While going about my business this week, I flicked what I thought was one of the giant flesh-eating horse flies off of my head. Instead, I watched as a dragonfly did a swan dive off of me and landed on its back in the dirt. With any non-threatening bug or beetle, my reaction would be, “oh no! I’ve got to help!”, but with a dragonfly, that feeling goes so much deeper.
My kinship with dragonflies go back many many years. Instead of writing it out here, I am sharing a blog post from my other blog. I’m mainly doing this because there are photos and even a video on the post and they add to the story. Please take a moment to read the post here.
After that encounter, I started to interact more with dragonflies. I’ve noticed how willing they are to hang around and it thrills me to pieces. So potentially killing one that sought me out crushed me. I gingerly picked it up and, wanting to make sure it was ok, placed it on my shirt.
It stayed there for about half an hour while I carefully scooped the corral and got dinner ready for my other lovely friends. When I finally had a moment to focus, I turned my full attention on it. I did my sing-song request that I do to my cats when I want to hold them and I swear (and yes, I’m sure it was something completely unrelated but I’m the one living on this cloud), it lifted its two front legs and pushed them in and out way that was similar to a “pick me up” gesture. I put out a finger and the dragonfly climbed on. We stayed that way for a few minutes until it was ready to go. From there it flew up to the top of the barn door where I could keep an eye out. Eventually, while lost in my duties, it flew away.
I wish I had the words to encompass how the experience made me feel or to truly explain why I feel like I am so connected to these tiny creatures. Since moving to Mass, I’ve noticed more dragonflies and have had many small interactions with them, but having that dragonfly hold onto me like that was out of this world.
Minding the Minis 