Last Sunday I had an amazing communion with a dragonfly. I was tending my garden beds while my wizard husband tended the yard. Suddenly, a large dragonfly appeared in the air front of me. I snapped to attention because I had not observed dragonflies in my garden till now. I was immediately excited and dropped everything to watch it. It hovered for a moment and entranced me with its huge size — bigger than a hummingbird, and dazzled me with its iridescence body and giant translucent bi-wings before flying off in a geometric zig-zag  pattern. It landed on my raspberry bush where it perched itself on a spikey vine. There it took a posture of masterful Zen stillness.

Its thorax was vibrant spring green and its segmented abdomen was resplendent with rich nuanced brown and mauve coloration. If you look closely, you can see an intriguing pattern that resembles a third eye within a triangle above its giant wrap-around goggle-like eyes. Wow! What a creature! Like a magnificent Faery God gracing my garden.

I wondered if I had time to get my camera and if it would permit  me to snap a photo. It did for several takes! Then not wanting to disturb it too much, I went inside, but I couldn’t stand not knowing what it was doing. During the span of nearly an hour I ran outside three times to see if it was still there. At one point while I watched in awe, it finally moved. It lifted its left forward leg and started making sweeping motions around the plant. I thought it might eat the ants that were well within its reach, but it did not. It just continued circling its leg in a strange dragonfly dance that reminded me of a priest genuflecting a mysterious ritual or a monk practicing some kind of Tai Chi. So bizarre. The last time I checked on its bad-assed self, it allowed me to watch it depart the stem and fly away. I was overjoyed to observe this.

The next day, while walking into my job at the oil refinery, not quite awake and waiting for the coffee to kick in, I spotted another dragonfly on the walkway. It was also in a posture of great stillness, apparently sunning itself on the open pavement. I could not believe it and grabbed my phone. Again, this particular dragonfly had no problem with me snapping photos of it.

This one was brownish rather than green, and had wings so translucent they were almost invisible. But this one also displayed a flaring appendage on either side of its body that looked like leaves fanned out in  an aerodynamic camouflage skirt. I had never seen a dragonfly like this before. I gave it a gentle poke to be sure it was alive because I didn’t want it to be squashed by someone walking by who didn’t notice it. It was indeed alive and flew right off.

The day after that I was again at my refinery job sitting at my desk that faces a window exposing a lifeless view of another construction trailer. I looked up. I’ll be damned if there wasn’t a dragonfly hovering outside my window looking straight at me. It paused for several seconds, zig-zagged, came back, hovered again while seeming to observe me, and then darted off. Again, wow!

I experienced communion with dragonflies three times in three days. In a holographic reality, which is the witchy way I understand the worldview that informed my witchy European ancestors who learned to establish and maintain masterful relations with the plants, insects, animals, fungi, weather, and spirits of the land that sustained them, I see this kind of communion as evidence of an ultimately relational, multi-dimensional world. We can communicate with other life-forms with whom we share the planet because we are ultimately related in all times and all geographies.

Insects have traditionally been associated with the Faery realm because of their intimate and fundamental relationships with plant realms. Knowledge of this relationship and our human ability to participate within it in a limited way has been the subject of our rich ancestral stories, myths, rites, and art.

Characteristic of communions with the Faery realm that have been historically cited, and definitely experienced by me in my spiritual practices, are synchronities that occur in triplicate. Also characteristic are the states of be-wonderment and pure joy these communions invoke. I experienced all that and more. I was thrilled from these encounters. Truly I was blessed to experience a deep Faery communion.

Blessings and gratitudes for the sacred life-cycles that sustain our precious lives.