Photography – Julie Armstrong instagram.com/juliearmstrongstudio369/
juliearmstrongstudio369.com.au
Dragonflies – guardians of wetlands, metaphors for regeneration and the exquisite beauty and transience of life. Harbingers of the seasons in Japan and beyond…
What might dragon flies tell us in this time of climate change?
One day when Bashó and one of his 10 disciples, Kikaku, were going through a rice field, Kikaku composed a haiku on a red dragonfly that caught his fancy. He showed it to Basho
Take a pair of wings
From a dragonfly, you would
Make a pepper pod.
No, said Bashó. “that is not a haiku. You kill the dragonfly. If you want to compose a haiku and give life to it, you must say:
Add a pair of wings
To a pepper pod, you would
Make a dragonfly.
Kenneth Yasuda, The Japanese Haiku
” Adding wings…giving life…A subtle shift changes the whole picture. What does it take in our thinking? In our world today?”
quote from With Eyes of Heart.com
Today I saw the dragon-fly
Come from the wells where he did lie.
An inner impulse rent the veil
Of his old husk: from head to tail
Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.
He dried his wings: like gauze they grew;
Thro’ crofts and pastures wet with dew
A living flash of light he flew.
The Dragon-fly
Alfred Lord Tennyson