Sunday, January 08, 2006

The Miraculous Dragon Fly

In 1995 we were on a family summer vacation, on Stonington Deer Island off the coast of Maine. I rise before the rest of the family most days. I seek the quest time to ponder or wander or do meditation.

It had rained all night but it was a bright sunny morning. I decided to climb the the hill across the street and look out at the ocean. It was one large chunk of rock and I scrambled up using hands and feet. When I got to the top, I could look out at the sea which sparkled before me. But looking behind me, the large hill of solid rock had a dip in the center that collected rain water. And in the water there was a collection of small water lilly flowers, frogs, and an array of dragon flies of varying neon colorsd (blue, green, majenta, purple).

It was a hidden japanese garden with pines in two directions, the ocen in another, and our cottege in the other. I sat down and did some meditation and then in a calm state, watched the dragonflies for an hour. Every morning for the rest of the vacation I got up and repeated this ritual before going on to enjoy the day with the family.

In 2001 as the towers came down, I was on retreat in the mountains of Santa Cruz. Totally not knowing what was going on in the rest of the world I spent each day doing meditation in a brambly field, down by a small pond. Sitting under a sapling on a rock, I would do meditation. During periods of rest inbetween sessions, I would observe the fish, and the lizards. My attention was mostly occupied by the hundreds of dragonflies as they dipped to the water and danced to avoid the fish. They mated in the air, zoomed jaggedly, a multi-colored frenzy of bio-helicopters. Day after day for three weeks, I watched this miniature world of flight and color birth and death, mating and being eaten, fighting over mates, being plucked from the air by birds.

Now wherever I go, hiking, kayaking, I look for water and dragon flies who magically delight me.