Personal Symbols - a journey cloth by Ancient Cloth.

 

In January Ancient Cloth asked me what my five personal symbols were.

I had not thought of them in a list before and it felt like I was playing The Cube Sufi Game.

The Cicada is a symbol for death and rebirth.  

 

It has a special meaning to me because of what I learned one summer as my boys were observing a cicada.

The boys were 3 and 7.

They enjoyed watching the cicadas come out of their shells.

They would attach themselves to the side of the tree and then when their shell was attach they would disengage their body.

 

  They would then emerge from the shell and spread their wings, drying them out till they were hard and fly away.

When the boys found one they thought they would just move the critter to the front porch.

Unfortunately the insect was no longer attached to the tree.

He could not break free of his shell as he used the tree or a wall that his shell was attached to to help him.

 

This reminded me of how we may not trust natural progressions of growing up.

I have had adults around me try to help me "grow up" my children.

I was made to do things that I was not ready for and then my report card was marked with

Becky would do really well if she would pay attention.

The wall that I was attached to was taken away...my questions and imaginations considered unimportant.

They put me in a box of their own comfort and then presented me with their own set of questions and views.

It work well for "school" but it left me stunted and in my opinion it was in humane.

Another thing that happened when the insect did not emerge from his shell, was that my son helped him out.

He took off the armour that the bug was encast in.

It didn't help the insect.

The Cicada died. 

 

For me, I was helped out by working on my weaknesses.  

By being put in the slow class.

It did nothing to improve my strengths.

They really weren't interested in those.

I don't know if they knew what they were or what use they would have been in their system of learning.

I felt "stupid".

I struggled to survive in that environment.           

      

One day I went to coffee with a friend of mine and told her this story.  

After we got through I went to the farmer's market.

There was a girl there that had set up a Poetry Store.

I knew that I wanted her to write a poem about Cicadas.

As I got closer to her I saw that on the inside of her arm was a tattoo....

of a Cicada.

How cool is that?

Here is the poem that she wrote

"To follow the course

Of a tune well aimed,

We turn our ears to thosse

Who settle on living below

the soil until their brood

hums them onward.  This song

trumps all those made by metal 

or wood or throat andin this

winding buzz we can hear 

the wisdom of rest, of patience

and of onwardness to come."

Jacqueline Suskin 

October 31, 2009

Cicadas

P.S. This was done on a manual type writer so I left in all the typos as that gives this poem some character...and adds to it's artistic value, for me.