The beginning of August feels like a bit of a crossroads: that point at which summer feels suddenly on the wane, when thoughts turn, unbidden, to a return to school and to the coming of winter.
In much of the country, this will be the hottest month of the year, but for us here in this place, it is the coolest month of the season, punctuated by cloudbursts and flash flooding and wide swings in temperature of thirty or forty degrees in a twenty-four-hour period, of twenty degrees in a matter of minutes when the sky opens.
I find myself a bit melancholy this year, oddly so for someone happiest by far in fall and winter. It seems as though the warmth is slipping away far faster than usual, not so much fleeing, perhaps, as being pushed out by the inexorable forward march of climate change. We found ourselves talking this morning of what winter would bring; our sense is that it will be early and hard, but if one thing climate change has taught us, it’s that we can no longer plan according to the experience of our formerly usual seasonal patterns. It leaves us with a sense of unease, of casting about for a handhold, a foothold, in the present downward slope of summer, one that will give us purchase, balance, for the weeks and months to come.
At times like this, it’s useful simply to stop, look around, take in the world around us with all of our senses. Wings has spent the last week in our second round of irrigation, and its now complete success, coupled with the rains, may forestall the need for a third. If so, one major and multi-stage task of summer is now fully behind us, although haying looms just around the corner.
The irrigation has brought everything more fully to life: hay and grass tall and straight, trees alive, gardens flourishing. He found an enormous (in both senses of the word) wild strawberry a few days ago, one almost three inches long, perfectly red, tartly sweet. The wildflowers are fully in bloom; even the sunflowers have begun to greet their namesake a full month early. And wingéd ones of all sizes and shapes have joined us here, some temporarily, others on a more permanent basis: the red-tails and the marsh hawk; a pair of kestrels, a visitor we have not had in a half-dozen years, the male arriving, quite literally, on the rainbow itself; a return of the hummingbirds in full-throated buzz; butterflies, including our endangered monarchs, back for breeding season; and seemingly the entire Dragonfly Clan, from tiny cousins of less than inch to giant four-inch creatures in silver and brown and white and red and blue, skimming the surface of the overflowing pond, darting among the wildflowers and blossoms on the garden plants, occasionally simply sunning themselves on the flagstones.
Dragonfly is a welcome visitor, and one whose presence here has increased notably in recent years. That’s unusual, since most areas are reporting their numbers down, similar to the numbers of their cousins the butterflies and hummingbirds. Their abundance here this year feels like a special blessing, a message from the spirits that this is recognized as a safe harbor for such creatures.
They are, of course, water spirits: beings that spend the earliest days of life in and beneath the water, first in egg form, then, upon hatching, as naiads. It is a process of birth and growth that binds their spirits inextricably to the waters, and also to the plants that grow and thrive within their depths. As adults, they may appear as spirits of the air, but their identities are bound up with multiple elemental forces.
For creatures of such flashing brilliance and intensity of color, they add to the light within the water even as it and the sun turn their wings into sparkling silver gems. From clear depths sown with brilliant green blades of grass to more brown and brackish pools, they add light and color and vibrancy, life itself, turning an ordinary pond into a silvery jewel-studded sheet.
For a part of the world where water is life, in the most real of real terms, such beings hold the hope and promise of fertility, of abundance, of more than mere existence, of thriving. It’s only natural that Dragonfly’s image should put in appearances the year round, upon pottery, in sculpture, as jeweled adornment.
They are also, of course, messengers, according to the old ways: Their unique abilities in flight make them the perfect emissaries between this mortal plane and the world of the spirits, between oblivious and recalcitrant humans and the older, wiser, more powerful beings who sometimes need to command our attention and deliver a message.
The dragonfly is not bound by the usual laws of physics insofar as they apply to most forms of flight; it is are capable of far more than forward movement, including no movement at all, when need be. It can move in any of six directions in the space of a wing’s beat: forward, backward, left, right, up down. For peoples whose traditions recognize Six Sacred Directions as do some here in this broader region, it’s understandable how such beings would come to be seen as Spirit’s own emissaries. More, they can hover in place, a talent needed if one is to deliver a message (and perhaps await a response). Eagle carries our prayers to Spirit but does so in forward-only flight, on wings of astonishing size and power and with the ability to dive and strike without warning, an intimidating force and presence. Dragonfly is less imposing, less likely to cause alarm, although no less powerful in its own particular way.
But what message? I have found myself asking that as they dart past, joining me in walking the land, stopping to hover as we eat lunch outside beneath the aspens.
Perhaps it’s to be found in their other symbolism. When dragonflies mate, they do so in a manner and form that produces, from their conjoined bodies, the shape of an inverted heart. It’s purely practical, an evolutionary development that permits them to reproduce while holding safely to the stalk of a plant or a blade of grass. Still, there’s no mistaking the imagery that our human eyes see immediately — an image that no doubt played a role in their other ancient association, with romantic love.
Romantic love is, of course, a driving force in our human world, one that we seem to seek unendingly and that some of us are fortunate enough to find. It’s a gift, a blessing, one for which I am grateful every moment of every day.
But there are other kinds of love. We tend to forget that the blessings we enjoy — the dragonflies themselves, the waters, beauty, life — all of the gifts of Spirit are likewise expressions of love for us, flawed and fragile creatures that we humans are. And that is, perhaps, the message these emissaries bring on this August day: We are given much in the small things, the ordinary things, the things of our daily lives. Rather than waste a moment in melancholy, in regret that they will soon exchange their presence for the things of the cold season, today is the time for living fully in these small and significant expressions of love.
~ Aji
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