Dragonflies, Summer Solstice and Slowly growing reef

We live on a pond -- covered over by mossy patchwork, wild grass, Clover and Buttercups during the spring and summer -- of slowly moving freshwater less than two feet below. The forest that edges this pond "Ke Kuapa 'o Maxwelton Creek" is home to beautiful old Cedar, Hemlock, Fir and a wet canopied floor with pockets of bogs black and primordial to maintain the natural cycle of life and death. 

These wetlands are a perfect place for insects, especially mosquito. One of the beings who have hatched and shown themselves in growing numbers are Dragonflies.

Last night we watched a Dragonfly much like this one perch, fly and return to the tip of the bamboo pole that holds our fabric door in place.

 "Dragonflies, which eat insects as adults, are a great control on the mosquito population. A single dragonfly can eat 30 to hundreds of mosquitoes per day." - "14 Fun Facts about Dragonflies"

There's a connection I see between the arrival of Dragonflies and my experience in the early hours of the morning. It's one of those "Sam and Sally" sort of moments that leans on my literal mind and shift-shapes it to a more-than-logical place. 

"Not a single bite," Sal said to herself by the glow of the screen that fit in her palm. The stars were out, muted somewhat either because of the nearby lights that create 'security' at the neighborhood shopping center or it was the thin gauze of marine air -- that transfer of water between the Salish Sea and the Lono (atmosphere). Whatever was happening Sal noted the absence of mosquitoes biting and kept reading the article 'Forests of the Mind' . Jay Griffiths writes:

"Shape-shifting is a transgressive experience, a crossing over: something flickers inside the psyche, a restless flame in a gust of wind, endlessly transformative. The mind moves from its literal pathways to its metaphoric flights. Art is made like this, from a volatile bewitchment, of a self-forgetting and an identification with something beyond."

The big-eyed ones had gobbled up the mosquitoes during the bright sunshiny day, making room for a stretch of metaphoric flight. The self that writes straight lines looked for the cross-eyed view of life on this pond. The view that would explain why a lawn would need to be kept like a crew-cut; mowed twice a week on a riding lawn mower. 

Sally Round, of the story, sat on the wings of the mosquito eaters and wondered, "Could you make your way into the dreams of a crew-cut lawn mower man and season a change of mind so you'd have mosquitoes to eat?" 

Is THAT WHY I end up with wavy lines across my eyes, dizzying me upon waking in this place where the cutting of monocrop lawnscape is an every day practice? What I need is a way to draw ceremony and the mundane into a living mythology ... 

The Summer Solstice has come. We joined people from across Honua (the Earth) to celebrate and engage with the longest day. We were asked to prepare for the ceremony, and among the steps of preparation set our intentions to answer the question: "What desires do I want to actualize?" To participate in this Hawaii Life Ways gathering Pete and I asked our friend Jude for permission to cut one stalk of her timber bamboo to make bamboo trumpets (pu ohe). This timber bamboo is the same grove of ohe that was our nearest neighbor at Camp Bamboo. 

One of the other parts of preparation for the Ao Polohiwa a Kāne Summer Solstice Ceremony

was to wear kihei a loose garment worn over one shoulder and tied in a knot. We didn't have kihei, but we did have beautifully silk-screened fabric sent to us from our family. The footprints of our mo'opuna march across those two pieces of fabric. We modified and came up with a kihei, held in place with ... safety pins. My Ma would've loved it!

The full moon in the sign of earthy Capricorn rises tomorrow, June 24th. From our place on this pond we cannot see the fullness of Mahina, the Moon. She rises behind those tall Cedar, Fir, and Hemlock on the edge of Ke Kuapa 'o Maxwelton Creek. We are challenged to reckon with the differing priorities our human relations have compared to ours. 

I found comfort today, as I often do, in the writing found on Terri Windling's Myth & Moor. She quoted From Beauty: The Invisible Embrace by the late Irish poet and philosopher John O'Donohue:

"Our times are driven by the inestimable energies of the mechanical mind; its achievements derive from its singular focus, linear direction and force. When it dominates, the habit of gentleness dies out. We become blind: nature is rifled, politics eschews vision and becomes the obsessive servant of economics, and religion opts for the mathematics of system and forgets its mystical flame."

"Yet constant struggle leaves us tired and empty. Our struggle for reform needs to be tempered and balanced with a capacity for celebration. When we lose sight of beauty our struggle becomes tired and functional. When we expect and engage the Beautiful, a new fluency is set free within us and between us. The heart becomes rekindled and our lives brighten with unexpected courage."

Remembering that my life as artist and shape-shifter with near constant challenges and physical struggle is more like the ocean's slow, yet unending process to build reef; gratefully, I find a way to keep at it and share the process in writing in wavy lines.

Happy Full Moon in Capricorn! What intentions have you set as summer begins?