My Wide-Open Cathedral

I've never been a churchgoer; formal religious services have always been a bit foreign and uncomfortable. But I like to think that I participate in communion with all the universe, that I contemplate the holy and the sublime works of Creation or Nature, every time I go for a walk.

Maybe not every time. Sometimes I'm on a mission: get some exercise, capture a photo of the Dickcissels right after they return in the late spring, or visit the latest flowers just coming into bloom. But often I have no mission in mind, and am free to let me eyes and my mind wander where they may. Here, in these small, unscripted moments are when I find peace.

A recent walk with the intention to photograph birds was scrapped when I noticed a very small grayish scrap on a leaf, like a dried petal. But as I passed it glinted a metallic silver and I stopped for a closer look, noticing the softly fringed ends of the wings, and the antennae with white tips and thick, coppery bases. I didn't know its name* or its lifestyle, but passed a pleasant few moments admiring its tiny--less than two centimeters--form. 

Birds forgotten, I spent the next hour or so slowly walking from one clump of foliage to the next, looking for other small insects or oddities. Often I'd hunker down to inspect a speck on a leaf, find it was just a piece of dirt or leaf, and continue examining the fine hairs or the pattern on the leaf, then the neighboring plant, a spider skittering through the grass below. 

Not too far away was another tiny moth, this one smaller but broader, dark-winged with a pair of nested crescents spanning its wings across the back. As I watched, it flared its wings and circled one direction, then the other, as if performing a dance for an unseen partner. Or perhaps menacing me to keep my distance? 

The wandering mind might ponder the connectedness of these moths to the world around them: what plants do they feed on? What other insects do they interact with? Where did they evolve, how many relatives do they have? Or it might simply appreciate the spectacle of this single, formerly unknown entity, encountered once and never again. It might look at the variegation on a clover leaf and consider its function, or simply admire the pattern as a small fragment of beauty. The touch of the downy hairs along the edge of a young leaf, or the scent of the flowering trees wafting on a breeze. 

It's a calming escape, to slow down and look--really look--at the natural world without letting work or home thoughts intrude, without judgment about the usefulness or harmfulness of the being you're visiting. 

Many more small insects were visited: a treehopper, several odd-looking larvae, a colorful weevil, a shiny rounded beetle. I could have spent hours more peering into the greenery of my wide-open cathedral, looking for everything and nothing, simply being alive with the other living things in the vicinity. 

* Later, BugGuide helped ID the glittery moth as a Coleophora moth, a non-native that feeds on clovers (also non-native). The wider dancing moth was suggested as part of the genus Grapholita; a brief snippet of a similar dance to that I witnessed, captured by someone else, can be seen here.