I have long associated the days and nights of summer with the sound of cicadas.  As a kid I called them locusts, but I have grown to realize they are completely different and not at all destructive.  I should also note they do not bite.  I used to love catching them and then of course releasing them.  Lady bugs are lovely, “doodle bugs” are delightful, caterpillars are captivating, and many types of spiders spin silk the envy of any seamstress.  I have always delighted in dragonflies and the beauty of butterflies.  For me the most precious and rare of all are fireflies.  I imagine the Praying Mantis to be a type of Crusader Monk from ages past.  Ants have intrigued me, as have bees, and I have a healthy respect for them both.  Along the loose lines of the birds and the bees, I recently discovered these two captured in time.  Cicada “shells” like the ones pictured above hold immense fascination for me, as one can examine the shed exoskeletons in great detail without stressing them.  One can see the intricate delicacy of their eyes, wings, body, and legs with just a cursory glance.  Like Pompeii, they are remnants frozen in time, only they were able to emerge from their proverbial molds.  The 93-year-old Japanese Buddhist philosopher, author, and educator Daisaku Ikeda has said:

Life is the blossoming of flowers in the spring, the ripening of fruit in the fall, the rhythm of the earth and of nature.  Life is the cry of cicadas signaling the end of summer, migratory birds winging south in a transparent autumn sky, fish dancing in a stream.  Life is the joy beautiful music instills in us, the thrilling sight of a mountain peak reddened by the rising sun, the myriad combinations and permutations of visible and invisible phenomena.  Life is all things.

Of the over 750 quotes I have cited since the inception of my blog, this is among my favorites.  For those who proclaim insects “freak” them out or are annoying — I say many are wonderful and incredible and serve purposes which link us all even if we do not understand them.  Anyway, they’re not bugging me.