There she is again, on my back door: the praying mantis.

For the past two summers she’s come to rest there, staying for days. She’s fascinating to watch; prehistoric, almost, and wise.

I observe her in quiet admiration, and it’s easy to do because she is so still. Even when I look away, leave the house, run an errand, cook dinner, I can count on her to still be there when I return. She’s so still I wonder if she’s dead. But she’s not.

She has things to teach me. Look at her, not moving. Waiting, patiently, for whatever will happen to happen. This, despite the fact that the praying mantis only lives about a year. I think about what I would do if I had one year to live. I wouldn’t be standing in my dining room staring at a praying mantis. I’d be high in the sky on a hot-air balloon ride or getting a tattoo, cuddling with my family on the couch or drinking expensive wine with good friends. But despite being on borrowed time, the praying mantis is not in a rush.

Her green and brown body provides the perfect camouflage for hiding in wait among the plants; she’s out of place on my back door but it makes her all the more beautiful. With her belly pressed against the clear glass, I can examine her with the curiosity of a child. The splay of her back legs; the segments of her belly’s underside; the spiky fringe on her front legs; her eyes, which may or may not be squinting but look like they are. They make her appear wiser, and I’m certain she’s sizing me up. I feel unmasked.

She stays long enough the first time—days— that I wonder what it means. Maybe not everything is a symbol, some secret whisper from the Universe, or maybe everything is; or, at least, maybe this is. Her presence—so slow, steady, patient—it makes me want to know if what she’s waiting for has something to do with me.

I know how crazy that sounds and still, I Google “symbolism of the praying mantis,” and here is what I find: Balance. Stillness. Patience. Creativity. Intuition. Yes, she has lessons to teach.

Reliance on intuition, patience with life when it feels slow, the art of stillness, the ability to balance—these are all things I have spent the past year consciously trying to cultivate. I’ve learned almost as much spending the past few days watching an insect.

Another thing I learn: the praying mantis doesn’t make a move until she’s 1,000% sure it’s right. I have been guilty of this too often in my life, and not in a wise, ancient insect way. In a stuck, stifled, confused way. I have been guilty of the opposite, too—acting too fast. In an ignoring-my-inner-voice way. But maybe the mantis is here to show me that waiting doesn’t have to mean stuck, that fast doesn’t mean good. That stillness and patience can lead to certainty if you just let go, let go, let go. That the world, which will tell you to go, go, go, might not be something you need to keep up with.

In the past few months I have come to realize how critically I judge my days. What did I accomplish? Nothing; the day is a waste. Lots of items crossed off the to-do list; the day was a win. I don’t know how I came to think that way, but I do know that if that’s how I measure my days, then that also becomes the measure of my life, and I do not want to measure my life in loads of laundry, phone calls made, emails sent, errands completed. I have found myself rushing through good books just so I can be done and onto the next. I have found myself saying, “I’ll play later” to my kids who are growing fast, fast, fast.

She’s quiet, yes. Still, yes. What I didn’t know from looking at her is that she’s also remarkably fierce. The mantis rips the head off of anyone who tries to mess with her or her children. So maybe the message isn’t just that stillness is good. Maybe she’s here to reinforce what I’ve always believed, or at least hoped to be true: that there is power and strength and a certain ferocity in the quiet.

On the third day, she lifts her front legs, and it’s true, she does look like she’s praying. She stays like that, a delicate and masterful balance. Tears prick at my eyes. Oh it’s silly, I know; she’s an insect, and she’s a little eerie in a way, but I’ve been staring at her for three days and I can’t stop finding new beauty in her, and so many lessons. Just like that, with that simple movement of her legs, I no longer think it’s crazy to believe that a praying mantis on my sliding glass door could be trying to tell me something.

Maybe everything is a whisper from the Universe. Or, at least, this is.

I have the feeling that if she really were praying, her prayers wouldn’t take the form of requests or desperate pleas, like mine so often have. They’d be simple thank you’s for life, all of it, just as it is.