The Merits of Going Through Life, Thinking You're a Firefly

I arrived in Carversville determined to write something simple this week … perhaps the virtues of fireflies. These sexy little lightening bugs seemed a bit out of season, considering that they’re burrowed in the snow-covered hills outside my windows.

Tonight we have fireflies for real, the Columbus, Ohio Franklin Park Conservatory, my dream of defying gravity in the conservatory, and Dale Chihuly’s glass art installation at Franklin Park, Gato Barbieri and ‘Fireflies’ the TV show.

(Update: July 4, 2009. Please note just how sexy fireflies are, from a scientific standpoint. This NYTimes article explains the science of firefly seduction: Seduction and Deceit in a Firefly’s Flashes.)

You could say that I’m obsessed with fireflies. Gato Barbieri’s “Fireflies” is one of my favorite tunes, and ‘fireflies’ come and go my private email box.

Fireflies have an erotic presence far more explosive than their dancing, prancing presence. A man I dated years back explained the NYTimes firefly science that I just now added for you, in my update of this essay.

I never considered my firefly status as one of self-actualized woman power, but it is, now that I’ve collided with a 19-year-old, YouTube woman’s vision of Firefly, the American sci fi TV series, with music and lyrics from the Broadway musical Wicked?

Firefly and Serenity: Defying Gravity

Night Flights

Conservatories are among my favorite places, especially in winter. In an instant, I can feel the caress of an imagined Caribbean breeze or the grandeur of a Santa Fe desert. In all honesty, I start to feel my inner-firefly, whenever I’m near a botanical conservatory.

Watching ‘Firefly and Serenity’, I remember a dream from 2000, experienced in the Columbus, Ohio Franklin Park Conservatory.

Columbus’s Franklin Park Conservatory via Flickr’s London_Tom

My dreamscape was hot and arid. Wandering among the succulent plants of the Columbus, Ohio Franklin Park Conservatory, I was drawn to a sparkling, glass staircase, soaring 50’ into the paned, greenhouse ceiling. I couldn’t resist the climb into such an intriguing and magical destination.

Mounting the shallow, glass stairs I enjoyed an entirely different perspective on the lushly inspiring landscape below. Brilliant sunshine, refracted through the clear panes of glass, drew me gradually higher, into the exquisite summit.

Previously, I was afraid of heights, but now my curiosity pulled me forward into this celestial vision of unrealized and uneperienced personal power.

via Flickr’s Maia_CNear Nightmare

As is always the case when we reach for the stars, reality intervenes. The scene in my magnificently beautiful dream changed in an instant. A electrical surge paralyzed me, jolting my hallucinating body into near rigor mortis.

The gorgeous glass staircase dissolved, leaving me suspended, high above the conservatory floor.

Consumed with fear, the seconds became dreamland minutes, as I dangled in space, suspended in frozen disbelief, paralyzed in my fear of splashing into concrete. I would not fall into serene waters or a lush canopy of palm trees. Prickly cacti lay below, alive and ready to stab my body into permanent unconsciousness.

Still dreaming and not believing in the theory that my time is or isn’t up yet, based on the mood of the big guy upstairs, I prepared to face my death, unable to scream. Waiting … waiting … waiting, my cries for help were inaudible.

Defying Reality

Slowly, consciousness returned to my sleeping brain fuctions. “This is impossible,” I whispered in my dream, as I floated now in a state of total awe. “I’m defying the law of gravity. I should be dead, a crumpled, bloody mess of a corpse in the cactus garden.”

My shocked, dreamstate mind regained control. Awareness and a plan of action returned to my sleeping mind. I was still in charge on my skyward journey, if I faced my fears. Looking at myself from the corner of my dream, I saw tears streaming down my face.

“Look up, Anne,” a voice told me.

Inconceivable

I had never seen a more inspiring, exquisitely beautiful sight. The refracted colors burst into a spectacular, fanciful lightshow, warming my rigid, astounded body into released mobility.

Breathing deeply, I quieted my racing heart, steadied my resolve, refusing to look down into the succulent cactus pit. Instead, I fixed my eyes on the this dazzling, celestial art show, now a lighthouse beacon, guiding me into this awesome, splendiferous vision.

Like an angel, the firefly that I am flew higher into the brilliant cosmos that was the canopy of this botanical conservatory. When the light was so bright, that it penetrated my closed eyes, I woke up transformed by my dream experience.

via Chihuly.comWas I still a human woman? Did I really fly? Consciously, I knew that I had accomplished the impossible in my dream, defying the laws of gravity and Icarus both.

Flying in some way is a common theme in my ‘spectacular’ dreams, the ones that represent life growth. Yet, this dream was different, was I knew that I had experienced something divine, perhaps even the spiritual nature in myself.

Boundless Energy Against Self-Imposed Limits

Fueled by imagination, as much as rational thinking, my life has always been one of exploration and challenge … recognizing the rules, respecting them but also not being confined by them.

We associate rebellion with being young and rigidity with advancing age. For me, the rebellion will not end. Positive aging is about continued growth, challenge, achievement and reinvention. Self-realization is also about the refusal to give-in to mediocrity, to pursuing the very best in ourselves, regardless of our age.

Reflection Update: July 4, 2009

Reading again about my dream of flying high in the Columbus Conservatory like a sensual firefly; looking at the photos of the fanciful Chihuly glass sculptures at the Franklin Park Conservatory and at Chihuly.com, I’m more impacted by the place of art in our lives, especially art that ‘boggles the mind’, then when I first wrote this essay.

I was surprised to find the Flickr photo of an actual Franklin Park Conservatory glass stairglass, that I ascended in real life. Just seeing the Chihuly photos unlocks the impressions of that day all over again … all the sensations that went to work in my dreams, a few weeks later.

Global Goodbye

It’s time to leave you again, but I can’t go without sharing more Gato Barbieri and his hot, gorgeous, sensual celebration of global destinations that captures the magic carpet ride of my life. I hope it inspires you to take a trip yourself.

It’s never too late in life, to learn to fly like a sexy firefly. Who knows, perhaps we’ll meet in Shanghai or Dubai one day soon. I’m dying to go. How about you?

Love,
Anne