...Hidden Dragon

Last week at my day job, I was in a part of the warehouse where the walls are lined with windows. So when I heard a sort of buzzing flutter, I turned around to see what manner of fly was trying to get out and what I could do to aid its escape. I was surprised to find a dragonfly. It wasn't the dragonfly itself that surprised me, but the fact that it was actually on the floor.

I moved forward to try to catch and escort him out the door to safety, and my movement caused him to start buzzing his wings furiously. I watched him lift about 6 inches off the floor, then watched in shock as he flipped over on his back, falling back to the ground, fluttering helplessly as he tried to right himself.

"What the --? Poor thing!" I easily caught the little guy, afraid that I would discover a missing or injured wing. Nope. He was totally intact. But, the ends of his wings were covered in thin layers of cobwebs and dust. "Poor thing!" I uttered again.

I held him in a loosely closed hand to keep him secure but unharmed, and with the other hand I gently peeled the sticky mass from each wing, whispering my good intentions to him the whole time. At first I was afraid of injuring him, but he was big enough that I was able to clean his wings without dislodging them.

Eventually he was good as new and I walked him out the back of the warehouse where I bid him good-bye and opened my hand. Upon release he took off and my heart soared with him! Booya! Then a second later it sank into my stomach as I watched him drop. Booya denied! But he fell for just a moment before buzzing up and over a wall and out of sight! Booya reinstated!

As I snuck back into the warehouse, avoiding any unwelcomed, uptight, managerial glances, I was pondering the lesson in this little ecounter. According to the Medicine Cards, Dragonfly represents illusion. The story goes that once upon a time Dragonfly was actually a dragon -- a very arrogant beast who was costantly bragging about his might and power and magick. One day Coyote, tired of this endless stream of boasts, approached Dragon and said, "You're not that powerful. I bet you can't make yourself this big..." indicating a very small span with a couple of claws. "Pfff!! As if!" laughed the dragon, and he proceeded to turn himself into a dragonfly. The thing is that, once in this smaller form, he forgot how mighty and powerful he was, falling for and trapping himself by his own illusion.

"So," I wondered. "How am I trapping myself in the illusion of smallness and powerlessness?" I looked around the warehouse -- "Hmmm!..." "And how," I thought, thinking of my little four-winged friend, "Am I allowing my wings to be covered by the muck of this world, preventing my grandiose dragon-self from flying free as I am meant to?"