A Reflection on Emergence

If you’re from the Cincinnati area, chances are cicadas were top of mind earlier this summer. If you’re not from this area you may have heard of this phenomena of nature…a “brood” of cicadas that grow underground for seventeen years before emerging from the ground by the millions in a cacophony of singing, buzzing and mating.

The warmer days that have many of us ready for sunshine walks and swimming pools coaxed these beady-eyed insects from the dark depths of the earth. I don’t think the irony is lost on us that our eagerness to emerge from our own pandemic-induced dormancy coincides with emergence of the cicadas (sending some folks running right back inside!).

Against the backdrop of the arrival of this interesting insect, I found myself thinking about the ideas of dormancy and emergence. Beyond the surface level dormancy of social calendars and commitments, I realized I’d been feeling a deeper dormancy over the last year. Teetering on the edge of burnout in my previous role, I felt stuck in a routine that left me tired and drained. Everything looked fine on the outside – I enjoyed my family, made time to go running and savored the solitude of quiet moments on my yoga mat – but I was never able to completely shake off feeling sluggish and lethargic. I was stuck on auto-pilot…driven by inertia, passively doing the same things I always had done, but lacking a purpose or energy to propel me forward.

With the theme of dormancy coming up again and again, a few weeks ago the cicadas reached their chirping crescendo and I finally put my finger on it: my creative energy had been dormant. This realization dawned on me as I reflected that with a pivot in a new career direction my excitement and energy returned. It started as a spark in my soul and is growing to a fire in my belly. It looks like a bright-eyed energy of renewed inspiration, and it feels like a swirling and bursting of ideas. It is the eagerness to put pen to paper and write; it is approaching life with the vigor of a learner. It is a feeling of inspiration.

Today, it’s not the sustained singing of the cicadas that grabs my attention, but their absence. The silence in the air punctuates the end of their life cycle. My mind goes to my creative energy, and I feel a flicker in my gut. Though we emerged together, I’m just getting started.