Rifts, cracks, and fissures are necessary: they are what allow surprises to creep their way into mundane life. Miracles are, after all, little more than things once unseen, declaring themselves to us. Because the human brain filters data, and because fissures, cracks, and rifts (of an existential sort) are filtered out of mainstream human perception, we are always amazed when things appear before us: things that have, by quirk or by reason, been drawn from the very fissures our brains ignore. This is how I once conceived of miracles, and it is still an important part of how I perceive art. This is something, rather well illustrated by—not surprisingly—the fortuitous conjunction of an insect, a human, and a camera. I don’t know what type of insect this is. It resembles a number of different species. It is common—at least among those I know—to call such creatures by a common, catch-all name. Leafhoppers. They are, I suspect, something wholly different. There is something magicicadian in their common shape, in the configuration of their eyes, and in their Zen-master ballet dancer movements. There is something in their indifference to all things human that recalls that implacable magicicadian calm, expressed every summer. Though I know otherwise, I find it rather fun to conceptualize insects as the avatars of particular ideals, mythologies, and inspirations. An insect seen in the wrong way inspires nightmares, after all, and so seeing insects as they are should (most surely) inspire something equally intriguing and ultimately, beneficial. This little magicicadian thing…is most definitely the embodiment of that, and of once-hidden inspiration. A miracle. It emerges from a shallow rift. As you can imagine, both insect and rift are commonly ignored by those who pass it. (The rift in question is little more than a natural crack in the bark of an urban tree. The insect—no matter the breed—is to many, nothing more than a bug.) For me, this is something different. It is Nature working in collaboration with thoughts I’ve held for a long time. More importantly, however, it is Nature doing what Nature does best. Claiming something…re-contextualizing it and dropping surprises here and there. Though this is an image taken at a bus stop, there are no references to public transportation anywhere in (or near) this image. It is—in its most natural sense—a shift…a change…and by extension of that, a miracle. There will come a time, I suspect, when bus stops no longer exist. There will come a time when all of our urban contrivances crumble and fall. Even insects, like humans, may vanish, but in recognizing that, I see something in an unseen crevice. I see the adamant persistence of life itself, and something new simply waiting to make its way out when its day on the stage dawns in the east with the rising of a strange, future sun…. I find myself wondering what this new life-thing will be, and if it will move with silent, magicicadian grace…or in a manner more brash and showy. I won’t be around to see that, but I can imagine it, especially with the help of diminutive, green insects. * As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a great week.