Seeing a dragonfly
Seeing a dragonfly means watching a hunter that flies to where its prey will be, not where it is, a lesson in looking a little ahead. Some Americans once feared it for its supposed power to sew up a person's mouth.
What it may mean
A dragonfly does not chase. When it spots a gnat, it calculates where the gnat will be and flies to intercept it there, adjusting its course in a fraction of a second. In lab studies dragonflies caught their prey in about nine tries out of ten, a success rate most predators can only envy. When one passes over the yard, you might ask whether you are aiming at where things are or where they are heading: a child who is growing up faster than your rules, a job market that is shifting, a friendship that has moved on a little. Steering a bit ahead of the present is a skill. Folklore in the United States was far less admiring and credited the dragonfly with some frightening talents.
Depending on how you saw it
Patrolling the same stretch of yard
Male dragonflies often fly the same short route over and over, turning at the same bush or fence post. They are guarding a territory, checking it again and again. Which corners of your life get your regular rounds, and which have you not walked past in months?
Perched on the tip of a stake
Many dragonflies choose the highest point around, a reed, an antenna or a garden stake, and return to it after every flight. From there they see everything coming. Where is your own lookout, the place or habit that lets you see your week clearly before it starts?
A cloud of dragonflies in late summer
In late summer, dozens or even hundreds of dragonflies sometimes fill the air over a field or parking lot, feeding on a hatch of small insects, and some kinds join long southward migrations. A crowd forms where the food is. What has drawn you and the people around you to the same place lately?
One resting on your hand or shoulder
A dragonfly sometimes treats a still person as one more perch. It stays only as long as you do not move, then lifts off to hunt again. Can you be that kind of steady place for someone this week, without needing them to stay?
Why it happens in nature
Dragonflies are among the most skilled fliers of all insects. Each of their four wings can move on its own, so they can hover, turn sharply and even fly backward, and their huge eyes see in almost every direction. They eat other flying insects, including mosquitoes, and do not sting or bite people in any harmful way.
What folk beliefs say
United States
In some parts of the United States, dragonflies were greatly feared for their supposed power to sew up a person's ears, eyes, nostrils and mouth.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 624. View the page
United States
The 1903 collection also reports a common American belief that killing a dragonfly would be followed by a death in the family.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 624. View the page
To reflect on
Where are you still aiming at where things were, instead of where they are going?