Transient Beauty

Sometimes, the surprise and beauty in nature is so extreme, so outrageous

 that it can shift our mood in an instant. 

The sight may lift our spirits. 

It might leave us feeling humbled and in awe. 

Perhaps it helps to re-connect us with some elemental and universal energy.

These small creatures, moths in the night, did all of this for me. 

Imperial female moth laying eggs

Rosy Maple Moth -- much smaller than the others

Known as Regal Moth or Royal Walnut Moth

Luna Moth

Perfect Art Nouveau !

Known as Giant Leopard Moth or Eyed Tiger Moth

I took these photos (with the rather crummy small digital camera that I've owned for years) up in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina while I was at a Writing Course at the Wildacres Retreat in July.  

These moths seemed to appear instantly, miraculously, like a magician's trick. I'd walked down the corridor  (sans moths)  to my room to write a page and get a glass of wine, and on the way back there they were ---a whole showcase of different and breathtakingly beautiful creatures clinging to interior and exterior walls and positioned close to lights.  (I assume the "magician" was ideal conditions: the right time of year, the perfect hour in the night, the lure of light, the correct humidity....) 

 It was live music that was drawing me outside -- North Carolina mountains and music, the perfect match.  I wonder indulgently if the vibrations of the music were also a draw for the moths, a romantic serenade.  For the moths were there to mate.  Not much else they do as adults -- mate and die.  Most of these moths have no mouths -- they cannot even eat!  Their eating is done earlier, when they are caterpillars.  In this adult form they last just a few days, just long enough to produce eggs.  Just long enough to knock us out with their beauty.

Does the transience of this extravagant beauty, its ephemeral nature, somehow ratchet up 

the way it catches in our throats and stays with us?

PS Someone who had grown up in these mountains said that, as a child, the exterior bark walls of his family's house would be almost covered with moths on a summer evening -- making a living wall paper of color and beauty.  He said sadly it was no longer true.  He had not seen so many moths, so many different species together in a long, long time.

Pure magic!