Today, Owl Singer and I attended a dragonfly symposium. Insect lover, I am not. But I have defintely moved beyond the girlish squeals from when I was ten and acted terrified of worms because all the other girls were screaming when our fourth grade teacher was teaching us about….worms. Or soil. Or gardening. Something like that.

Dragonflies are not loathsome or bothersome to me. In fact, I am pleased to admit that most insects really don’t bother me except the translucent spider-crickets that like to hang out in my bathroom. Specifically the shower. Those I still hate because they are creepy and hop toward me and not away from me and they really do remind me of a creepy spider mutation and I am still not fond of spiders no matter how much I know that they are not trying to kill me.

I actually love dragonflies. First, they have the word “dragon” in their names and that automatically makes them cool. Second, various species have incredibly vibrant color patterns on them. Which makes them a heck of a lot better than the black widow spiders that I don’t try to kill anymore. And then there are those wings. Those clear wings with the webworked, cell like structures that look like gossamer stained glass windows. Or nebulas stretched across a tapestry frame.

I see in dragonflies the elements of the universe. A being with almost 30,000 (yes, that is the correct number) eyes that can see in almost 360 degrees. A being that can skim the world and live under water for most of its life until it rises from the surface and becomes part of the terrestrial world. I saw pictures today of a dragonfly carving its way out of its nymph casing. The long thin body uncurling from its fetal position. The wings tiny scales that, over the course of thirty minutes, strenched and filled with fluid and became the beginnings of its avian (wrong word…just work with me) future.

As I keep reading that first sentence in the above paragraph, I guess I was thinking about the incredible resilience and possibility that exists within these insects. That they can live within and outside of so many different habitats. That their entire body and system is a perfect amalgem of physics and biological mechanics. I learned today how a dragonfly’s wings will flutter/buzz/move in isolation of each other and can be shifted into different angles to allow the dragonfly to achieve different forms of flight.

Today was about stepping outside my comfort zone and existing inside the time of dragonflies. How they will zip across the surface of the water for a moment before alighting on a grass stem or tree trunk and sit within the sunlight. One moment, they are literally flying at speeds that can go up to 30 miles per hour (yes, I am telling the truth) to just stopping. Settling.

At least one species of dragonfly is the cruiser. It just cruises just above the water’s surface, angling in and out of sunbeams. Its wings shimmer in their rapid movement, in the way sunlight bounces off them. Today, I could see them easily against the quarry’s hard, gray stone sides, the rock cliff edges. The dragonflies were soft, pliable life, skimming the air, consuming the sunlight.

Then there were the damselflies. Their eyes are spread apart instead of helmeted like the dragonfly. Owl Singer joked that I was a variable dancer damselfly. But when our nature guide caught a male version of that species, I was delighted when she settled him on my palm before releasing his wings. I felt nothing as his hair-thin six legs touched my skin. But he was there. In the sunlight, his ten-sectioned long abdomen with its powdery blue segments were there. On my skin. And then he was gone, returning to the cluster of leaves that he enjoyed lazing on while the cruisers drifted over the quarry water’s surface.

Today, I sensed the passage of time in a new way. Moving along gravel paths, standing in the shade of a honey locust tree with its four-inch spikes, or watching tree swallows arch through the air to catch insects for their young. Time was immemorial. Just there. Not a presence. Not a thing to be reckoned with. Just a sense of existence, much like my Apple watch that ran out of power halfway through lunch.