Fleeting Serenity

Chaos seems to be the order of the day this 4th of July, here in the USA. Wildfires out west, Torrential rains along the Gulf coast and Florida, flooded fields in the heartland, and the far more mild irritation of “not-since-1803!” dual cicada emergence here in greater Chicagoland. Sweltering everywhere else putting psyches on edge. Politics past understanding. The new normal? I dunno. Hope not.

It all does argue for grabbing a bit of serenity wherever you can find it, right?  

Try this. Wait until dusk. Find a swath of greenery somewhere. Backyards, parks, gardens, golf courses. All good. Trees, bushes, also a plus. Now, take a seat, chair, blanket, top of a cooler - doesn’t matter. 

The idea next is to sort of “unfocus.” Look all around you, but don’t really look directly at anything - kind of a zenlike awareness. Patience, grasshopper. Waiting is. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. . .

Then ZAP! There it is! Or was it over there? Zoom! Again! Another one - but fading now. 

Fireflies. Lightening bugs. Call them what you will. 

Silent and magic, they claim the evening like tiny fairies fleeting hither and yon with blinking green and golden satchels, almost neon. They are there, then not. Gone again, only to reappear over there, or maybe there. 

For the barefoot young they invite chase. Mad flip-flop scampers over wet grass, hands swiping, or softly extended, seeking to quietly intercept the illusive prey. Then, POP! Into the Mason jar. Screw down the lid. Punch some holes in the top. Add some well-intended - but meaningless - blades of grass for seeming sustenance. Tiny romances interrupted, destined for a darkened summer bedroom to cast their fanciful, frustrated, glimmers of soft summer lights against a midnight wall.

For those of us in long pants, sleeves, socks and shoes - sporting the slightly sweet scent of Deep Woods Off - the soothing pulses stir different responses. It touches on the transcendent, linking memory, tonight, and the still masked tomorrows in a serene patchwork of the present moment.

The object of many meditative practices is to calm the mind, to step outside the hurly-burly drumbeat of contemporary life. To slow the heartbeat. To find the soothing waters of tranquility. Somehow these miniature, rhythmic, wing-borne silent pulses illuminate summer’s path to that sacred spot.