Friday evening, as we most often do, John and I gathered around our chimenia to relax. It’s one of our favorite things to do.

This particular night we ate pizza outside and then decided to make some s’mores. We rarely have this treat, but we had been gifted a kit that some genius came up. It comes in a tube with four roasting sticks, a small bag of marshmallows, chocolate pieces, and graham crackers. All you need to add is a fire for roasting.

We did just that and enjoyed this special treat. After we were done, we laid the sticks, with a bit of marshmallow reside on a chair nearby.

The next day, about mid-morning, I noticed a dragonfly on the end of the stick. I smiled and thought, “Oh, he must be enjoying the leftover marshmallow.” I didn’t think anymore of it.

Later Saturday afternoon as I made my way out to our deck again to get things ready for another night of relaxing, I noticed the dragonfly was still on the stick.

It suddenly occurred to me that he must be stuck! I felt awful. I yelled to John who was in the kitchen, “Oh no! The poor dragonfly is stuck!”

I was able to very carefully free his two wings that were sticking to the marshmallow residue just as John came outside. But his intricate, tiny, thin legs were another story.

Turning to John I said, “What are we going to do? I feel terrible.”

At first he said, “Get a knife. Maybe we can gently lift his legs off.”

As I scampered into the house John yelled, “Actually, get a warm bowl of water.”

I brought out the bowl of water, but the concerned look on my face had John guessing my worry, “Don’t worry, we won’t drown him.”

He gently placed the end of the stick into the bowl, just enough to immerse the dragonfly’s three sticky legs.

We watched in total amazement as he first lifted one leg, then two, then three, and off he flew over the top of the house!

I jumped up and down and hugged John. I was so happy that the dragonfly was free.

Last night we sat out on our deck again. As we were enjoying the fire, sitting in silence, we saw a dragonfly land on almost the exact spot, on the deck railing, where we had freed the dragonfly Saturday night.

We turned to each other. Could it be the same dragonfly, we both wondered?

I said, “Maybe he has come back to thank us!”

For the next several minutes we sat and watched as the dragonfly caught bugs as his dinner. We were mesmerized, as well as, wondering why we’d never observed this before.

I said, “Of all the many times we have sat on this deck, how come we never saw a dragonfly do this?”

All I could think is that when you are open to what is around you, you get to be a part of things you’ve never seen before. Such a simple thing brought both John and I so much joy.

It felt like double happiness for me though as I enjoyed John being open to what it was that perhaps the dragonfly was trying to share with us.

I decided to look up dragonfly’s message in the book, Animal Spirit Guides by Steven Farmer. Two messages from dragonfly that stood out for me were:

“This is a time when the magic and mystery of life is reawakening for you.”

“You’re feeling drawn to study any mystical arts or ancient mystery schools.”

As I thought about writing this post today, I smiled because once again, the name of my blog is Joyful Paws. But just like the snail I encountered a few weeks ago and now the dragonfly, I have to wonder if perhaps I need to change Joyful Paws, to Joyful Creatures!

But alas, it is the play on paws that originally comes from “pause” of which my dogs began the teachings of learning to pause and find joy around me. And now perhaps it is all the other creatures that are making their way to me with many more messages that I am now ready to hear. I’m game.