Dragonflies in the Summer

This amazing crop circle appeared in England a couple of weeks ago.

The circles this season seem to be quite different than in past years. This dragonfly (as well as the jellyfish which appeared around the same time) and other recent circles have amazing details that I've not seen in previous circles. Notice the wings of the dragonfly. While the wings are symmetrical and geometric, the lines within the wings are delicately different. So are the tentacles of the jellyfish.

And the body from this "tadpole", (for lack of a better descriptor).

And then there's this circle image of an egg being sought after by 8 sperm (again, my own label).

Now check out this latest circle: while swallows have been the design for other beautiful circles, this newest one is unique with what looks like code floating behind the swallow! I wonder what secrets those glyphs hold? And why are they associated with the swallow/bird? It looks like a kite taking flight. Bewildering and exquisitely mysterious!

For more crop circle info, check out Crop Circle Connector and/or Temporary Temples.

Summer is not my favorite time of the year. Heat and I are not good friends (and hormonal shifts don't help that relationship, either!). Andrew and I moved to the NC mountains from Charleston, SC, because we wanted to live in these green mountains as well as where there were four seasons. In Charleston, there were only 2 seasons: hot and hotter!

Even this recent crop circle seems to recognize the hot weather with a fan designed with crescents! Or maybe it's referring to our upcoming 3 summer eclipses.

A few years ago, I decided to create an altered book depicting the things I love about summer: the ripeness, the abundance of scents and flowers, the birds and the bees. An "altered book" is a book on one topic that you alter the pages/cover/etc. to make it about another topic. I found a wonderful book on the sun at a thrift store entitled The Fire of Life, published by the Smithsonian and re-titled it "Summer Solstice". Some of the pages I left alone because they were about the summer solstice (astronomy, legends and myths about the sun, etc.). Other pages, I altered by covering with decorative papers, rubber stamp impressions, photos, postcards, calendar art, etc. I even took multi-page articles from magazines (such as on the Monarch butterfly from an old National Geographic) and made them into booklets so that I included books within the books. It was a labor of love, and made the heat more tolerable.

Dragonflies played a role in that book, and they hold special images for me that associate them with summertime and warm weather. I remember as a young girl going with my mom once a month on a Saturday morning to the cemetary where her mother was buried. While she trimmed around the gravestone (and I'm sure "talked" with her beloved mother), I walked, skipped, and ran along the sidewalks criss-crossing the large, open land, reading the grave markers and stopping at the statues overlooking the grassy blanket of ground. I remember always seeing dragonflies hovering and flying around a large statue of an open bible. They were so beautiful and irridescent in the richest colors imaginable! They could hover, zip forward, glisten in the sun, and dart wherever they wanted... they were magical. Nature gifted the dragonfly with very special paint colors!

As an adult, I remember being led by dragonflies down a country road in Tennessee. Andrew and I were looking for mountain land to buy to retire to; this was outside of Nashville and dragonflies literally led us down the road to the entrance to the property. While we didn't buy that property, it was a procession to remember!

A few years ago, I was swimming in a nearby small, man-made lake. Dragonflies and damselflies of all colors were darting just above the surface of the water. After my swim, I sat on the dock and spent some quiet time looking into the water just below. There were fish languidly suspended below the water while dragonflies were flitting above the water; and then there was my reflection on the water's surface. It was appropriate that my reflection was between the languid, relaxed and the active, darting images.

In Native American medicine, Dragonfly symbolizes "Illusion". According to "Medicine Cards" by Jamie Sams and David Carson, "some legends say that Dragonfly was once Dragon, and that Dragon had scales like Dragonfly's wings." Can you imagine how beautiful Dragons must have been?

Also, "Dragonfly is the essence of the winds of change and the illusory facade we accept as physical reality.... messages of wisdom and enlightenment, and connection with the elemental world and nature.... If you feel the need for change, call on Dragonfly to guide you through the mists of illusion to the pathway of transformation."

I've been talking with a lot of different folks about the need for change and flexibility in these times. Yesterday, I heard some shocking statistics: worldwide, extreme poverty means that a family lives on less than $2 per day; moderate poverty means that a family lives on $3 per day. In the US, poverty levels are those where a family lives on $40 per day. Also, in underdeveloped countries, a person uses 20 liters of water per day on average. In the US, each person uses 600 liters of water per day! Indeed, these are times for change and for breaking through the illusion that we haveunlimited natural resources as well as the entitlement to use them all up! Dragonfly seems to be a suitable symbol for the changes we all need to make, and the illusions we all need to release.

One more dragonfly story: on Monday of this week, my son Allen was driving us somewhere and a dragonfly bounced into our car windshield and slid down into the windshield wipers. Allen asked if he should turn on the wipers to help set it free. I said I thought that might injure it more. So we pulled into a parking lot and Allen got out and gently helped untangle the dragonfly from the wiper. We were thinking it was already injured, so Allen had intended to place the dragonfly on the ground in the shade of a bush. But as Allen lifted the dragonfly from its entrapment, it lifted up out of his hands, hovered a bit, then flew off. The look of wonder and joy on Allen's face was a beautiful sight. I'm so thankful for dragonflies!

I hope today brings you positive change full of beauty.

Peace,

Kate