I have a fondness for a certain animal. It runs deeper than fondness and I dare say spiritual – but not a spirit animal because I want to honor the sacred traditions of Native Americans. When I have needed this creature the most, they show up and delight me.
My animal is an insect. An ancient insect that will go on living long after we are gone. No, not a cockroach. Not an ant. It has style. It has speed. It is the dragonfly.
My connection with this winged beast started when I was a child. My parents would take us to a lake in Wisconsin in the summer. The first time one landed on me I was scared. But I was told by my parents that it was nothing to worry about. “You have to worry about horse flies. They will bite you,” they said. But dragonflies just use you as a perch and then move on. Sometimes two would be attached making the shape of a heart. There is nothing more intimate than two creatures making love on your arm. They feast on other insects, have sex and then they die. Not a bad life.
I have rescued dragonflies from spider webs. Pulling them from the sticky web, sometimes there was no hope for them because their wings were so gooed up with silken web. But they would walk on my finger and spend time with me. So gentle and so pretty. Looking at their wings up close they almost resembled stained-glass windows – lead separating each pane in an intricate pattern. Their bodies were smooth and all different colors – blue, green, yellow, red. Their eyes were sensors – seeing so much all at once. In college I made a musical instrument inspired by dragonflies in an industrial design class.
As a kid, I would say that if you rescued a dragonfly from a spider’s web it was good luck and I still believe that. I have been touched by this luck. Sometimes it comes in the form of a warning.
In 2010, I was in Grant Park in Chicago for Blues Fest. My girlfriend and I had met up with some of her friends. We were walking around the fest grounds on a summer day and the subject of Playboy Magazine came up. I confessed that a friend had given me some that I kept in my dresser drawer. My girlfriend was livid, jealous, raging. She would not let it go and was steaming. In my mind, it was not a big deal, but to her it was. It got very awkward in front of her friends and I was very embarrassed. Then out of the blue, something flew in between my glasses and my eye. It flapped around, hitting my eye and eye lashes with it’s wings. I thought it was a small bird and I screamed. I took my glasses off and it was gone. My girlfriend was laughing at me sending me deeper into shame. It was a large dragonfly. Years later after we had broken up, I took it as a sign that I should not have been with that girlfriend. That dragonfly was saying get the F out.
Dragonflies have also picked me up when I was down. It was the recession. I had been laid off from my job, broke up with said girlfriend, been fired from my improv team and was walking dogs for a living. I had hit rock bottom. My dog walking job was in Evanston and I would drive up Lake Shore Drive to get to work. One day on my way home, a park at an elbow in the road that overlooked Lake Michigan sort of called to me. I turned left and I parked my car. I walked to the lake. There, thousands of dragonflies were dancing in the sky. They were flying all around me like electric atoms buzzing around a nucleus. I sighed and then smiled because I knew everything was going to be alright. My friend, a gentle earth mother, said it was a good sign.
I saw the same spectacle in 2017 when my relationship at the time was ending. It was a confusing time because the future was unknown. Again, I was alone on the lake front and it seemed to be just for me, looking up in amazement. A swarm of dragonflies put on their own Air and Water Show at Belmont Harbor – loops and stunts. It was a thrill.
And now tonight in Colorado. I’m in the heart of a pandemic. I’ve been depressed. Ups and downs. Some ups: I DJed a morning music dance party with camp friends. I Facetimed an old pal and his son and a military jet flew overhead. I connected with an old mentor and we did a free write together. I got out of the house and had some retail therapy. I bought a larger pot and some dirt to repot my snake plant. I bought some pants that fit and some new shoes. And I picked up some spices for a dish I wanted to make on Sunday. All that said, I feel profoundly lonely, living by myself and not doing too much.
This evening I sat down on the deck and looked up and saw the show again. Dragonflies, seemingly the size of sparrows, flying in every direction getting their dinner. Some flew in straight lines, some went up and down, some cut corners almost like a square, one did so many loop-de-loops in a tiny radius that my jaw dropped open. “Whoa!” It was more impressive than that military jet from earlier in the day. The sun went down in a hazy pink and the dragonflies vanished just as quietly as they came. I felt happy. My mood brightened. My heart knew that the dragonfly was in Colorado when it was swamp land, when it was ocean and it is still here today because it survives. It adapts. The oceans were replaced with mountains and yet dragonflies are still here. They are millions of years old.
As I look into what it means to have the dragonfly as a totem it seems that they represent transformation and adaptability. When they appear, it’s a way of bringing more joy and lightness to your life.
So, if you see one in a web, help it out. You never know when your luck will be repaid.