The Dragonfly as Creative Inspiration

Transformation, Healing & Finding the Courage to Continue

Throughout this journey, we have explored the dragonfly through nature, history, folklore, mythology, and symbolism. We have traveled from the waterways of Native North America to the Celtic landscapes of Ireland and Scotland, through Scandinavia, and finally to Japan and other parts of East Asia.

But there is another dragonfly story I want to share.

My own.

My connection with the dragonfly did not begin with folklore or mythology. It began during one of the most difficult periods of my life.

Original Fae Bella Art

When Everything Changed

I experienced a major health scare that nearly took my life.

I made it through the ordeal, but surviving something frightening does not necessarily mean that everything immediately returns to normal. There is the physical experience, but there is also everything that comes afterward—the realization of how quickly life can change and the process of discovering how to move forward again.

And then something curious began happening.

I kept seeing dragonflies.

I noticed them outside.

I encountered them unexpectedly online.

Again and again, the dragonfly seemed to find its way into my awareness.

Perhaps they had always been there and I was simply noticing them differently. Perhaps, after everything I had experienced, I had become more receptive to them.

Or perhaps there was something more.

I began researching the spiritual symbolism of the dragonfly and discovered its modern associations with transformation, resilience, adaptability, courage, and renewal.

Those meanings struck me deeply.

I began to feel that perhaps the spirit world was trying to tell me something.

The message I heard was simple:

Do not give up.

A Symbol of Transformation

The more I learned about dragonflies, the more meaningful they became to me.

A dragonfly begins its life beneath the water. For months or even years, it exists in an entirely different form, living below the surface.

Then the moment comes when it must leave that world behind.

It climbs from the water.

Its old form opens.

And slowly, something completely different emerges.

Wings unfold.

A creature that had known only the underwater world suddenly belongs to the sky.

After what I had experienced, I understood that transformation in a very personal way.

I had survived.

But survival was only the beginning.

I needed to discover how I wanted to live.

The dragonfly became a symbol of that possibility.

I could not return to exactly who I had been before. Experiences change us. But change did not have to mean that something had been taken away from me.

It could also mean that something new was waiting to emerge.

Do Not Give Up

Whether the dragonflies I kept encountering were spiritual messages, meaningful coincidences, or simply something I had become more aware of, I cannot prove.

And I don't need to.

What mattered was what they awakened within me.

Every time another dragonfly appeared, I was reminded:

Keep going.

There is still beauty ahead.

You are still becoming.

That message gave me courage when I needed it.

The dragonfly did not promise that everything would suddenly become easy. Transformation rarely works that way.

Instead, it reminded me that moving forward was possible.

Sometimes that is enough.

Art Became Part of the Journey

As I moved forward, art and crafting became an important part of my healing journey.

Creating gave me somewhere to place my energy.

Paint, pencils, paper, beads, fibers, found objects, and beautiful little things became more than materials. They offered opportunities to experiment, imagine, and make something that had not existed before.

There is something wonderfully restorative about creating with your hands.

You begin with an empty surface or a collection of unrelated materials.

Slowly, you make choices.

A color goes here.

A line changes there.

Something doesn't work, so you alter it.

An unexpected accident becomes part of the design.

Eventually, something begins to emerge.

In its own quiet way, the creative process began to resemble the lesson I had found in the dragonfly.

Transformation.

Something becomes something else.

And so was I.

Creating Without Perfection

Art also taught me something I desperately needed to remember:

Not everything has to be perfect to have value.

A handmade object carries evidence of the person who created it. There are decisions, changes, textures, marks, and sometimes imperfections.

That is part of its story.

Healing can be much the same.

We may imagine that healing means returning to exactly who we were before something happened.

My experience has taught me otherwise.

Sometimes healing means becoming comfortable with the person who emerges afterward.

Different perhaps.

Changed certainly.

But still capable of beauty, curiosity, creativity, and joy.

Why Dragonflies Appear in My Art

This is why dragonflies continue to find their way into my artwork.

When I create a dragonfly, I am not simply choosing a beautiful insect.

I am creating something connected to a chapter of my own life.

The shimmering wings remind me of transformation.

Their incredible flight reminds me of adaptability.

Their ancient history reminds me that life has survived extraordinary changes.

And their emergence from water into air reminds me that sometimes we must leave behind a familiar version of ourselves before discovering what comes next.

Dragonflies now appear throughout my creative world—in artwork, mixed-media pieces, journals, jewelry, and designs.

Each one carries a little piece of that story.

Creativity as Healing

I don't believe creativity belongs only to people who call themselves artists.

Creating can be painting.

It can be drawing.

It can be making jewelry, arranging flowers, sewing, gardening, decorating a journal, taking photographs, writing a story, or assembling scraps of paper into a collage simply because the colors make you happy.

The finished object does not always have to be the most important part.

Sometimes the value is found in the act of making it.

Creating asks us to be present.

For a little while, our attention moves away from everything we cannot control and toward something directly in front of us.

A brushstroke.

A bead.

A piece of paper.

A line.

A color.

One small decision followed by another.

And eventually we look down and realize:

We made something.

There is hope in that.

Finding Your Own Symbol

My symbol became the dragonfly.

Yours may be something entirely different.

Perhaps you continually notice cardinals, ravens, butterflies, deer, foxes, bears, owls, moths, or another creature.

You do not need someone else to tell you exactly what that animal means.

Learn about it.

Discover its real biology.

Explore the folklore surrounding it.

Observe how different cultures understood it.

And then ask yourself what you feel when you encounter it.

What memories does it awaken?

What qualities do you admire in it?

What does it make you want to create?

A personal symbol becomes powerful because of the meaning we develop through our own experiences.

The Dragonfly That Stayed

I will probably never know why dragonflies seemed to appear so frequently after that frightening period of my life.

Maybe I simply started noticing them.

Maybe coincidence played a part.

And perhaps there are mysteries in this world that we do not completely understand.

I am comfortable leaving room for that possibility.

What I do know is that the dragonfly appeared when I needed a symbol of hope.

I chose to listen to the message I felt within it:

Do not give up.

Keep creating.

Keep changing.

Keep discovering.

Keep moving forward.

The dragonfly became part of my healing journey, and eventually it became part of my art.

Perhaps that is one of the most beautiful things about creativity.

We take the experiences that have changed us—the beautiful ones and the difficult ones—and transform them into something new.

A painting.

A journal.

A piece of jewelry.

A story.

A dragonfly with shimmering wings.

And sometimes, in creating something beautiful from what we have lived through, we discover that we have been transforming too.

A Little Creative Invitation

The next time you encounter an animal that captures your attention, spend a few moments with it.

Observe it.

Learn about it.

Sketch it.

Photograph it.

Write about it.

Create something inspired by its colors or movement.

You don't have to decide whether the encounter was coincidence, symbolism, spirituality, or simply a beautiful moment in nature.

Sometimes the most important question isn't why it appeared.

It is:

What did it inspire within you?

For me, the answer was the dragonfly.

It reminded me not to give up.

And then it helped me find my wings.