The Moth’s Religion

Moths are obsessed with sacrifice. The purpose of a moth, as every young moth is taught, is to sacrifice itself to the Goddess. But like every religion, the sacrificial beliefs of a moth are fraught with error and superstition. The particularly cynical moths will tell their naïve cousins that the Goddess is just a cold, hard, ball of stone, and that even if the Goddess loved you, she’s thousands of miles away, through an endless expanse of dark uncaring nothingness. But always, one small, bedraggled moth with tattered wings and wide, wondering eyes, will tell the others that this isn’t true – I’ve seen the Goddess. I touched her with my wings, and she was as warm and bright as love itself. But she didn’t take me – she spared me, so that I could tell you this very thing…

And so the moths continue on their path into doomed love and burning fate, hurling themselves with reckless abandon into the face of the Goddess, frying themselves alive in the fires of false idols. Never pity the smoldering corpse of a hapless moth – for the last seconds of its life, it flew through warmth and radiant light, and thought itself in heaven. When humans tell tales of a near death experience, of the light at the end of the tunnel, their feeling of perfect love and acceptance, perhaps they are merely recalling their earlier, simpler existence. The embracing warmth and loving arms of that light at the end of the tunnel – is it truly God, or just a naked bulb, swinging from a cord in some unremarkable ceiling? Humans could argue this point for eternity, but the moth doesn’t mind. Moths have died in their millions, since humans brought artificial light into the world, but to a moth, this is merely heaven multiplied. No longer do they find themselves lost and doubting in the dark – in every room of every dwelling, the pale face of the Goddess shines down upon them. A moth can find divine beauty in the lowliest of places, and this Goddess, their false electric idol, she will accept their humble sacrifice, taking them beyond, in a blinding burst of heavenly light.

Just as there are in the human race, there are the cynical moths, who perch eternally on walls, scowling in defiance as they ignore the myriad faces of divinity, and there are the worshipful moths, who find their God in all they see. To these moths, the Goddess is everywhere – in the night sky, shining down from the ceiling, even gleaming in the pale skin of a tired human, lounging in the glow of his monitor.

So if a moth is circling your face, fluttering determinedly back and forth, don’t be annoyed. It thinks you’re the most beautiful creature in the universe. It thinks you are the reason for its very existence, and if you let it live to fly away, it will tell every moth it ever meets the tale of how it met the Goddess, and how, though it offered itself to her, the kindly Goddess let it live.