Child-Mind and the Pond

“Child-mind doesn’t question itself, stop to adjust clothes, worry about rules or approval. Child-mind dives in, breathes in the mystery, tastes all of it, the wonder and the intrigue. Child-mind moves without moving. It swims with the pollywog, rides the dasher’s wings, freezes invisible with the frog. Child-mind becomes everything that is.”
--morning pages, 5-10-08, Vickie HendersonWhen I first came to the pond, I couldn’t find the frogs. I asked someone, a wise someone, “are there any frogs in your pond?” He answered, ”yes, there’s lots of them. But they’re hard to see. Just be still in one spot and pretty soon you’ll see them.” And I did. Their camouflage is so flawless they are invisible and they're expert at using it--at being still. It was like looking at a hologram and seeing something wholly different emerge. And this was the day I also met the blue dasher. And through my camera lens I began to notice the different ways he holds his wings.It was by accident that I discovered the one female I saw. I wandered to another area of the pond to see what was happening over there and to find some shade. “Ah! What is this? Two salamanders mating underwater. How intimate. And whose this? A beautiful red dragon fly. What is she doing? Wow--laying her eggs.” I watched her, she was never still. She hovered close to the water's surface, touching it with the tip of her abdomen, depositing her eggs. Dipping up and down, touching the water, making the water ripple in rings. And sometimes when she hovered above the water, I could see the tiny eggs still falling.
Female blue dasher
In this photo you can actually see eggs falling, just above and below the saw-tooth edge of the leaf.

By chance I also saw her mate. He was perched on a long blade of grass, watching, standing guard. That a dragonfly has this kind of connection with his mate, with procreation, amazed me. How incredible, all of it. That these tiny creatures are busy in their pond community, creating life, living the delicate balance. That I could share this intimate moment and join them. That our lives could go by in their busy way and we could miss all of it.