Here’s the thing about dragonflies for me: I’ve had a few really magical and meaningful moments that incorporated dragonfly presence.
One was when I was in Maui with my family. My mom and I were laying on a sacred Hawaiian beach and this whole flurry of dragonflies came off the ocean and hovered over her and me. There seemed to be hundreds of them. My mom laughed and said, “Oh my goodness, Tamara, I don’t know what’s coming your way, but it’s going to be good!”
Well, it was good. I met my husband less than a year later.
The second time may have been the summer of the same year. It was right around the recession.
I was at the peak of my 9-year career of being in the car business. I had a great client base that I loved. A beautiful corner office with windows and glass doors. And finally, weekends off. I owned a home in Jackson Hole that I had bought by myself and a beautiful car. But I wasn’t happy. I was a landlord for a home I had to work too many long hours to own. The HOA was hell. A fiancée that was disloyal. And a job that equated my life.
One Friday afternoon, I sat in my lovely corner office and I noticed a dragonfly trapped inside the office with me.
Anyone who knows me, knows I go to great lengths to save animals. So I turned off all the lights. Opened all the doors and windows. Set up ladders and tried to guide the dragonfly out to freedom. But he wouldn’t go.
I sat in the dark office observing the dragonfly stuck up in a tiny window unable to find its way out.
All the possibilities to freedom, but trapped.
I thought to myself, “That’s me. I’m stuck in a tiny window with no perspective to find my way out. All the potential and I’m beating my head against the glass. The whole world is out there, but here I am.”
I left that Friday unable to get the dragonfly out. When I came to work on Monday the dragonfly lay dead by the door. I picked up the dragonfly and I turned in my two week notice—that day!
It was the best feeling in the world. And I still have that dragonfly who now adorns my art studio.
I walked away from everything that was holding me down and holding me back from what I wanted in my life. It was me that had settled and it was me who had to choose something different.
I had to sweep my whole physical, spiritual, and metaphoric house clean and start over. It was the scariest and also the most liberating experience of my life.
And that’s the thing about life, sometimes it’s just a dragonfly and sometimes it’s the message we’re ready to see and hear.
So this dragonfly series is my homage for not taking life for granted. Not settling.
Believing in dreams no matter how scary the flight. Being true to make whatever changes have to be made to be a spiritually full person. And not forgetting to enjoy the beauty, joy, and rapture of this fleeting life.
It is my hope, for every dragonfly to bless the home and heart of everyone that is moved by them. And the courage to follow your own truth and let your heart and soul take plight.
Thank you for being apart of the dance!
~tamara