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"Soldiers
of the
Apocalypse" |
"Make Thyselves Many"
The series “Brood Year” has evolved from my exploration of the ancient and
universal links between insects and mankind, the cycles of life, and my own
progression.
Periodical cicadas spend most of their lives underground as nymphs, feeding on
tree roots until the “brood year” for their
particular species arrives. One early spring morning in the brood year, these
insects emerge en masse, shed their primitive skins, and congregate in the
treetops by the thousands. Their mating call produces a wave of sound that
drowns out everything in the vicinity. The cicadas mate, lay eggs, and die
within six weeks, and the next thirteen-year cycle begins.
I grew up in middle Tennessee, where the so-called “thirteen-year locusts”
suddenly appeared during the summer of my own thirteenth year. As they roared in
the trees above the playground, I realized that I would not experience this
phenomenon again until I was twenty-six. I began to count off the years of my
life in thirteen-year increments, and I suddenly felt very old. The memory stuck
with me. In later years, I learned more about the life cycle of the periodical
cicada, and I began to think of each successive brood year as a passing
generation. I also learned that because this insect apparently rises again out
of the earth, the cicada is, in some ancient cultures, a symbol of rebirth and
resurrection.
True locusts play a darker role in human history. Throughout the Bible, locusts,
grasshoppers, and other insects appear frequently as agents of plague or
devastation. Sometimes they serve as a point of comparison to describe ravaging
hordes of invaders. In the Book of Revelation, locusts are instrumental in
facilitating the End Times.
As modern development has destroyed natural habitats and limited the numbers of
various species, including the cicada, I find myself considering both the
passing generations of all beings within the earth, and the ways in which
ancient plagues revisit our civilization.
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