A couple of weeks ago I went on a fire fly walk through the woods at our local nature center with my children. What a wonderful experience .
I didn’t know then that there are over 2,000 different kinds of lighting bugs and the way that they can tell each other apart is by their lighting patterns, by the number and length of their blinks. They do this to find another firefly to mate with.
Fireflies are soft body beetles that undergo complete metamorphosis with four distinct stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. Their life cycles can run anywhere from couple of months to two or three years.
When I was young we used to call them lighting bugs. We would run around just as it was getting dark and catch them, fascinated by their light. I love how these lightning bugs take me immediately back to my childhood. Immediately back to magic.
This year at our nature center they found a new species that glows pink. We got to see one on our walk, magic!
A swarm of lighting bugs are called a sparkle, magic!
There are places on the planet where the fireflies have synchronized flashing, magic!
Fireflies are one of the animals associated with the Orisha Goddess (my Orisha Goddess) Oya, and the Deity: Kitumu, Mother of Fireflies, magic!
As spirit animals they can remind us to pay attention to the small things in life and to let our light shine to attract those who shine like us. They can also remind us to pay attention to the stages of life, magic!
From the larva which lay in the mud or grass, to the adults that can be found in the bushes, high up in the trees, and flying all around looking for a mate we got to experience what felt like a magical fairy forest in the middle of the woods at our local nature center, magic!
Quanita
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