RELEARNING HOW TO FLY

I had an encounter with a dragon fly the other day. He had flown too close to our pool and had inadvertently “splashed”. There I found him upside down and motionless on the pool surface. He was a big guy with a five inch wing span, colorful and with very peculiar markings. I found out later that he was a “Black Saddlebagged” Dragon Fly.

I thought he was dead and proceeded to scoop him out with my leaf net. But as soon as my net touched him he clawed at it and scrambled onboard like a ditched pilot to a rescue raft. I paused at the spectacle and the size of the beast as he gathered his bearings, tested his wings, took off and cart-wheeled back into the pool like a helicopter with a tail rotor malfunction. He lay there motionless again. I scooped him up again. He re-tested his wings but didn’t attempt a take-off this time. The markings on his beating wings created the illusion of three dimensional “bags” saddling his body. I rested the net on the edge of the pool and looked for a stick which I used to transfer him to an Iris shoot in my garden. He seemed to like that.

For about three hours he stayed there perched on the Iris shoot, motionless. He would not fly off. I figured he was recovering, drying-out. I checked on him once in awhile and he even let me pet him - but he stayed glued to that Iris shoot. I thought maybe he was too far gone to fly and was slowly dying.

The sun was setting and I was beginning to get concerned that he might become food for some nocturnal hunter – we have bats. I started to nudge him to fly off and return to whatever safe haven dragon flies go to at night. He wouldn’t even beat his wings. Then it occurred to me – maybe he had just given up the idea of flying and was “playing it safe”. But he was created to fly and he needed to fly. So I had an idea.

I offered him another stick and gently urged him onto it. Waving the stick slowly, I began to walk him around my yard like a child might with a toy glider, letting the air flow across his wings. Then in one smooth arcing motion I swung the stick up and flicked him off into the air. He catapulted upward, began to fall and then, as though snapping out of a daze, his wings sputtered to life - he hovered for a just a moment as if doing a “systems check”, did a little circle and took off in a straight line – a “bee line” – a determined line – into the dusk.

He was himself again. And NO, a bat didn’t swoop down and eat him!

“Saddlebags”

"If black boxes survive air crashes, why don't they make the whole plane out of that stuff?" ~George Carlin~

I help business and organization leaders define and achieve their ambitions by helping them address the issues problems and opportunities - not acted upon – that dominate their thoughts.
For most of us it’s been a tough go. Maybe you haven’t “flown” for a while. It’s time fly.

All the Best!
Bill