Dragonflies and Damselflies

In 1977, the world was introduced to a long-hidden treasure that Publisher’s Weekly described as “A charmer of a book….A paean to the miracles of nature, a visual delight.”  The book, The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, was  a handsome facsimile edition of a personal diary kept by Edith Holden during the year 1906.  Carefully written by hand, the diary included Holden’s favorite poems, nature notes, and observations on the wildlife surrounding her home in the village of Olton, Warwickshire in the English Midlands she loved to roam.

Filled with delicate watercolors of birds, butterflies, bees, and flowers recorded across the seasons, the gentle Edwardian lady’s diary became so personal that she allowed no one to see it during her lifetime.  For seventy years, her private journal lay undiscovered until it was found on the shelves of an English country house. When the facsimile edition of her journal was published in 1977, it was printed on antique paper in sepia ink faithful to the original diary in every detail—down to the fingerprints on the faintly yellowed pages, with each picture reproduced just as she drew and colored it. 

A copy of The  Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady traveled west with me when Kit and I downsized our lives in the spring of 2021 and moved from Missouri to Nevada City, CA. When I opened  this remarkable book several weeks ago, time fell away, and it was July 1906 again, close and sultry. That July in search of wild Canterbury Bell that had once grown by a local stream,  Edith Holden cycled along a meadow to the banks of a little river.  In one place, she noted “the bed of the stream was covered with Water Lilies… and a beautiful Kingfisher skimmed across the water.”  There she stopped,  and with a naturalist’s eye she witnessed and illustrated a “Great Dragonfly” hovering over a “White Water Lily.”

Deep in December 2025, I find myself as Holden did 120 years ago, captured by the dazzling wonders of dragonflies and damselflies.   In many cultures, they symbolize transformation, change, new beginnings, the journey from one life stage to another.  Seeing a dragonfly can be a reminder to embrace change, live in the present moment, and look beyond the surface to find deeper meaning. 

A dear friend’s older sister was a dancer.  For her, the dragonfly became a muse.  Recently, my friend shared the mantra that inspired his sister’s life—

Dragonfly

Ancient, flitting spirit,
Master of light and precision,
Dragonfly, I call on you.

Teach me to dance in the disappearing mists of dawn.
Show me the beauty in each day by marrying thought and emotion.
Help me see through the illusions that bind me
And understand those that enliven my soul.

Help me remember that light penetrates as well as paints.
That colors deepen as time flows past,
That controlled flight is, indeed, possible.

Please, weave the light of transformation and adaptation in my life.
Dragonfly, I call on you.

In my meditation garden beneath a Thai spirit house, a copper damselfly sculpted by my artist friend Alice dances lithe as a fairy from one season to the next. Her copper curls and wings whose color has deepened over time remind me daily to be mindful of the light that enlivens my soul. Hovering in place these cold December mornings, the copper damselfly inspires me to rise up and down on my toes while holding on to the kitchen counter as squirrels leap from feeder to feeder outside the kitchen window.

When Sierra Foothills Audubon Society hosted a talk by professional wildlife biologist Sandra von Arb at the Nevada County Library recently, I asked three of my neighbors if they would like to go.  Not surprisingly, all had an interest in dragonflies and were eager to learn more about the habitats they require and their roles within our local ecosystem. For my neighbor Carol, there was an added connection to a framed photograph of a dragonfly that had been given to her husband Jim years ago.  Before we four drove to the talk that night, Carol walked over and shared it with me.

The detailed scientific talk at the library that moonlit night taught me about the anatomy and life cycle of dragonflies from their early nymph stage living in ponds to their migratory period of adulthood.  But it was the single image the color of Persian turquoise, recorded forever in the photograph Carol shared with me earlier that day, that left me bedazzled. From checking the website bugguide.net, I learned that she was in fact a damselfly, Marsh Bluet Enallagma. And to my delight, this bejeweled ancient flitting spirit, this master of light and precision, was identified as “a vivid dancer.”  I think Edith Holden, the Edwardian country lady, would have agreed.