if you’ve spent any time in New Mexico during summer, you’ve heard them before you’ve seen them. that rising, pulsing buzz that sounds like the desert itself is vibrating. that’s cicadas, absolutely screaming their existence into the world after spending literal years underground in silence.
and honestly? that’s the most relatable behavior i’ve encountered in the entire animal kingdom. spend years in the dark doing invisible work, then emerge and make sure everyone knows you’re here.
the cicada is one of my favorite cards in the southwestern oracle deck, and i think it’s because of how much it asks of you before it gives you anything back.
the underground years: patience level 1,000
southwestern cicadas (Tibicen and Neotibicen species) spend 2-5 years as nymphs underground. some eastern species take 13-17 years, but even our desert cicadas are playing the long game.
they’re down there in the dirt, attached to tree roots, slowly growing through developmental stages. no sunlight. no fanfare. just patient, invisible work in the dark, building their adult bodies piece by piece, waiting for the exact right conditions to emerge.
when the time comes — triggered by soil temperature and moisture, because cicadas are precise like that — they dig their way up, climb the nearest vertical surface, and split their exoskeleton open. what emerges is soft, pale, and vulnerable. within hours, they’ve hardened, darkened, and transformed into the jewel-toned insects we know.
then the males live for maybe 2-4 weeks. their entire adult existence is dedicated to making as much noise as possible. years of waiting, weeks of living. it’s almost philosophical.
that sound though
the signature cicada buzz is made by tymbals, ribbed membranes on their abdomen that males vibrate at incredible speed. it’s not their wings. it’s not rubbing legs together. it’s a specialized built-in sound system that can hit 100+ decibels, which is as loud as a motorcycle.
different species have different songs. in the Southwest, especially near cottonwoods and willows, you’ll hear several species creating layered soundscapes on hot summer evenings that feel like the desert is alive with something urgent.
fun fact: cicadas are so loud that males temporarily disable their own hearing organs while singing so they don’t deafen themselves. commitment to the bit. respect.
i grew up near the Bosque in Albuquerque and was obsessed with cicadas from a young age — the lifecycle felt like a secret the desert was keeping, and painting this card was my attempt to honor that.
oracle meaning: what the cicada can teach you
in southwestern oracle card readings, the cicada is the card for anyone who’s been doing the work underground. it’s all the unglamorous, invisible, patient development that nobody sees yet.
when this card shows up in a desert oracle reading, it’s saying: your emergence is coming. the time you’ve spent preparing isn’t wasted. when you finally break through, your voice will be impossible to ignore.
but it’s also a reminder that the public-facing moment is brief. the glory is temporary. what matters is whether you did the deep work when nobody was watching. did you attach yourself to something nourishing? did you grow through each stage even when it was uncomfortable?
the cicada doesn’t apologize for being loud. it doesn’t second-guess its timing. when the moment arrives, it commits completely. that’s the energy this card carries.
why this belongs in a southwestern oracle deck
this cicada watercolor is part of an oracle deck that honors the real, unglamorous, and profound wisdom of New Mexican ecosystems. no sanitized “desert aesthetic” — just the actual plants, animals, and cycles that make the Southwest what it is, painted with attention to what they actually teach us about survival, timing, and transformation.
Ready to Emerge?
if you’ve been underground doing the work, building toward something nobody can see yet, the full southwestern desert oracle deck is waiting. each card offers guidance from the New Mexican desert’s most resilient teachers — the ones who know that patience and dramatic transformation are not mutually exclusive.
Explore the Complete Spirit of the Desert Oracle Deck →
because sometimes you need permission from an insect that spent five years in the dark to finally make some noise.
