On Moths and Magic.

It seems to me that something happens to the quality of the twilight air as the summer solstice approaches. Something hangs in it; something subtle, enigmatic and beguiling. It’s like a scent without a smell. It’s one of those things that you sense without employing the usual intermediary of the sensory faculties. It’s somehow palpable even though you can’t feel it on your skin, and so it frustrates as well as beguiles.

I think it’s probably the closest any of us get to magic, and I daresay a lot of us miss it altogether. It wouldn’t, for example, sit well with beefburgers and side salad prepared al fresco. No magic at barbies, I’m afraid. Barbies are anathema to magic and therefore greatly to be scorned, at least around the summer solstice. And it needs quietness to reveal itself, so the hum can be recognised though the ears hear nothing.

And what of the moths which dance and flit and pirouette through the slowly deepening dusk, supping the nectar and replacing the buzz of busy bees with their silent, ethereal delicacy. Is it they who bring the magic, do you suppose? Is it they we have to thank?