Elemental Magic of Dragonflies

by Marshall Fletcher

Or, why I’m obsessed with dragonflies at the moment.

A couple weeks ago I saw a video explaining the life cycle of dragonflies. It surprised me and delighted me so much that I have been thinking of these creatures and holding them in my heart near constantly since. But that’s not where my love affair with them began.

I’ve been a casual admirer of the dragonfly for years because I’m lucky to live near a park where, every summer, there seem to be hundreds. I like them because they’re alien-esque, and because they stay so still I think they’re dead then they suddenly take flight, and because they’re vibrantly colored with high contrast wings.

At The School of Healing Arts, we would often be guided through meditation, and near the end asked to “let a word, or a feeling, come to you.” More than once, what came to me was a dragonfly. Sometimes what comes to you in meditation doesn’t make a ton of sense. Sometimes it makes perfect sense. The dragonfly for me fell somewhere in the middle. I just liked them. Liking something, enjoying something, is spiritually relevant. I didn’t give it a lot of thought.

But here’s what I learned about their life cycle that filled me with wonder. Dragonflies lay their eggs in water or on a plant near water. The eggs hatch, and a nymph (not a dragonfly) is born. The nymph spends the first part of its life in water. In tarot, water represents our emotions, love, passion, the heart. We find it in the suit of cups and other watery cards like The Hanged One and The Moon. You may have heard that “e-motions” are Energy in Motion. Water, like emotion, flows. So our nymph, our young dragonfly, is a creature of the water. In a tarot reading, I’d say a nymph exists on the emotional plane.

The nymph molts while living in the water. And then one day, propelled by instinct, it comes out of the water for the first time, molts a final time, and is a dragonfly. Once its wings are dry, it’s an excellent flier. The best flyer in the bug world, my youtube rabbit hole let me know. They have inspired science fiction like in Dune and Star Wars. They have an excellent success rate for hunting thanks to their 360 degree vision and ability to control each of their 4 wings separately.

In tarot, the suit of swords represents the element of air and signifies the mental realm. In the swords suit, the power of the mind is on display. From clarity in the ace, to meditation in the 2, all the way to pain and ruin in the 10. We find air in The Fool card as well– the first card in the major arcana, card 0. It represents all possibility, and often heralds a shock of some kind. Thoughts are fast. You’ve probably noticed that. Air, in its dryness, can set us on high alert. In our human lives, this is for better or worse. In the dragonflies life, mostly for better. There are some cool videos of dragonflies easily dodging frogs trying to make a meal of them.

The separation of nymph and dragonfly is stark and relatively quick compared to the butterfly. There is no cocoon stage. It’s water one day, and air the next. All at once, I am blown away by this and I relate to it.

The dragonflies elemental story symbolizes that an immersive emotional experience can result in wisdom.

Or in nymph/dragonfly terms, you can go from being a swimmer to a flyer without much thought, planning, or worry. You’ll know when it’s time, and you’ll just do it… and you’ll be great at it.