grasshopper nymph
TEACHINGS OF A GRASSHOPPER NYMPH

Here during the early rainy season the landscape explodes with lush greenness. Innumerable hatching immature insects feed on the herbage, and in turn birds with hungry nestlings feed on the immature insects, one of which is pictured above, found on a weed by the door of the rock hut I live in.

That's a grasshopper nymph. The term "nymph" as used here refers to the immature stage of an insect species undergoing incomplete metamorphosis. Instead of the egg >>> larva >>> pupa >>> adult stages of complete metamorphosis -- of butterflies for instance -- the incomplete metamorphosis of grasshoppers consists of egg >>> nymph >>> adult stages. As nymphs grow in size, their wings and sexual parts develop, but otherwise they display the same basic structure as the adults.

When I first saw our nymph I reflected on how knowledge about complete and incomplete metamorphosis made seeing the little fellow more interesting and meaningful. Then it became even more interesting and meaningful when I realized that the nymph's black, yellow and reddish colors were the same used by coral snakes and many other dangerous species to warn predators to stay away. But the nymph wasn't dangerous at all. His warning was all bluff.

And, that wasn't all. For, from a distance the little nymph's shape, colors and patterning caused him to look like a jumping spider. If you draw back from the screen and de-focus your eyes, maybe you'll see it. The nymph's front is patterned like a jumping spider's rear end, lighter on top and dark along the sides. The nymph's broad rear end, from a distance, can be mistaken for the spider's front body section, the cephalothorax. The black knees of the nymph's hind legs are held together in a way that, from afar, might appear to be the spider's black face with its eight shiny eyes.

And so, to survive in this world of hungry bird nestlings, our little nymph was piling deception upon deception. Realizing this, I recalled that today neuroscientists and philosophers often tell us that our bicameral human brains also pile deception upon deception when the brain's two hemispheres invent plausible stories about ourselves and the world around us. This enables us to function in a Universe that really can't be understood or explained at all. In this way, the little nymph and I are in the same boat, both of us being clueless, ephemeral expressions of the inexplicable, utterly mysterious and impersonal Universe.

At this point, the nymph's egg >>> nymph >>> adult and the Universe's matter >>> life>>>mentality>>>feelings equations merging in my mind brought forth this insight:

That, all this elegance of color, form, and environmental texture in which the little nymph and I are embedded would go "unappreciated" without a receptive and informed mentality as witness -- without me there looking, thinking and feeling.

The nymph is a necessary part of a healthy planetary ecosystem. I with my mentality am here as a nerve ending for the self-examining One Thing. The nymph, the ecosystem, I and the Universe are all manifestations of the One Thing, and all us manifestations share equally in the dignity implied by exactly that fact.