Quote from Basho

I have this little quote-a-day calendar that my grandmother gave me last December and I think it would be nice to explore them. I was amazed at how their meanings changed for me when I went back and looked at them a couple of months back and I realized that it was also a part of my journey, almost like a reflection.

"Nothing in the cry of cicadas suggests they are about to die." - Basho

I've found that for this particular haiku-like quote, a lot of people respond with sadness. This is unfortunate as I see a very beautiful message behind the words. The cicadas either don't realize that their time is at hand because they are enjoying the present moment so intensely, or they've already accepted death as one with life. They return to the dust so others may come into being and perhaps this is something to celebrate--the moving forward, the circle of life and death. It's like the joyful mourning of a Louisiana funeral.

Basho, as a poet, was very inclined to walk through the wilderness to find his inspiration, soaking in that which already was. His works decry nothing different and that's what makes them so meaningful.