Special thanks to Ellie James for yet another great guest post on Just Us Girls. If you're unfamiliar with her, check out our interview with her back in May and our review on her book, Shattered Dreams.
It’s happened four times now. I’m at a book
signing and someone comes up to me, usually with a hesitant, slightly glassy
look in their eyes. Lowering their voice, they tell me they’ve always loved
dragonflies or that they have one that visits on special occasions, or maybe
they collect dragonfly art—or they’re wearing a dragonfly brooch. And they
always say, “you know why…don’t you?”
Or maybe it’s the reader who sends me a
note, directing me to their dragonfly-themed blog, or the interview questions,
all wanting to talk about the dragonflies….
But here’s the thing. I didn’t know. I
didn’t sit down to write a story with a heavy dragonfly-motif. I didn’t plan a
dragonfly theme. I didn’t even know that much about dragonflies, except that
they often darted and buzzed the pool in the evenings.
But then I’m writing Shattered Dreams and I
reach this key place in the story, this place where my main character, Trinity,
a sixteen-year-old orphaned psychic, is given a talisman that had once belonged
to her mother, and suddenly I’m describing a dragonfly.
No forethought. No pondering or
considering. No planning. The dragonfly appeared all by itself—and if there’s
one thing I’ve learned over my years writing, it’s that those unplanned things
in stories, those gifts, as I think of them, are always the most pure, organic
elements there are. They always occur when they’re supposed to occur, and they
change everything.
I’ve learned a lot since that dragonfly
first showed up in the story. I’ve spent hours researching and exploring
dragonflies. I’ve spent more hours watching the dragonflies play in the
twilight of my backyard. I’ve bought my own talisman and found myself doodling
dragonflies all over the place, including a foggy shower door. And now I know,
I know why the dragonfly appeared in my series about a teenage psychic, and I
know why the amulet passed down from mother to daughter could have been nothing
else.
Symbolism
Agile and graceful, poised and powerful,
beginning their lives in water and ending them in air, dragonflies symbolize
change and the recognition of the deeper meaning of life in almost every
culture, every civilization, in which they are found. They embody
transformation and renewal, illusion . Worldwide, dragonflies are recognized to
have a strong association with light. They both reflect and refract. They
change colors depending upon the angle of light or shadow, and in doing so they inspire us to explore this
power, that of light, to transform and usher in positive life changes. Additionally,
they are a creature of the water, like all creatures of the water symbolizing
the subconscious mind and deeper thoughts. They
bare strong associations with dreams and desire.
But let’s get back to the
transformation thing for a second. It’s not just transformations within life,
but from life. To many Native
American cultures (as well as many other around the world), dragonflies are the
souls of the departed, hovering close before moving on. The stories are
everywhere. All you have to do is go out to Google and look up “dragonflies and
death.” This is the main thing readers want to talk to me about. The stories
they want to share. Stories about the loss of a loved one and the sudden,
mysterious appearance of a dragonfly. A dragonfly where one has never been seen
before. A dragonfly where there shouldn’t be one. A dragonfly that appears at
just the right moment, and leaves only when a new strength, a new balance, has been
achieved.
It’s all pretty awesome.
Here’s a story I ran across over and
over:
In
the bottom of an old pond lived some grubs who could not understand why none of
their groups ever came back after crawling up the stems of the lilies to the
top of the water. They promised each other that the next one who was called to
make the upward climb would return and tell what happened to him. Soon one of
them felt an urgent impulse to seek the surface; he rested himself on the top
of a lily pad and went through a glorious transformation, which made him a
dragonfly with beautiful wings. In vain, he tried to keep his promise. Flying
back and forth over the pond, he peered down at his friends below. Then he
realized that even if they could see him they would not recognize such a
radiant creature as one of their number.
The
fact that we cannot see our friends or communicate with them after the
transformation, which we call death, is no proof that they cease to exist.
To many, dragonflies represent a reminder
that death is not an end, but rather, a change, part of a larger, more
intricate cycle, a transformation that requires a higher form of communication.
I worked as much of this as I could
into the Midnight Dragonfly books, in particular the third book, Fragile Darkness.
Here are two of my favorite passages:
“She always said they’re
the souls of those who have come before us,” he said, and then his hand was
there, slipping by mine to finger the greenish crystal in the center. “Darting
by to see that we are safe, and to remind us of what is to come.”
And…
“Like the dragonfly, you
are of two worlds, two realms, the here and the now, while still being
connected to the mysteries of the Universe. You are both light and the
reflection of light. You see beyond what your eyes show you.”
Look around you. The magic, the mysticism,
the transformation, is everywhere.
About Ellie James
Most people who know Ellie think she’s your nice,
average wife and mom of two little kids. They see someone who does all that
normal stuff, like grocery shopping, going to soccer games, and somehow always
forgetting to get the house cleaned and laundry done.
What they don't know is that more often than not,
this LSU J-School alum is somewhere far, far away, deeply embroiled in solving
a riddle or puzzle or crime, testing the limits of possibility, exploring the
unexplained, and holding her breath while two people fall in love.
Regardless of which world Ellie’s in, she loves
rain and wind and thunder and lightning; the first warm kiss of spring and the
first cool whisper of fall; family, friends, and animals; dreams and happy
endings; Lost and Fringe; Arcade Fire and Dave Matthews, and last but not
least…warm gooey chocolate chip cookies.
You
can follow Ellie on Facebook
Her next book, FRAGILE DARKNESS, is
available from Griffin Teen November 27, 2012.
About the Midnight Dragonfly Series
Glimpses. That’s all they are. Shadowy
premonitions flickering through sixteen year old psychic Trinity Monsour’s
dreams. Some terrify: a girl screaming, a knife lifting, a body in the grass.
But others--the dark, tortured eyes and the shattering kiss, the promise of
forever--whisper to her soul. They come without warning. They come without
detail.
But they always mean the same thing: The
clock is ticking, and only Trinity can stop it.
Find out how in Shattered Dreams, Broken
Illusions, and Fragile Darkness, available from Griffin Teen!
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