~ firefly-dreaming a virtual home to learn (or teach!) alternative methods of solving problems we find facing us each day. By sharing ideas & knowledge on living with less stress, more joy & embracing tolerance & compassion we are working towards building a sustainable future for all living beings.
There is a quality of ephemeral sensuousness in the glow of fireflies by a woodland stream. Tiny pinpoints of light blink and waver in the depths of a dark summer night, turning people into faceless shadows. A haiku poem by Nobuko Katsura (1914-2004) goes: "Yuruyaka ni/ Kite Hito to Au/ Hotaru no Yo" (Wearing loose clothes/ I meet someone at night/ graced by fireflies).
"The firefly front" is an expression that has come into currency in recent years. As summer deepens, the season's first firefly sightings move up north. Starting in Okinawa Prefecture in April, the "front" passes Kyoto Prefecture in late May.
By now, it must be somewhere in northernmost Honshu. I imagine fireflies doing their "dance of light" in the areas devastated by the earthquake that struck the Tohoku region last month.
During the years of Japan's postwar economic miracle, urban development and pesticides killed or drove fireflies from their habitats. Summer nights lost their primordial magic, and the old Japanese expression hotaru gari (firefly catching) became obsolete.
A movement arose eventually to undo this regrettable situation by saving fireflies from extinction. Thanks to this, those pinpoints of living light have returned to many parts of our country.
There are even annual summits of communities working to create "lands of fireflies." This year's summit took place in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture, and was attended by six municipalities.
The six municipalities reportedly agreed to aim for co-existence between "human-made light" and the natural light emitted by fireflies. Perhaps because of the fantastic nature of the fireflies' glow, our ancestors imagined that each bug represented the soul of a deceased person.
"Genji Monogatari" (The Tale of Genji) contains a volume titled "Hotaru" (Firefly). The protagonist, Hikaru Genji, catches many fireflies and releases them in the darkened room of a princess, whose profile emerges in the glow. Our Heian Period (794-1185) court culture was certainly oriented toward the pursuit of pleasurable sophistication. This stands in contrast to the spirit of an old Chinese saying about a diligent student relying on the glow of fireflies to read.
According to one theory, the word hotaru derives from the words hoshi (star) and taru (cascading) joined together. Indeed, a light show presented by a swarm of dancing fireflies above a river at night makes one imagine the Milky Way.
Perhaps these tiny fragile "stars" remind us that our planet also is an ephemeral star.
