Dragonfly’s Paradox of an Authentic Self

“Just be yourself,” people tell us when they think we’re trying to be something we’re not. But I wonder what this really means—to be yourself. How do we distinguish between an authentic self and an inauthentic one? Does our concept of self—who we are—imply that we are static entities? All we have to do is find our true self, and we’ll become whole and complete? Or are we already whole and complete … all we have to do is cast off what doesn’t belong? These questions arose in the context of thinking about Martin Gardner’s essay “Did Adam and Eve Have Navels?” collected in a work with the same title (Did Adam and Eve Have Navels? Debunking Pseudoscience). Some creationists, he writes, argue that God brought forth mature trees where none before existed, complete with annual growth rings. Are we like these trees, in which growth is implied but of inexplicable origin or inconsequential value? Do we define an authentic self only at the point of our creation, or only at the point of our current state of existence? My own belief is that I am a work in progress, that my concept of self undergoes continual transformation.

 

The concept of transformation implies several additional ideas worth reflecting on … origins and end points, for example, and current states of being. Origins imply the idea of being first in some respect, but even this simple statement requires clarification. There are first flutes, as discovered by archaeologists; and there are stories about first flutes, as discovered in the written literature. But also there are almost certainly yet undiscovered flutes predating recent finds in southern Germany—bone and ivory flutes dating to the Paleolithic period 40,000 years ago—and there were many stories about flutes circulating in oral cultures long before the invention of writing. We might even refer to the first idea of a flute in the mind of paleolithic or neanderthal man before he ever thought to fashion one for himself. And let’s not forget my first flute, or even my first F# or my first from a particular maker. It’s said that you never forget your first—but there may be lots of other firsts in competition. These, though, will suffice to make my point.

 

My point is this: While it’s true that I haven’t forgotten my first flute, or my first serious experience of hearing one played, I also haven’t forgotten the one I’m playing right now—or the ones I will play tomorrow … or the ones on order that I have yet to see or play … or the ones I plan to order some day … or the ones I don’t yet even know about. Each flute has its own song. Each inspires me in a different way. Each participates in my continual transformation of self. More importantly, each flute challenges me to transcend my concept of self and partake in a higher order of being—for me, this means a higher order of humanity. Mythology inhabits the murky realm between gods and man, or between man and beasts. It’s where our awareness of the “first tree” or the “first flute” confronts the dreamy, silent past or the dreamy, silent future. To “just be yourself,” I think, means to set aside these impractical dreams which make transformation possible. Mythology both obscures and reveals to us who and what we are, hence the paradox.

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Devil in Disguise?

Many superstitions surround the dragonfly. Some of them are reported in a brilliantly illustrated book by entomologists Forrest L. Mitchell and James L. Lasswell entitled A Dazzle of Dragonflies. One such belief is that dragonflies are poisonous and that their sting is fatal. They are said to be servants to snakes and the devil. Still today, one common name for the dragonfly in the U.S. is “devil’s darning needle.” They are to be avoided at all costs. The book’s authors assure us that these beliefs aren’t true, but they also admit that dragonfly lore is beyond their expertise. Truth can be powerful medicine, although many people resist it. But stories can be powerful medicine, too–or powerful poison.

 

Native American writer Thomas King (The Truth about Stories) tells us that we are our stories. We have to be careful with them because, as he says, they contain “relationships that help to define the nature of the universe and how cultures understand the world in which they exist.” Truth would seem to eliminate the need for stories, reducing existence to little more than biological and physical facts, which is fine if you’re a rock, an ocean wave or a fruit fly. But since we’re self-aware, self-conscious humans we need stories to define who we are. We might say that fiction is our truth–that it provides meaning, purpose, direction to our lives.

 

Truth is, Dragonfly might be poisonous after all. He can make people fearful and angry. He can fill them with shame. He can, it is said, sew up the fingers and mouths of nagging women, mouthy children and men who cuss up a blue storm. One story says he can fly right into your ear and penetrate your brain. It’s true … I swear! He really can! In fact, he has just penetrated your brain and is waiting there now for your response. The dragonfly is a trickster, though. A.R. Campbell (Bats, Mosquitoes, and Dollars) referred to the dragonfly in 1925 as “man’s best friend in the insect world” (qtd. in Mitchell, Lasswell). He can cure malaria by eating mosquitoes. I swear … this, too, is true.

 

The devil may be in your own mind, and so may the healer … the good and bad together, says a Lakota man I know about. A constant refrain in King’s book, referred to above, is that (in my partly paraphrased, partly quoted version) you may do whatever you want with the story–scoff at it, dismiss it, forget about it. Just don’t say that if you had heard it earlier you would have lived your life differently. “You’ve heard it now.”

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Dragonfly Awakes …

How does a trained skeptic write about a “mythology” he doesn’t quite believe in or comprehend because he stands outside of the culture that produced it? I’m not just talking about Native American stories, either. In school, we often study stories as if they were lifeless insects impaled through the heart by long, sharp needles affixing them to a bed of white cotton. It isn’t often possible to immerse ourselves in living oral traditions we aren’t part of, and even if we could we’d always be outsiders to some degree, ethnographers rather than full participants. Still, we might learn something by exploring the ironies, the distance between illusions and reality … we might even lessen the gap a little among skeptics and believers—assuming this is a worthy goal, and I believe it is.

 

With the best of intentions, a desire for truth and wisdom, is it still possible to be misled by the dragonfly guide–to steal or misappropriate stories that don’t really belong to us because they must be lived to be understood, not interpreted? Whose story is being told or retold? Whose purpose is being served? Whose well being? Recently, I was led to a book that should become essential reading before anyone embarks on this journey of the dragonfly.

 

A Broken Flute: The Native Experience in Books for Children is an encyclopedic collection of critical reviews of books written about Native Americans for children between the early 1900s and 2003, along with stories, essays and poems from its contributors. In an “Open Letter to a Non-Indian Teacher,” a mother asks “What values, class prejudices, and moral principles do you take for granted as universal? [….] Can you help [my child] acquire the intellectual skills he needs without at the same time imposing your values on top of those he already has?” That’s a tall order, for sure, but one that can’t be ignored because lives and identities are at stake.

 

Three children’s books about Kokopelli are reviewed, all written since 2000 and “all written by cultural outsiders,” the reviewer informs us. She goes on: “[They] will undoubtedly appeal to people who collect Kokopelli lamps, Kokopelli coasters, Kokopelli napkin rings, Kokopelli-printed toilet paper, and the like.” She cites an unnamed but well-known Hopi storyteller who says “In our traditional beliefs, Kokopelli is a Katsina of fertility, he is a deity. He does not go around playing a flute; he’s carrying a cane or rod. And he’s not a ‘humpback,’ he’s carrying a burden. Whenever he appears in our rituals, he is copulating. When the Katsinam come out, he goes around trying to hump people. Grown men run from him! It would be more appropriate to put his image on a bottle of Viagra or on a condom vending machine than in a children’s book.” The storyteller remains anonymous not from a desire to hide but because it is considered impolite to make others appear foolish or stupid.

 

And so … at the risk of making myself appear foolish or stupid without help from anyone, my journey with dragonfly continues. I invite your comments.

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