Prompt 286. Junk Bugs & Resurrection Ferns

The artist Rhonda Willers and yours truly on learning from nature

Photo by Celeste Sloman for Tricycle Magazine

Hi friend,

This last week, I’ve been on a work trip so jam-packed that it feels like a high-speed hamster wheel. I gave two talks in California, then flew to Georgia to see my husband Jon, who’s been on tour for the last month. After that I traveled to Tampa, Florida, to speak to a group of hospice volunteers. That’s where I am as I write this missive, but soon enough, I’ll be heading to Los Angeles to attend the Oscars with my beloved—who is both nominated and performing this year, I’m excited to say!

But even just recounting my itinerary here is making me dizzy. Of course, I’m enjoying the immense privilege of being out and about in the world, doing the work I love, meeting extraordinary people along the way. And yet it’s also a real physical challenge for me, and I feel like there’s not enough time or energy to get everything done. There are deadlines approaching, an email inbox in need of tending, and friendships I feel like I’m neglecting. In moments like these, both my mind and my body move into a heightened state of urgency.

I was supposed to have a rest day on Tuesday—a morning with no meetings and a massage in the afternoon. I was so anxious about all the lingering to-dos that I considered canceling the massage and instead hunkering down in my hotel room to work. I didn’t though—but only because I had just given a talk to some graduate students at Stanford about the difference between having a full schedule and living a fulfilling life. I spoke about how we live in a society that is obsessed with hustle and productivity, but how when we’re in that mode, each moment becomes a stepping stone to whatever comes next, rather than its own exquisite gem. It dawned on me that despite having spent all last week developing that talk, and having delivered it with complete conviction, I was at risk of doing the exact thing I was cautioning against.

So I decided to practice what I preached, and I chose rest. I went for a walk along the bay, stopping to look at lizards and to smell flowers and to admire the Spanish moss dripping from the trees, along with these desiccated resurrection ferns. Do you know about these plants? They can survive long periods of drought by curling their fronds up into dried little husks—and by “long,” I mean it’s estimated they can survive 100 years this way. Then when the rains return, they unfurl into their full, vibrant greenery. It felt like a lesson from nature: When you have the opportunity to nourish yourself, take it.

Desiccated ferns (by yours truly); resurrected (by Pam Susemiehl via Getty Images)

Sometimes, when I’m on the hamster wheel, it feels like I can’t afford to stop—because the effort to will myself back on seems even more daunting—but more often than not, stopping and resting is the most efficient and productive thing you can do. This is something I know, something I have learned before, yet it’s hard to remember—just like it’s hard for me to remember that busyness does not equal fulfillment.

Not long ago, I returned to Lucy Grealy’s memoir Autobiography of a Face, in preparation for writing an introduction for the thirtieth-anniversary edition. “I used to think truth was eternal, that once I knew, once I saw, it would be with me forever, a constant by which everything else could be measured,” she writes. “I know now that this isn’t so, that most truths are inherently unretainable, that we have to work hard all our lives to remember the most basic things.”

Fortunately, nature can remind us of these truths, maybe in the form of resurrection fern, or maybe a strange little insect called a junk bug, which is the subject of today’s essay and prompt by the artist and educator Rhonda Willers. Some of you may be familiar with Rhonda from December’s meeting of the Hatch, our virtual creative hour, where she shared her grounding, heart-expanding pinch pot practice. Here’s hoping her poignant insights will help you let go of whatever is not yours to carry.

Sending love,

Suleika

Some items of note—

• Need a mood boost? Each Friday in our Isolation Journals Chat we share a small joy that we want to hold onto. This week (likely to no one’s surprise), I debuted a sweet little bean of a foster pup named Lentil. To meet my tiny but also enormous joy and to add yours to the chorus, click here!

• Mark your calendar! We’ve scheduled our next meeting of the Hatch, our virtual creative hour for paid subscribers, on Sunday, March 17th from 1-2 pm ET. Holly Huitt will be hosting this time—I hope you can join us!

• If you missed our workshop on Joy, Sorrow, and Creative Alchemy with Susan Cain, don’t worry—there’s a video replay available in our archive! Did you know there are others too? Like our Letters from Love workshop with Elizabeth Gilbert and our Studio Visits series, where I interviewed sixteen brilliant artists about their creative lives. It’s truly a trove of wisdom. I hope you’ll take a look!

Junk Bug and Lacewing by Rhonda Willers

Prompt 286. The Junk Bug by Rhonda Willers

Recently I learned about a fascinating insect called a junk bug that carries a gnarly heap on its back as it moves about the world. At first glance this heap looks like a dustball the size of a pencil eraser, but it’s actually a stack of empty carcasses of its eaten prey. After devouring aphids, mealy bugs, and mites, the junk bug piles their ghostly forms on its back and carries them around for protection and camouflage from the predators of their world.

Later, the junk bug cocoons and transforms into a lime-green, fairy-winged, dancing lacewing, which is drawn to the warm glow of a summer porchlight. Through this change, lacewings become the opposite of their dusty former selves who dwelled on the ground, the ghostly skeletons traded for shimmering oversized wings, their new iridescent golden eyes drawing them near to light and their nourishing food sources.

I can’t help but see this as a symbol, something we humans could learn from. A couple of years ago, I began an active practice of identifying what I am carrying that isn’t mine to carry. I started with my fear of heights. Throughout my childhood, my mother was terrified of them. While on family camping trips to densely wooded state parks, my sisters, dad, and I would climb high viewing towers, the promise of a river valley vista or expansive view of rolling hills drawing us up above the treetops. My mom stayed below, her arms tightly wrapped around herself. We could always hear her calling, “Don’t get too close to the edge, it makes my knees hurt.”  

As I cocooned and questioned, I recognized that feeling of fear in my legs when I’m at a height, just like my mother had felt. But as I interrogated it more—as I pulled off the flimsy skeletons of my past experiences—I learned two things: My desire to be physically high is greater than the feeling of fear in my body, and I’m not actually afraid of heights. My body only wants me to be cautious as I explore. The sensation of fear is a reminder not to stop, but instead to be aware, to slow down, to notice more. 

Some of the removal of those lifeless skeletons and fluffy junk has been passive, happening subconsciously. But through this active practice of noticing, I get to acknowledge the things I am leaving behind or have left behind. To recognize and honor the metamorphosis. 

In this lifetime, I am working to be free and liberated from carrying things that are not mine to carry. I want to intentionally carry things that nourish me, that allow me to contribute to the collective in ways that help others expand and heal, and that help me expand and heal. I want to carry things that lift us up, that make us light.

Your prompt for the week:

Using your metaphorical golden eyes, ask yourself: Whose junk are you carrying? What do you want to get off your back so that you can fly toward the light, towards things that lift you? If you could unload the junk, what might await you beneath the soft glow of the porch light?

If you’d like, you can post your response to today’s prompt in the comments section, in our Facebook group, or on Instagram by tagging @theisolationjournals. As a reminder, we love seeing your work inspired by the Isolation Journals, but to preserve this as a community space, we request no promotion of outside projects.

Today’s Contributor—

Rhonda Willers is a visual artist, educator, writer, researcher, mother, and author of the book Terra Sigillata: Contemporary Techniques (The American Ceramics Society, 2019). Her diverse art practice includes ceramics, mixed media, drawing, painting, and time-based installations. The host of the podcast The Artist in Me Is Dead and President of the Board of Directors for the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA), she lives and works in rural Elk Mound, Wisconsin, with her husband, three children, and cats. Learn more at rhondawillers.com.

For more paid subscriber benefits, see—

• On Hoarding, Grief, & Asking for What You Need, an installment of my advice column, Dear Susu, where I answer a question from a reader whose husband’s hoarding has reached its “ultimate expression” and who is desperate for change

• Touching the Truth, an excerpt of my Studio Visit with the brilliant

  Nadia Bolz-Weber
  , where we talked about prayers of desperation, sunlight as a disinfectant for shame, and the true meaning of “apocalypse”

• Eleven Minutes, a recap of the most grounding, uplifting, heart-bursting gathering of the Hatch, where Rhonda Willers shared her pinch-pot practice and led us in an eleven-minute gratitude meditation

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