DRAGONFLY

Illusion

ENERGY:  Dragonflies are ancient and incredibly adaptable – 180 million years old. Inhabiting two realms, water and air, their medicine is light = color = illusion (the shifting of energy into changing form). Their colors are created almost the same way rainbows form.  Their shells scatter and reflect and diffract light.  The expression of the emotional and the mental together brings the winds of change, the messages of wisdom, enlightenment, and the communications of the elemental world.  Dragonfly’s medicine is used to gain a new perspective breaking down false beliefs that restrict actions and ideas.  This energy guides us through the vapors to the pathway of transformation.  Things are not always what they seem.

ART:  My dragonfly gourd rattle is painted in Navajo sandpainting style.  Sandpainting is an altar and an expression of the Navajo religion.  I used the dragonfly symbol from the sandpaintings, “The Buffalo-who-never-dies” and “The Home of the Buffalo People.” Here the dragonfly symbolizes pure water and overlaps the outline of colors of the black center and the four circles representing water, foam, pollen and the rainbow.  I chose to paint the feathers of the rattle colors that symbolize Big Blue Hawk, Yellow Tailed Hawk, Black Eagle and White Eagle. The gourd is feathered and beaded with shells.  The gripper is stained and painted wood.