Love like Fireflies

“We are the stars which sing,

We sing with our light,

We are the birds of fire,

We fly over the sky.

Our light is a voice:

We make a road

For the spirit to pass over.”

- Algonquin Song of the Stars

Every night this June, around 8:45 pm, I would go outside to sit in the grass of my back yard and watch the fireflies.  As bursts of light rose from the green blades the air seemed alive with celebration, with one last sparkling embrace of life’s glory before the world fell asleep.  I would sing to myself the same words that I sang with close friends on my first summer night in Davidson:

“There was a sign on the door and it reads to me

Just like the sun and the moon and the stars at night.”

It’s been said that summer of the season of fire, and this summer I’ve found myself searching for it, fighting it, and asking it questions.  I think I think we all have a fire inside us that flares and fades, and we all reach a time – or many times – when we struggle with finding, feeding or taming it.   When it flares it consumes us with anxiety and anger, fixating our attention on control, power, accomplishment, and perfectionism, while dying flames bury us in shame, self-criticism, discouragment, apathy…the list goes on.  At Davidson, I sometimes see this fluctuation in myself and in my peers – being a rather intense and goal-driven bunch, many of us adopt the idea that in the midst of change, our goals, our power, our security and our sense of self will only remain safe within an iron fist of work, worry, and control (and with senior year ahead, I think it’s safe to say that change is certainly in our midst).  Yet this mindset that often leaves us without enough oxygen makes our formerly blazing flames collapse in on themselves, growing dim and and flickering in want of their lost power.  Last semester, I tried to fight the winds of uncertainty and find balance in an environment that sometimes seems to turn between feeding and smothering these inner flames day by day.  I would sing and pray for the light of things that glow – just like the sun and the moon and the stars… – and I would wonder where they find the peace and power to keep burning, never bursting, never fading.

And then, this summer, I learned my greatest lesson of the season from a little boy and his fireflies.

It was the night of the summer solstice, and my neighbors’ backyard came alive with lively families and little children.  As my roommate and I perused the potluck, I kept noticing a small 4-year-old boy with wide brown eyes quietly observing the scene while hiding behind the corner of the chicken coop.   I went over, bent down on my knees, and introduced myself – he said his name was Kai, shyly turned away, and proceeded to go pick up sticks by the toolshed.  Remembering my own shy moments as a small child, I left him to his happy nature-filled solitude while I went to chat and roast food at the campfire.  I followed the other kids into the woods to see their tree-forts and find long sticks suitable for the grand roasting of marshmallows, but Kai kept to himself.  Until around 8:45, that is, when the fireflies came out.

As soon as the air began to sparkle, the children ran wild.  Kai noticed what’s going on, and his deep eyes widened and twinkled as he ran out to join in the great firefly chase.  He pranced and excitedly caught fireflies in his hands as I watched.  Then suddenly, he comes up with cupped hands full of a dozen fireflies, opens them, looks up at me and says, 

"These are for you."

I start to take them, but for a moment he stops me, saying  “just remember, you have let them go.” 

He left, ran around as the other children yelled “Let’s get jars for the bugs,” and patiently reminded them that they needed to poke holes in the lids.  Once again, small children answer prayers.

So today I pray for the power to chase my fireflies and the peace to know when to set them free, because I've learned that we burn and glow when we know just how much to take in and let go.  Friends, as this summer ends, I hope you let your own fire glow with the joy that comes from remaining awake to the small sparks of love and life that appear around you with no warning.  Amidst fading and flaring flames, I hope that you and I will remind ourselves of the brilliance that lies in in the sunrise and try to treat our thoughts and dreams like fireflies: beautiful pieces of inspiration from beyond ourselves to be chased, cherished, shared, and then set free as we wait for the next spark of life-giving beauty.

Tonight I sang the same words once again with close friends, one who just returned and one who soon will leave, with our voices holding old love and new life.  In the midst of change, we are the stars which sing, we sing with our light...we are the birds of fire, we fly over the sky.

Always share your love like fireflies…

Just like the sun and the moon and the stars at night. 

Press Play

Press play

In pine trees, playing with the wind like the butterflies’ wings

Press pause

With water, splashing through limestone like a chisel through wood

Press stop

On moss licking forests' branches, billowing from years of silence

Rewind

To the girl taking videos of the butterflies beneath the pines

Your camera’s resolution can’t hold the hope in her wings, child

Pixels can’t pause the river on the mountainside

To the wide-eyed boy trying to capture the waterfall’s splash before it dies

Can you bear to sit long enough to hear the river’s story

To the girl uploading photos of new hair and flawless skin

No album can immortalize your youthful beauty, darling, are we numbing
Fear of the fleeting world frame by frame

posting pictures of ourselves so we don’t forget who we are today

or maybe we know the self who woke up this morning

is already lost in endless videos, streaming

Press pause

did you see that splash of water on the limestone, it’s running  –

Press stop

Did you see the way the sunset grasped the treetops, it’s fading –

Rewind

What if the light runs out before I’m done dreaming –

Fast forward

Will I forget the way your face shines when you’re laughing –

Press play -

What if you upload your wishes to the wind with me

Stream all your memories in the riverbed with me

Sit long enough above this crashing water with me

Until the sound can carve a canyon in your mind and soul

Will you listen to the river long enough to know

That your chisel is your flowing, shapeless heart

drop by drop, give up your limestone battles

Frame by frame trust the light of the past to our stars

drop by drop let my stories seep
Into your caverns, and yours in mine

Until we’re fluid and broken enough to carve canyons

Trusting our dreams will take their shape

When we loose our own.

To the man whose mind rewinds through years of regret,

The moss-covered forest holds forgiveness in its branches

To the child with fleeting eyes like butterflies, wishing to fast forward

The young pines that wait for roots until the day their needles glimpse the
mountaintops.

To the young woman, worried her map was lost along the trail

Your inner compass has in mind a better view

Press play.

The mountains care little of your mistakes, my friend,

and if the river can keep running

so can you.

Hope Together

"The point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." - Rainer Maria Rilke



Ever since I was a small child I've had an undying love for airports. This is fortunate because I spend an aweful lot of time in them during my bi-annual treks across the country to and from college, but most people think I'm crazy when I tell them this.  Maybe you are one of those people. "Airports, are crowded, stuffy, germ-infested places," you say.  Stressful, hectic, isolated...yes, yes, I get it, but here me out.

Perhaps it's the growing anticipation if landing in a new exciting place. Or the endless people watching, sleek, shiny architecture and bright, glowy signs everywhere you look. (I grew up in hyper-rural Oregon - most large groups of people, new places and sleek bright glowy things are abnormally exciting to me.)  Maybe it's the fact that there are Starbucks (my second-most undying love) scattered less than 5 feet from almost every gate, having been 75 miles away from one most my life.  Maybe it's the fact that it's possible to get almost anywhere in the world when standing in front of the departure screen.

Let's be honest. It's probably Starbucks.

Inside an airport, you have a relatively simple task. Get through security. Get to your gate on time. Don't loose stuff, and if you do, try to keep it to minimum. Keep moving forward.  You have one destination, and even if you have no goals in life, no idea what they are going to turn out to be or ou just plain can't decide (as is often the case for me) you still have a goal in an airport.

So you finally reach your plane, it's an ungodly hour of the morning, you wish the flight attendant would shut up about the oxygen masks and just bring you coffee, and the lights go dark as the plane prepares to ascend.  You look around you at the motley crew of people all as bleary-eyed as you. You all have to turn off your pesky electronic devices and share a brief moment of togetherness as the pilot steers to the runway.  And right then, you all want the same thing: you want to land in one place, you want to land in one piece, you hope you will be lifted off the ground, hoping people will be at least mildly pleasant along the way.  We can have the same goal for once, we can believe that the woman who know knocked us over as she was running to her next flight has dreams and memories deeper than you will ever know, that what your name is and what you have makes little difference in whether or not you land.  All searching for the same deep joy you hope to find in landing, you trust and hope in your arrival, in letting go, and that in flying, aiming, hoping, and living our way to the answers we will find the shiny signs that lead us to our next gate.

  Forego all competitive nature and hope together.  Then go from there.

And no matter how much you try to avoid it, you usually end up in front of the departure gate once again.    Smile, keep walking, and and share your Starbucks muffin with the man next to you while praying you don't get the flu.

"Good morning ladies and gentlemen - It is currently 6:04 am in Pasco, Washington and we we are scheduled to arrive in Denver, Colorado at 9:13 mountain time. Here in Pasco we have mostly clear skies but we may encounter fog turbulence as we head east.  We won't be sure until we're on our way."

Board the plane. Admire the sunrise out your window. Drink too much coffee. Hope together. Always share your muffins.

Enjoy your flight.