Wednesday, June 24, 2015

The Consciousness Series: Dragonflies


The dragonfly has inhabited Earth for 300 million years and holds a spiritual meaning amongst different cultures. For the Mayan, the dragonfly is the emblematic animal of the goddess of creativity, Ix Chel. To the Japanese, it symbolizes summer and autumn and the Samurai use it as a symbol of power, agility and victory. In China, people associate the dragonfly with prosperity, harmony and as a good luck charm. Amongst Native Americans, it is a sign of happiness, speed and purity.

The dragonfly, in almost every part of the world, also symbolizes change and change in the perspective of self realization. Some cultures believe the dragonfly’s flight across water represents an act of going beyond what’s on the surface and looking into the deeper implications and aspects of life.

A dragonfly can move at up to 38 miles an hour, hover like a helicopter, fly backwards like a hummingbird, fly straight up, down and on either side. Its swiftness and flexibility allows it to fly in all six directions, exuding a sense of power and poise.

2 comments:

  1. Another awesome piece of art. I love the explanation of dragonflies. Did you know many kids called them stingers and ran like heck from them?

    Peace <3
    Jay

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    1. Thanks Jay!!

      Yeah I read about that haha, here's some of the negative symbolism I found...

      'Beginning from calling the dragonfly, the witches’ animal, and that Satan sent it on earth to cause chaos and confusion, to calling it, Ear Cutter, Devil’s Needle, Adderbolt and worst of all, Horse Stinger, which soon spread Down Under, when the British colonized Australia. The name Horse Stinger comes from the misinformed observation that horses that were kicking and stamping around, usually had a few dragonflies hovering around them. Fact remains though, that the dragonflies could well have been helping the horse by eating some of the parasitic insects that were doing the actual ‘horse stinging’. Well, the Welsh call the dragonfly the snake’s servant and think they follow snakes and stitch up their wounds…and continuing with the misnomers, they are called eye pokers and eye snatchers in Portugal.'

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