Our May, 2021 service honored the Brood X periodical cicadas that are crawling to the surface in the millions all around Philadelphia. We offered praise to the wonders of the natural world, and grief for the human destruction of that world.

The slide show for our liturgy this month is here.

We listened to Aly Harper’s “Loosen Loosen Baby” from her Soundcloud page, and introduced a new (to us) Ozi as recorded by Kohenet Riv Shapiro.

For our Torah Talk we learned about unique-in-the-world wonders close to Philadelphia, and together read my own praise poem “Psalm 134: Lift Your Hands Toward the Sanctuary.”

Brood X Resources

Download the Cicada Safari app to track when and where the cicadas are being spotted. Local hotspots are expected to be Princeton NJ, French Creek PA, Easton PA, maybe Quakertown/Coopersburg PA.

Here’s an article from NPR – you can read or listen

And here’s one more solid general overview.

You can buy Elliott’s cicada poem on a card. Click to find out more.