The sunlight sprinkles through the leaves onto the wetland floor one breezy Fall afternoon, beneath your feet an Arrowhead plant leaf shoots out of the ground, bearing its little white flower to the sky, a hummingbird flits past, stopping to feed on the sweet nectar of the bright orange Common Jewelweed, a few Red Maple leaves fall to the ground as the wind swirls around you, but you’re only focused on one thing. Catching dragonflies. After what feels like hours of tromping perimeter to perimeter of the wetland’s marshy floor, you finally spot the one you’ve been looking for. The bright green eyes of a Clamp-tipped Emerald flash past you in the sunlight, you’ve been trying to catch this species of dragonfly for two weeks now but haven’t been successful yet. Their flight season is ending soon and this could be the last one you see all year. Anticipation builds and you feel it in your gut that this will finally be your chance. With your aerial net draped over your shoulder and your waders up to your hips, you ready yourself to swing. It flies back and forth overhead, seemingly taunting you as it moves. You follow its big rounded eyes and intricately formed markings, almost iridescent as it dips and dives, hunting in the sunlight. Each species is distinctive and has its own unique tendencies and preferences. Dragonflies are keen and attentive hunters, with their sharp instincts, angular flight patterns, and up to 35 mph speeds, they don’t exactly make themselves an easy target. After a few bold swoops overhead, it finally comes back, shifting side to side as you try to keep a close watch. It lowers itself down ahead of you and you prepare to swing your net in three… two… one… Swoosh! Gone. Seemingly disappearing entirely, your airborne target has fled the scene again, and all you can think about is how you can hunt it down. Spotting it again in a gleam of sunlight, you ready yourself to practically chase it down, adrenaline rushing over you. Sure it has wings and is twice your speed, but maybe just this once you’ll be able to outrun it. It lowers itself again, only five feet ahead of you, and fed up with waiting for it to come nearer, you lunge after it, frustratedly swinging your net forward while taking a step ahead— Squoosh! You’ve sunk. The dragonfly you’ve been chasing shoots away, the ground you stepped down on turned out to be three feet of saturated wetland mud, and your right hip wader is slowly filling to the brim with water. You’re stuck. Left with only the option to put down your net and wiggle your way out so that you can find solid ground, and hopefully a few more dragonflies before the day ends. As you squeeze your way out of the muck and back to the surface you can’t help but think that none of that would have happened if you had just been a little more still and a little more patient.
It seems however, that we as humans tend to have a bad tendency for being a little less than patient when it comes to moving forward in accomplishing our goals. When we see what we want in front of us we convince ourselves that the only way to get to it is to keep chasing it down, to keep rushing towards the things ahead of us without even making time to enjoy the scenery around us. We can be so caught up in where we’re going, that we forget to find rest and presence in the places we are right now. We end up stuck, caught in the metaphorical mud, our methaphorical hip waders filling to the brim with metaphorical swamp water.
This semester, I have had the amazing opportunity to study dragonfly and damselfly presence in wetlands through the IE program at Highlands Biological Station, documenting live adults in wetland sites to assess water quality and wetland health. This project and this program have taught me more than I could have ever anticipated. A new love of scientific research, hands-on field experience, writing and communication skills, and topics in Appalachain ecology and history, this program has truly been a gift in the expansion of my knowledge, skillsets, and confidence in a research setting. But more than that, this program and this project have taught me countless lessons on the virtues of peace, presence, and stillness in a working environment. For me, and many of my classmates, this semester has been a huge change of pace from our typical lives and courses at UNC Chapel Hill. For many of us, this semester has felt like a breath of fresh air, a new start, and an opportunity to learn about the topics we love in a place that offers new hands-on learning experiences each and every day. Highlands has been a place of rest and tight knit community, a change of pace from the bustling chaos of life that comes with being a typical college student. It seems like the average student has a million things on their plate. Between balancing classes, jobs, internships, clubs, and social lives, it can start to feel like you’re being pulled in every possible direction, all for the sake of chasing down eventual success. Finding presence in a busy schedule and stacked up deadlines can feel nearly impossible, and taking time for rest and stillness feels more like a distant concept than a necessary reality.
Many students here have shared in the fact that we have historically failed to take time to realize and appreciate where we are in college. Facing the pressures of being decisive, being successful, and trying to “have it all figured out”, with packed schedules and endless obligations, it becomes easier than ever to rush our way through life, lunging so hard towards what we’re after that we forget to look at what is right ahead of us. This semester has taught me countless lessons about taking in my surroundings, finding rest and stillness, and thinking a little less about where I'm going by being content right where I am. Whether these lessons have come through mornings spent watching the sun rise over the mountains, clear nights spent staring up at the countless stars, simple trips to the grocery store turned to four hour group excursions, or dinner conversations with 15 strangers turned 15 closest friends, each of them has been unforgettable.
Looking back over all the weeks spent here at the station, what may have taught me the most is the serenity of walking through an empty wetland, searching for dragonflies, looking and listening to all there is around me, and learning that what it really takes to hunt down these high speed insects is a little less chasing and a little more patience. (I never would’ve thought I could learn so much while standing in three feet of muck). It can be easy to load up our plates, load up our agendas, and push forward, running towards what we want and not taking any time to rest or be still until we get there. But, I’ve come to learn that just like my many futile attempts at chasing down dragonflies that are far ahead of me, sometimes running gets us nowhere but stuck. Sunk up to our hips in something we can't get out of and ignoring the beautiful world around us, further and further from what it is we want.
This semester, I have been lucky to learn that in dragonfly hunting, and in life, sometimes all it takes to get what you’re looking for is a little bit of patience, a little bit of presence, and a lucky swing.
- Reagan Jarrett