The Cicadas Are Singing the Sun to Sleep

My wife Becca and I were sitting outside recently, watching the sun set. Normally we’re walking and talking. But that night we were just sitting. Present with it. Not doing anything at all.

Just before it dipped below the horizon, the cicadas came on. Not after it set. Before. Becca said, “The cicadas are singing the sun to sleep.” She’d noticed it before. I hadn’t.

That line opened a conversation about how the sun connects everything. Not in a vague way. In a way that got specific fast. You can’t have shade without the sun. You can’t have the tree without the sun. Nothing works without it. We kept pulling the thread until I had this vision of the sun as a lattice, a web connecting all of existence.

And it scared me. Because if you’re connected to everything, you’re connected to all the suffering too. You can’t unsee it.

Then we landed on something that might be the most important part. Humans are the one species that figured out how to live without the sun. Artificial light. Night shifts. Screens. The cicadas know when to sing. We’ve engineered our way out of that relationship entirely.

Days later, I read an essay my friend Jonathan had sent me weeks earlier. “The Tune of Things” by Christian Wiman in Harper’s Magazine. It explores consciousness, the split between mind and matter that started with Descartes, and quantum experiments suggesting that the relationship between things is more real than the things themselves. It landed right where Becca’s observation had already cracked something open.

The full piece explores what all of this has to do with the children’s books Becca and I are working on, and why rewriting your story might be more than just a hopeful idea.

Read the full piece on Substack.

Learn more about the adventure at www.heart-strong.org.