Big gratitude to Lake, and Dragonfly Nymph, for their teachings.

Yesterday, I ruptured. Broken open by a poet, and something that had been hatching. Things were different again. 

Yesterday, I thought to myself: a few months ago I was caterpillar soup. Today, I am a butterfly who cannot escape their cocoon. How did my mode of transformation become my prison? 

Yesterday, I told a friend: I want to hack my physical body into pieces and release this burgeoning passionate being that feels so confined and belittled by my skin. No outer limits! No definitions to my being!

Yesterday I thought small things, like:

I am not getting what I need from my community.

It is time to leave.

I am alone.

Yesterday I also thought some thoughts more whole:

I want to write poetry like he writes poetry, writing by sound, not sense. Writing until I am spent and then –

Assess a mess of words and ask it questions. Interrogating my self and the beyond self.

What have I asked for from my community? What have I offered?

I am not alone.

Today things were different. Today things could not go according to plan. Today I followed the call of the water. I swam. I suspended. I stewed. I wondered. I listened.

Then She, the water, pushed me out and I felt sorry for myself: I am unwelcome and alone everywhere I go, I thought. 

Then, I saw ki, quivering on the shoreline – like a leaf, but not-a-leaf. A nymph:

I sat by their side. I worried and marveled and worried more. My presence could shelter them from birds, but what about the windswept waters? I asked, Mother – may I intervene?

Patience. 

Body emerged, wings unfurled, slowly.

The water crept closer. Mother, please – may I intervene? 

Patience.

She says –

there are many ways to transform and become and inhabit and break through.

I fret – but Mother: will I be swept away by the waters, first? Before my wings can fly? What if I am? Am I strong enough, buoyant enough to survive your pull? To move with the flow? Are you trying to push me farther ashore or sweep me away?

She pulled at their feet on the stone. Mother, please?

Patience. Yield.

Again a wave swept upon the dragonfly and this time, to steady themselves and keep their footing they had to unfurl their wings – the first unfurling.

I watched in awe as the dragonfly withstood Her lapping. Patient, yielding.

The next pull of the waves sent them into their first flight.

Today, She taught me. She said,

there are many ways to transform and become and the role of the waters are not what you thought.

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