Still, Small Voice

Nature constantly offers gifts.

On this last bike trip, we had pedaled out into the middle of the salt marsh and sat on a bench that provided a view of Gordon’s Lake. As we were admiring the horizon, we saw what looked like a dragon fly fluttering toward us.

But she was not a dragon fly. She was a praying mantis, and she landed on the pine tree behind me, just over my right shoulder. I sat very still. I wanted Benjamin to be able to get as close as he could to take a picture.

He approached, and she turned her head to look straight at the camera. “Like a alien,“ he said. Given my husband’s love of science fiction, I knew he meant this as a compliment.

This insect has been both feared and revered throughout human history.

In a Byzantine text, she is described as an old woman, with a thin, dried up stick of a body. Because of her tendency to kill her mate, the mantis has been symbolized as a femme fatal. In China, she inspires a martial arts pose and represents courage and fearlessness in poetry. Greeks site her as having the supernatural power to show travelers the way home, and Egyptian texts have credited the mantis with being able to guide the souls of the dead to the underworld.

I favor the more positive views of her…obviously. I especially like the idea that she symbolizes mindful movements and stillness, how she is believed to appear to us when we have filled our lives with too much noise, business, and activity, how she reminds us to hear the still, small voice inside of us.

Before our bike trip, I was feeling closed in. As charming as I find my new region, it is congested. The roads are narrow and winding and butted up again hills. People here have a sense of personal space different from my own. They get extremely close- tail gating on the road, shoving at book sales. Of course, it’s not everyone, but it’s happened enough to note.

I was also feeling cluttered in my own head. I was thinking too much about the business end of writing. I know it’s important to research and consider things like: agents, lawyers, editors, publications, and deadlines. I know these are important, but I was letting these thoughts distract me from a actually producing content. I was blocked.

And then a good sized insect, with a wealth of mythology attached to her, landed near my neck.

I noticed. I heard her. She said, “Kick out the noise. Forget the business. Get quiet. Spend time with your poems and your novel, and write. This is all you have to do for now.”

So I am…

Thank you, Lady Mantis. Thank you.