
I’ve written hardly any blog posts over the last few months but have nearly two dozen poems written that are currently being polished for submission. I’m excited about that because I haven’t written or submitted much poetry at all for the last three years, and it shows me that the writing sessions generate a whole lot of writing.
Next week is the song part of the cicada time, when I climb above ground and introduce my new thing to the world. I’m also revamping my slumbering newsletter from next week with advance discounts on the writing sessions and monthly art giveaways.
You can sign up for the newsletter in the sidebar right now if you’re interested.
Hope to see you here on Monday, spread the word!
