Through the Firefly Forest: F is for Firefly...
At dusk, everything is different...
This letter is part of my Through the Firefly Forest: The Creative Journey series, where I look at the gifts and challenges of the creative life (one alphabet letter at a time). Start here, at A is for Apple Tree…
Dear You,
If you were to see a firefly in daytime then you probably wouldn’t give it a second glance. They just seem like ordinary little bugs with nothing really remarkable about them. In fact, as you journey through the Firefly Forest, they might be all around you without you even noticing them.
Then at dusk, everything is different.
Fireflies, transfigured by twilight into stars, cluster together in glades, turning them into carnival spaces. In the pitchest black of the forest, on the most moonless of nights, they dance, flicker and flash. Now they are natural fireworks, now lemony noel lights, now magic flying lamps. It takes the dark to reveal their true nature, the enchantment at the heart of their being.
Yet sadly, it does not always feel the same way for you.
Because sometimes, when night falls on the Firefly Forest, you become sorrowful and scared. The thoughts that you fend off by day creep closer to you in the gloaming, watchful wolves in the corners of your mind. And you can’t see any sign of those famous lightning bugs, you wonder where they are hiding.
It is so much worse on those nights when it’s too damp to even light a fire, when you have to walk and walk until dawn, shivering. At those times you wonder why you even started on this journey in the first place. What is it all for, exactly?
And then…
You stumble upon a clearing and there they are — a cluster of birthday candles, a dance of amber. You could almost be watching a fairy gathering or the hatching of tiny new suns.
Sometimes, you hold out an empty jar to see if any will be your lantern for the night. A few will usually oblige, lighting your way through the forest until morning.
At other times, you simply step into this circle of scared delight and rest in the centre of it all. And as your eyes grow heavy you imagine that you have been carried up into the stars, or down into the deepest sea, surrounded by strange glowing creatures.
And you wonder if you could ever be like a firefly, could serve as a lantern for others? And how could a human being do that exactly, what would it even look like?
You ponder this as you fall asleep, dreaming of strange new music, of stories that have never been told…
Love,
Deborah x
P.S. Here’s something I wrote recently about dealing with seasonal sadness and embracing the magic of Midwinter.
P.P.S. If you like these letters then why not treat me to a festive mug of hot chocolate?
P.P.P.S. I hope you had a lovely Christmas. I’m sending out my letters a little more often during this time but we’ll be back to normal in the new year…
Really enjoyed this. I felt taken in. Very suggestive, too.