We exist in a world of symbols, as Aldous Huxley expressed in his essay, “The Doors of Perception.” Everything we perceive serves to construct the language with which we understand the world: a language built on associations and representations to build meaning. The cicada has existed longer than we, as human beings, have stood upright. The earliest fossils we have of the cicada are from the Jurassic period, and the oldest instances of their symbolism in cultural artifacts are from the Shang Dynasty, and from the time of Homer’s Iliad in the 12th century BCE. Often they are symbols of rejuvenation and immortality. Their distinctive song, heard in the summertimes, associates them with music, and as the personification of the poet, because it represents an insect that sings all its life until it dies.
—GSO
DREAMCICADAS 