World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments

by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

microaggressions of families

Philippines—

largest catalpa tree in Mississippi.

walk” at the University of Mississippi,

elytra

Sheath

indigo buntings.

other blue like that of these birds, no feather more electric.

They navigate by following the...

Where the buntings remain steadfast, fireflies are more easily deceived.

Scientists can’t agree on how or why these fireflies achieve synchronicity.

fireflies don’t glow in sync all night long anymore.

When we see these beacons flashing their lights, they usually have only one or two weeks left to live.

Learning this as a child—I could often be

slowly around untrimmed lawns, stalling and not quite ready to go inside for dinner—made me melancholy, even in the face of their brilliance. I couldn’t believe some...

peacocks—India’s national bird—

This is the story of how I learned to ignore anything from India.

Outside, drifts piled higher than a toddler in Moon Boots.

light-soaked color displays.

comb jelly,

hundreds of thousands of cilia flash mini-rainbows even in the darkest polar and tropical ocean zones.

thottavadi,

plant’s leaves are touched, potassium ions are released,

elegant movement, called thigmonasty,

How I wish I could fold inward and shut down and shake off predators with one touch.

let me and my children and everyone’s children decide who touches them and who touches them not, touch them not, touch them not.

desert bird—the cactus wren—

cartoonish white “eyebrow” over their maroon eye.

The cactus wren, the largest wren in North America at a whopping seven inches long, is one of the only birds that doesn’t require standing water to drink—

gets all of its water from juicy insects and fruit.

one of those is a dummy nest, where the male waits to poke and screech at any would-be predators,

while the female incubates the eggs safely in the other.

sensory wand—

axolotl.

neotenous,

leceustic—

record fourteen new species of frog. Herpetologists first broke the news in Kerala,

Frogs are the great bioindicators of this planet—meaning the health of dancing frogs is indicative of the health of the biosphere itself.

In this liminal winter-into-spring

even wings can’t guarantee a smooth flight.

ethics of wonder raises even more questions,

World of Wonders models the practice of trying to be perpetually open

practice of trying to be perpetually open to “astonishment” and recognizes astonishment, or wonder(ing), as not only required for transformation,

to “astonishment” and recognizes astonishment, or wonder(ing), as not only required for transformation, but maybe...

but ...

also required for our...

wonder is required for transformation.

How much violence to the planet and to one another has resulted because of that lack of imagination and wonder?

lack of wonder and imagination and care can have terrible generational effects for people,

have a cloud in my pocket,”

knew the tender way they took care of their tiny eggs in their very own mouths (jawfish), knew how they used the moon and stars to figure out how to fly home (indigo buntings), knew how they pulled a blanket up to