Blog: Balancing Dragonflies

There it perches, gently swaying back and forth as I shuffle papers and focus instead on my computer monitor. Always just to the right of my monitor, my gentle dragonfly balances on the end of a pen reminding me to "keep it in balance."

My balancing dragonfly perched on my pen ever close to remind me to keep in balance

Keep what in balance? Work? My perceptions? Exercise and my health? Plans for dinner tonight? The store inventory? My family? The number of hanging baskets I’m planting this Spring?

My easy dragonfly doesn’t even have to be perfectly balanced on my finger to find its own balance. It shifts and tilts to become in balance with me. Do I do that? Shift and tilt towards or away from everyone and every situation?

Balancing my dragonfly on my finger. Time to breathe deep and relax.

Oh, but I’m a “feet-planted-firmly-on-the-ground,” get-it-done kind of person. Well, until an expected shipment doesn’t arrive when we really, really need it. Or the newsletter (or blog) I’m writing just isn’t coming together. [pause to balance my dragonfly] Or when I read a story about someone being utterly unkind, discriminatory or violent. Or when I learn of yet another breach in the care of our fragile earth. Or when a Spring cold hits me hard and I feel knocked back in energy.

Then I glance at my little dragonfly friend with its message to keep things in balance, and I reach to lift it from its perch and watch it shift and tilt and come into balance.