Some of my most cherished childhood memories are of fields and forests illuminated by fireflies.
Fireflies are beautiful but their lives are very brief. It seems to me we see beauty most clearly in ephemeral things like fireflies and flowers. On a night when the sky is filled with faraway suns and galaxies, it is the shooting star that stands out. Beauty and brevity seem to be inexorably connected.
If we observe the fireflies, we realize the importance of living and loving in time. By that, I mean loving each other even more passionately by realizing that we all shine for a very brief time.
We sometimes say that time flies, but it is we who are fleeting. Can we realize that what we call our living and dying are parts of the same dance? Can we realize that, like the firefly, our lives are a kind of combustion? Can we understand that if we try to hold onto our lives we lose them? We can only shine fully by giving ourselves to the burning.
Can we love our meteoric lives with abandon without pretending to permanence? Can we trust that the system that gives us birth can be trusted in death? Can we realize that we are more deeply like the perpetual ocean than the ephemeral wave?
And can we realize that darkness is necessary for us to fully express our own light? Can we recognize our current dark times, not as an excuse for despair, but as an invitation to shine?