I rescued a firefly this morning, giving her a lift outside from the bathroom floor. What would Summer be without fireflies? To my dismay, climate change may yield an answer.
So few fireflies have lit the night thus far. Summer Solstice is normally peak firefly time.
But what is normal these days amid climate change? What Earth changes are in motion and irreversible?
I’ve noticed fewer birds flitting through the forest and across the meadow this year. Only one hummingbird passed through so far when past years would have them here in plenty. Some of their sweet flowers are late. Will the tiny birds return when monarda and cardinal flowers bloom?
No swallowtail butterflies yet brighten the day. They’re late . . . I hope just late. Yet, some insects are on schedule in mass numbers:
The susurration of cicadas fills the air.
Cicada song whirls around me, surround sound that is so immersive I float on it, ride its waves. Like a friend shaking a rattle around my aura, breaking up the gunk, combing it, fluffing it. Blessed be Brood X! As good as any trance drumming. Soon they’ll disappear for seventeen years. I’ll miss them.
Last year we saw more monarch butterflies than the prior year. And yet common milkweed, their host plant, is suffering some disease that causes them to wilt before developing their fluffy seeds. Ash trees have succumbed to the invasive borer just as hemlocks succumbed to the woolly adelgid years back. Invading lantern flies are killing berry bushes and fruit trees. Last year they swarmed the red maple and black walnut trees, and I fear their wounds will prove mortal.
I sing to the trees, to the mycorrhizal network that sustains all: may the forest thrive!
The forest is my kin, and I mourn the dying and the dead.
Of course there are blessings. Of course Nature is regenerative and will rebalance in time. The native plants my partner fosters through the woods and wetlands thrive: swamp milkweed, hepatica, blood root, Solomon’s seal, so much diversity. As the Earth warms, our nonhuman kin will adjust. Yet we will lose species. Mass extinction is here. Humans will be forced to adjust. More will become climate refugees, and humans will migrate to survive.
How will you protect Nature and the wild?
How will you raise your voice to take action NOW on climate change?
Among the things to proclaim:
- divest from fossil fuels and halt subsidies to oil, gas, coal, and fossil infrastructure
- invest in renewable energy and incentivize switch to wind and solar and to electric vehicles
- give back Native/Indigenous/First Nations lands and honor treaties
- subsidize and invest in green energy, sustainable food production, pollution/toxin mitigation in marginalized communities and the global South
- protect forests and wild lands from harm
- support community gardens and local farms
- divest from and halt subsidies for factory farming and unsustainable farm practices
- dream a regenerative future and create stories about what is possible to change hearts and minds
- Climate change intersects all our work for social and economic justice
There are so many more ways to act on climate change. Be creative, and remember that narrative, stories, anecdotes influence much more than facts and charts. View my workshop about this: Storying a Regenerative Future (scroll to December 23, 2020), influenced by the workshop I offered with Starhawk. I recommend to you her Earth Activist Training.
Take action in the name of fireflies and all your beloveds!
Fruitful Solstice to all: Summer to my Northern hemisphere friends and Winter to those in the Southern hemi.