Firefly Twilight
On a soft June evening, just as the sun dips below the western horizon, here in the Mid-Atlantic area of the US … if you’re very lucky … you may see magic. The wind must be calm, the day will have to have been clear and warm, the frogs in the ponds must be singing their best songs … if all these conditions are met … the world will light up.
A tiny light will begin to twinkle from the grasses at your feet. Gently by ones and twos, then more and more, you’ll soon see hundreds of firefly lights. Slowly, almost in a cloud, they will rise up and up into the trees where they will dance and sparkle and glow all evening, as if some of the stars in the heavens have dropped down to earth to play.
Memories of watching the lightning bugs are very dear. Some of my best. As a small child, I remember sitting around a camp fire in the vast lawns of my grandmother’s farm, probably half asleep on my mother’s lap. The voices of the grown-ups droning on as they discussed the way the world was going … some of it in English, some not. The sight of the fireflies, off in the distance, across the field and against the woods beyond, was magical!!! As drowsy as I was, I probably wondered if I was dreaming or awake.
Do you have any stories about them?
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Image painted by hand, digitally, and very loosely influenced by one of my own photos captured at Blue Knob Mountain in Claysburg, PA … using Corel Painter, a Wacom tablet and stylus and the popular Bob Ross brushes. As always, a click into the pic takes you to my website where the image can be seen with better resolution. And as always, watermarks don’t appear on purchased products.
I mostly remember fireflies from times spent in Japan where they are called “hotaru.” Amazing creatures. Still don’t understand bioluminescence. Strange trivia: there’s a very old Japanese song, a contrafactum, called Hotaru no Hikari which uses the exact music from Auld Lang Syne but substitutes Japanese words about students struggling to study by the light from fireflies.
So cool!!! So they are in Japan? That’s absolutely fascinating!! You know, I never realized they weren’t everywhere until just recently. They’ve been a part of my life, all my life. I actually meant to post this image a couple of weeks ago … their prime time here is about the third week of June, though they’re still out there now. Beautiful things!!!!
Yup, they are all over. Beloved in Japan, they have been considered symbols of hope, summer nostalgia and way back in the day, the spirits of samurai who died in battle. Tons of literary works, poems and art about them.