Lessons from the Dragonfly
I am impatient with me. I had hoped to be smarter as I got older. I am trying to understand new ideas, learn new skills and stay engaged during times of change. I am taking deep breaths and learning lessons from the dragonfly.
Animal truths can be both strange and enlightening. The dragonfly starts out as very ugly insect whose gills force it to live in water for one to five years. Twelve or more times it sheds its skin; each time it remains water bound. Eventually it crawls from the muddy water emerging with a long slender body and gauze-like, iridescent wings. It has a whole new life-style. No more gills. No more ugly. It flies and breathes air. I think the dragonfly is about aging with determination, grace and fortitude.
Dorothy Briggs, in Celebrate Yourself writes, how “for years at a time, the ugly bug repeatedly shuffles off the outer skin that is no longer appropriate. It then needs to pull itself out of the mud and water to new life. Unless it does, it cannot use the power within. Had it tried to cling to the old limitations, if it refused growth and change, if it had waited for someone else to free it, it would never have emerged to fulfill the promise of its birth. Unless we remove ourselves from inappropriate past programming's that keep us mud bound and waterlogged --- unless we lay claim to the creative Life Force within --- we cannot fly free."
The message for me when I think of moving and shedding old skins is rethinking thoughts, learning new truths and understanding Pluto is no longer a planet. I need to risk grabbing hold of new viewpoints and strategies. I think doing same old same old over and over ends up being same too old. I hear old tapes playing from my heavy family history backpack. Must I listen? They are not helpful and have stick in the mud qualities. I can and do say – No more. Now I can and will act differently. Each day I am looking for tulips. I am listening to my inner music and trying to hum along seeking new green shoots and easing out of tired winter drab. Each day I am practicing a new flight pattern.
Animal truths can be both strange and enlightening. The dragonfly starts out as very ugly insect whose gills force it to live in water for one to five years. Twelve or more times it sheds its skin; each time it remains water bound. Eventually it crawls from the muddy water emerging with a long slender body and gauze-like, iridescent wings. It has a whole new life-style. No more gills. No more ugly. It flies and breathes air. I think the dragonfly is about aging with determination, grace and fortitude.
Dorothy Briggs, in Celebrate Yourself writes, how “for years at a time, the ugly bug repeatedly shuffles off the outer skin that is no longer appropriate. It then needs to pull itself out of the mud and water to new life. Unless it does, it cannot use the power within. Had it tried to cling to the old limitations, if it refused growth and change, if it had waited for someone else to free it, it would never have emerged to fulfill the promise of its birth. Unless we remove ourselves from inappropriate past programming's that keep us mud bound and waterlogged --- unless we lay claim to the creative Life Force within --- we cannot fly free."
The message for me when I think of moving and shedding old skins is rethinking thoughts, learning new truths and understanding Pluto is no longer a planet. I need to risk grabbing hold of new viewpoints and strategies. I think doing same old same old over and over ends up being same too old. I hear old tapes playing from my heavy family history backpack. Must I listen? They are not helpful and have stick in the mud qualities. I can and do say – No more. Now I can and will act differently. Each day I am looking for tulips. I am listening to my inner music and trying to hum along seeking new green shoots and easing out of tired winter drab. Each day I am practicing a new flight pattern.
Labels: choices, hope, purposeful living, self determination
posted by Ada at
5:46 PM
