A Dragonfly Tattoo

Recently, there have been several dozen dragonflies randomly circling individually in my backyard, in and around my pond. Dragonflies hunt in flight and eat a wide variety of insects, including mosquitoes. They are welcome to stop by anytime and hang out at my place.

Many years ago, I wrote a newspaper column about dragonflies, which also became a chapter in one of my books, titled 1111 HAPPY TRAILS ROAD -- included below.

A Dragonfly Tattoo

Women are a mystery -- the ones that are easy on the eyes are never easy on the nerves. They speak several languages, one of which is verbal.

I once stood in line in at Wal-Mart behind an attractive woman who had a tattoo of a dragonfly on the small of her back. I asked her if she knew the significance of the dragonfly whereupon she asked me if I knew the significance of minding my own business.

As relationships go, it was remarkably short.

Dragonflies, much like tattooed women, have their fair share of weirdness. They make themselves invisible to airborne prey by using a system called “motion camouflage.” It tricks the victim’s retina into perceiving the dragonfly as a stationary object blending into the background. Thus, the dragonfly becomes “invisible” even though it’s moving forward. Often, the pursuing dragonfly will fly away from its target rather than toward it to maintain the disguise.

I had become familiar with the dragonfly years earlier when I lived in the Arizona desert where a man who claimed to be a shaman gave me a reading using 44 Native American Indian medicine cards. He explained that as we come into the Earth Walk, there are seven directions, each aligned with a particular ability or challenge, surrounding our bodies -- East, South, West, North, Above, Below, and Within.

Then I drew seven medicine cards representing the seven directions in my Earth Walk.

·         East – Wolf. The wolf awakens the teacher within to understand the Great Mystery of life.

·         South – Armadillo. The armadillo teaches us to define our boundaries or space.

• West – Dragonfly. The dragonfly reveals the illusionary facade of physical reality.

·         North – Hummingbird. The hummingbird encourages us to enjoy the succulent nature of life.

·         Above – Bat. Bat medicine teaches that to become your future, you must die and be reborn. 

·         Below – Whale. Whale medicine people have the psychic ability to tap into the universal mind.

·         Within – Antelope. The antelope empowers us to honor the gifts sent from the Great Mystery.

The West medicine card reflects the internal solution to your present life challenges and reveals how to reach your desired goals. In my case, this is represented by the dragonfly.

According to the shaman, this world is full of nature spirits. Dragonfly medicine indicates knowledge received from the spirits of the four basic elements of air, earth, fire, and water. Dragonfly medicine is the essence of the winds of change. Messages of enlightenment and knowledge were supposedly being communicated to me, especially during the dream-time, causing a transformation where illusion was being replaced by true wisdom.

I was indeed going through a transformation at the time. The physical world seemed more like a robotic world of worker bees toiling in a giant rat race to maintain an economy that seemed more like a pyramid scheme than an intelligent way of life. Humanity was being duped into a self-perpetuating system of servitude to a formation of suffocating governments and mega-corporations whose only purpose was to ensure their own growth.

For a government or mega-corporation, it meant survival -- to an individual human being seeking peace of mind, it was madness.

When I returned home from Wal-Mart, a dragonfly was perched on my mailbox, reminding me to always be aware of the world around me.

For example, a woman who wears a tattoo is a woman who wants to be noticed. And a woman who wants to be noticed is a woman who wants to be admired. But the moment you express a hint of admiration, the same woman will instinctively reject you. Men may rule the world but women rule the men.

A dragonfly tattoo is a subtle form of camouflage – you can admire it but must pretend you don’t notice it.

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Quote for the Day – "You think I am a fool, but you are a greater fool." Sitting Bull

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Bret Burquest is the author of 12 books. He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a few dogs and an imaginary girlfriend named Tequila Mockingbird.

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The Path of Life

Life is a journey without a map. You come to a fork in the road of life and choose a direction.

When things that once shocked you begin to amuse you, you've crossed the first barrier of true wisdom. Every time I reach a new age in life, I spend a long day dwelling on my painful past, blessing the present and ignoring the future. Then I wake up the next day and start all over again.

While everyone follows a different Path in Life, there seems to be a general pattern.

Age 1-3 – You are a mass of human jelly trying to walk across the room without falling on your face.

Age 4-5 – You’re a helpless squirt being cared for by flawless parents who love and protect you.

Age 6-12 – You struggle through grade school, making friends and dodging bullies. Somewhere along the line you discover your parents aren’t exactly perfect and embarrass you with their mere existence

Age 13-17 – As a teen-ager, you stumble into your niche as one of the in-crowd or a jock or a nerd or a greaser or a nobody. No matter which category you fall into you’re an outcast but you don’t actually realize it unless you’re a nobody. You become rebellious of authority and change your hairstyle accordingly.

Age 18-20 – If you’re lucky, you go on to college and party for four years. If not, you marry your high school sweetheart and begin a life of quiet desperation involving employment, raising a family and maintaining a lawn.

Age 21 – You are now of legal age to consume alcohol, so you discard your fake ID’s.

Age 22-29 – You get a job that’s much less exciting than expected and try real hard not to go insane spending five days a week working for some lame idiot. You don’t think much about the future, except to fantasize about winning the lottery or writing a novel or sailing around the world or becoming a movie star.

Age 30 – Your first real zero year. You sense you’re in a rut and consider doing something drastic, like switch jobs or switch spouses or join the Merchant Marines. Instead, you change your hairstyle.

Age 31-39 – You coast along, fairly optimistic about the future. You’ve acquired a bit of money by now and perhaps have the house and automobile you’ve always wanted.

Age 40 – A bad zero year. You ponder deep thoughts about the meaning of life. Material things seem less important and you wonder what went wrong so you change your hairstyle reflecting your contemplative mood.

Age 41-49 – You switch from a fancy car to a practical car. If you have kids, they are going off on their own to screw up their own lives. You begin to read self-help books, buy a treadmill and eat more yogurt.

Age 50-59 – You put on a few pounds that are now harder to take off than when you were younger. You stop eating yogurt and start eating whatever pleases you the most. The treadmill collects dust in the garage.

Age 60 – Another bad zero year. You have now slipped across the line to become an old codger. You begin to worry about your health and change your hairstyle from stylish to whatever is the most comfortable.

Age 61-79 – You have lots of conversations about medical procedures and read the obituaries daily. Your back goes out more than you do and you change your hairstyle one last time, just for something exciting to do.

Age 80-99 – You smile more often but don’t know why and call everyone “Bub” because it’s easy to pronounce. Your favorite exercise is sitting and you now have more hair growing out your ears than on your head.

Age 100+ -- You now live in a strange world of young whippersnappers who seem to be from a different planet. You spend much of your time trying to remember things, like your own name and where you put your teeth.

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Quote for the Day – "True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country." Kurt Vonnegut

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Bret Burquest is the author of 12 books. He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a few dogs and where life is something you do when you can't sleep.

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Mysterious Cycle in Human Events

Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the previous one and wiser than the next one. They revolt against the status quo and seek new solutions to age-old conundrums.

Every generation needs a new revolution.

William Strauss and Neil Howe, in their 1997 book titled THE FOURTH TURNING, theorize that society has a collective personality that changes on a regular cyclical basis.

This cycle repeats itself every four generations (every 80 to 100 years), with each generation having a distinct persona. When the collective persona changes, every 20 years or so, it’s called a turning. The four turnings comprise a repeatable cycle of social human growth.

The first turning is a high -- an optimistic period of idealism with social order and weak individualism. People born in this time frame are classified as Prophets. They challenge the moral failure of previous generations.

The second turning is an awakening -- a passionate era where social order comes under attack. Those born in this generation are Nomads. They defend society and attempt to slow social change.

The third turning is an unraveling -- a down period of strong individualism and weakening social order. This generation is called Heroes. They tend toward pessimism, fueling a society-wide crisis.

The fourth turning is a crisis -- a tumultuous period where the old social order is replaced by a new one. Those born in this generation are Artists. They believe in cooperation and become sensitive helpmates.

The repeatable cycles of social change always start out on an optimistic high, followed by an awakening, leading to an unraveling, culminating in a crisis. History is replete with this four-generation cycle.

• The American Revolution – (1701-1791). It started as an optimistic age of enlightenment and culminated with the American Revolutionary War.

• The Civil War – (1791-1866). The newly created nation was in an optimistic period full of promise. The cycle climaxed with the bloody Civil War.

• The Great Power – (1866-1946). The era started with reconstruction after the Civil War with a positive outlook toward the future and ended with World War II.

·         The Present Cycle began in 1946, just after the end of the last world war.

In the first turning of the Present Cycle, society entered a period of building and fortification. There was great optimism when soldiers returned home after World War II to start a fresh life and the economy began to boom.

The second turning is an awakening. According to Strauss and Howe, an awakening is when a society takes a sudden turn in a new direction. In the mid-1960s, about 20 years after the start of the Present Cycle, our social fabric was torn apart by our involvement in Vietnam. The Prophets born in the first turning became teenagers and young adults in this time frame, rebelling against the established civil structure and ideals.

The third turning in the Present Cycle took place in the mid-1980s, a period of unraveling when social anxiety caused the old order to decay and new values to emerge. This was an era of self-interest replacing societal interests. After decades of liberal rule by Democrats, with their big government social programs, the more conservative ideals of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, Sr., became the social order of the day. Individuals began to become more materialistic and less caring about others. It was dubbed the “Me Generation.”

The fourth turning is a period of crisis. It often starts with an event that triggers an upheaval in public life. We are now in the final stages of the fourth turning of this cycle. It probably started on September 11, 2001. From there, it evolved into a time of focus in a struggle for survival, a reaction to the rise of radical Islam (Al Qaeda, ISIS, etc.) on a march to force their narrow Islamic vision onto the rest of the world. If the theory of cyclical social events is correct, it may last until the early or mid 2020s. Then we will start all over with a new high, a rebirth of optimism and idealism.

As a society, we appear to be trapped in an endless cycle of inevitable highs and lows. Apparently, history repeats itself in some sort of bizarre 80-year mood swing, pitting each generation against one another. As individuals, all we can do is treat others the way we want to be treated and go along for the ride.

Like it or not, we’re all in this together.

These cycles of generational "personality" are probably not an accident. Many studies have shown that souls tend to incarnate in groups. Time after time, we reincarnate with the same group of individuals, dealing with unfinished business, repeating past conflicts, resolving unresolved issues.

For better or worse, family and friends and enemies rotate through numerous birth-death-rebirth cycles together. When you have a strong intuitive "affirmation" of someone, for no logical reason other than a deep feeling of familiarity, it is likely a connection to past lives. Proceed with patience, forgiveness and love -- you cannot get ahead by getting even.

As you sow, so shall you reap.

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Quote for the Day – "There is a mysterious cycle in human events." Franklin D. Roosevelt

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Bret Burquest is the author of 12 books. He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a few dogs and where the troubles of this crazy world seem far away.

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