“Anything you cannot relinquish when it has outlived its usefulness possesses you, and in this materialistic age a great many of us are possessed by our possessions.”
Peace Pilgrim
I must admit I am possessed by possessions. Not all of them but some. It’s sad at how much stuff I’ve acquired over the years are things I really did not need. Wanted is probably a more appropriate word and still is. However, in recent years I’ve made changes to eliminate possessions that have outlived their usefulness or were never really useful. I have a ways to go before I can say I’m free. It’s a work in progress.
“What if everything you have been taught is all a lie and everything you feel is all a truth?”
Nikki Rowe
There was a time in my youth when the things I was taught did not seem to fit with my feelings. That feeling came from somewhere within, a place I was not that familiar with, yet. Later I came to know it as intuition, a gut feeling, voice of my authentic self, the ground of my very being or whatever we choose to call it. I am now aware that when I was younger I was not taught the whole truth in school and church while expected to believe what I was taught. A controlling society does that whether it be a parent, a church, a government or an educational system.
I’m learning the importance of listening and trusting my intuition. There needs to be a connection between what I think, what I’m told to be truth and what my intuition tells me. With so much access to information it is vital for me to listen to the voice within. Connecting these together has given me much better results in knowing my truth, making decisions while not living to someone else’s truth.
I enjoyed this particular morning with predawn pink clouds over Dixon Reservoir. Then while driving to Reservoir Ridge Natural Area a nice buck bounced across the road and up the hill, with such grace. Wild turkeys grazed nearby, with one watchful eye on me. My peeps were everywhere; squirrels, robins, meadowlarks, and now baristas.
“What will it take for us to change so that other species like the greater sage grouse, the grizzly, the wolf, and the wolverine can live and thrive in peace? What will it take for us to honor what they need, instead of what we want?”
“We will recover our sense of wonder and our sense of the sacred only if we appreciate the universe beyond ourselves as a revelatory experience of that numinous presence whence all things come into being. Indeed, the universe is the primary sacred reality. We become sacred by our participation in this more sublime dimension of the world about us.”
Thomas Berry
Dragonflies hang around my ponds this time of the year. I really don’t know them that well but planning to change that. I do not have many images because they are such an elusive creature who needs patience to photograph. As I watched them over the weekend, I decided to set up my tripod and wait. I quickly began to sweat while standing in the 96 degree sun but I was determined. They skim and dart across the water with vigor at 22–34 mph.
The twelve-spotted skimmer, which I think this is, has twelve dark brown wing spots, three on each wing. Males have eight additional spots that are white. Dragonflies are predatory insects. The hunting behavior of adult dragonflies is called “hawking.” Their legs are held in a basket shape during flight, which is perfect for grasping mosquitoes and other small flying insects. Many Native American tribes consider dragonflies to be medicine animals that had special powers. For example, the southwestern tribes, including the Pueblo, Hopi, and Zuni, associated dragonflies with transformation. So today I watched and learned a lot about dragonflies. From now on I will look at them with different eyes, more respect and appreciation. I fell in love with this sacred creature, who I now know is my mosquito eating neighbor.
